The WordPress Community Team has announced plans to retire CrowdSignal in September 2024 in favor of Jotform for post-event attendee surveys. Automattic-sponsored Community Engagement Specialist Isotta Peira has shared more details about the decision and the future plans. Why the Change? CrowdSignal (previously Polldaddy), owned by Automattic, has been used by the community to collect responses, including at large events …
Record Bounty Awarded as Critical Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Patched in LiteSpeed Cache Plugin
The LiteSpeed Cache Plugin, widely used to enhance the speed and performance of WordPress websites, recently patched a critical unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2024-28000). With over 5 million active installations, this plugin is a critical tool for many WordPress users. John Blackbourn, a member of the Patchstack Alliance community, reported the vulnerability and was awarded $14,400, marking the highest bounty …
Jamie Marsland Joins Automattic as Head of WordPress YouTube
Jamie Marsland, a well-known figure in the WordPress community, has officially joined Automattic as the Head of WordPress.org YouTube. Previously, he had collaborated with WordPress.com on a series of YouTube videos titled ‘build and beyond.’ In the official announcement, the Executive Director of WordPress, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, said, “ Jamie’s extensive experience in the WordPress community and his passion for …
WordCamp Asia Extends Speaker Application Deadline to September 8, 2024
The WordCamp Asia organizing team has extended the speaker application deadline to September 8, 2024. This extension aims to give more WordPress enthusiasts the opportunity to apply for the prestigious event. One of the three flagship WordCamps, WordCamp Asia, will be held at the Philippine International Convention Center in Manila, Philippines, from February 20 to 22, 2025. Interested speakers can …
Critical Vulnerability Patched in GiveWP Plugin
GiveWP, a popular donation plugin for WordPress, has patched an unauthenticated PHP Object Injection to Remote Code Execution vulnerability that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code remotely and delete files. This plugin from the Liquid Web family of products has 100k+ active installs. villu164 (Villu Orav) reported the vulnerability through the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program and netted a bounty …
Meet WordPress 6.7 Release Squad & Default Theme
Last week, the lineup for the eighteen-member release squad and the default theme for WordPress 6.7 were revealed. This will be the third and final WordPress release of the year. WordPress 6.7 Release Squad As usual, Matt Mullenweg leads the release, with David Baumwald serving as the Release Coordinator. The Core Tech Leads are Peter Wilson (sponsored by 10up) and …
Wordfence Launches WordPress Superhero Challenge with Big Rewards
Wordfence has introduced an exciting new initiative, the WordPress Superhero Challenge, as part of its ongoing Bug Bounty Program. Running until October 14th, this challenge exclusively targets plugins and themes with over 5 million active installations, a category that demands a high level of expertise due to the extensive testing these products undergo before reaching production. Chloe Chamberland, the Threat …
Gutenberg 19.0 Introduces Two New Experimental Features
Gutenberg 19.0 has arrived with two exciting experimental features, along with various feature enhancements and bug fixes. The Gutenberg team is actively seeking user feedback on these experimental additions. The first experimental feature is the highly anticipated UI prototype for connecting blocks and custom fields. To try it out, you can enable the “UI to create block bindings” experiment by …
New Proposal to Update WordCamp Budget Guidelines to Attract New Attendees
Automattic-sponsored Global Community Team Programs Manager Rocio Valdivia has published a proposal to allocate a portion of the WordPress Events/WordCamp budget solely for marketing and advertising. This change aims to attract more newcomers to WordPress events. Rocio Valdivia explained, “The Community Team’s goal for upcoming events is to warmly welcome more first-time attendees. We aim for over 50% of participants …
Inside DE{CODE} 2024, WP Engine’s Upcoming Developer Conference
If you ask a WordPress builder or developer to list the most important tools in their toolkit, chances are that at least a few will be WP Engine products and possibly their managed hosting platform itself. Plugins like Advanced Custom Fields have a pretty passionate fanbase, so it shouldn’t be a surprise the WP Engine’s employees are just as passionate …