The saga of WordPress.org active install data continues as more details trickle out. At WP Tavern, Sarah Gooding reported on an appearance by WordPress contributor Samuel Otto Wood on the WPwatercooler podcast.

Wood says the decision to remove the data originated from a private Slack conversation amongst contributors that was started by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg back in May.

It has also been revealed that the removal was not due to security or privacy issues, as previously indicated. According to Wood, the data chart was removed because “by and large, nobody was using them”. 

Regardless of the reasoning behind the decision or worthiness of the data, no official outreach appears to have been made by project leadership to the developer community.

Meanwhile, WordPress community members continue to voice concerns via a Trac ticket started by RebelCode CEO Mark Zahra. The ticket was created on September 30 and has over 100 comments.

Links You Shouldn’t Miss

The first ever WordPress Documentation team Contributor Day took place on Tuesday, October 25. The virtual event was held to help team members catch up on tasks and onboard new contributors.

Development agency Human Made has published 1001 ways to implement Gutenberg blocks. The guide includes a handy flowchart for determining what blocks to use and when to use them.

The inaugural WPWealthBuilder Summit has put a call out for speakers and sponsors. The virtual event focuses on building personal wealth through WordPress and takes place on February 3, 2023.

Sarah Gooding of WP Tavern reports that the Openverse Audio Catalog now boasts 800,000 files that are available free of charge. Formerly known as Creative Commons Search, Openverse is now part of the WordPress project.

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From the Grab Bag

Now it’s time to take a look at some other interesting topics shared by our contributors.

• Automattic’s Pocket Casts podcasting platform has announced that their mobile apps are now open-source.
• Gutenberg project contributors released a video of a streamlined “browse mode” concept for the WordPress Site Editor.
• WordPress Accessibility Day takes place from November 2-3 and has released its speaker lineup.
• The WordPress.org support portal, dubbed the “HelpHub”, is set to be redesigned.

Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today: 

• Birgit Pauli-Haack
• Michelle Frechette
• Eric Karkovack

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