WordPress Contributor Teams Seek to Curb Spam Pledges in Five for the Future Program

The Five for the Future program, an initiative Matt Mullenweg proposed in 2014, may soon be addressing the problem of spam and outdated pledges that appear on the program’s dedicated website. The idea behind the program is that organizations and individuals will contribute five percent of their resources back to WordPress development, ensuring the future of the project. Five for …

Gutenberg 11.5 Adds Widget Grouping, Iterates on the Block Gap Feature, and Updates Nav Menus

Gutenberg 11.5 landed earlier today. It is a hefty release that includes extensive changes to the Navigation block, a new way for grouping widgets, and more block gap feature integration. I have had mixed reactions to the features that made it into the latest release. At some points, I thought to myself, finally, this made it in. At other moments, …

Automattic Acquires Social Image Generator Plugin, Plans to Integrate with Jetpack

Automattic has acquired the Social Image Generator plugin, a commercial product that automatically creates social share images for WordPress content from a set of fully customizable templates. The plugin launched in February 2021, with a starting price of $39/year but is now closed to new sales. Daniel Post, the plugin’s creator, is joining Automattic to continue developing it as a …