WordPress Accessibility Team Meetings Suspended | Hacker News Reader

WordPress Accessibility Team Meetings Suspended

make.wordpress.org

80 pointsankleturtle14 comments

Of the two member team:

> One person is not certain whether they can safely check the WP Engine box, and one person has been removed from Slack, and is also unwilling to check the WP Engine box

Context: https://login.wordpress.org

Más context: https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-login-gets-mandatory-affi...

Is this something we should've seen coming, as in, is this part of some kind of institutional move they had forecasted?

Because not working on accessibility seems like a really bad idea. People really like to sue about these kinds of things, and accessibility is very important for many users (like me!).

Personally I doubt that Matt cared about any of this when the checkbox went into effect. My guess is he will throw money at it and hire someone to take over.

This is a long running pattern for Matt:

"To Matt Mullenweg I want to say: please take better care of your community, because WordPress is nothing without it. Cherish the people who dedicate their (own) time and who work very hard to make WordPress the best it can be. Don’t ignore or make fun of them, but talk to them, guide them, inform them. Don’t be disconnected from the community, be part of it."

https://rianrietveld.com/2018/10/i-have-resigned-the-wordpre...

Automattic is hurting financial. That is why they asked employees to take severance and why they are lashing out at their competition.

Automattic needing more money explains all of Matt M's moves.

Does it? I mean, it explains the desperate attempts at getting more money, but it doesn't fully explain his hamfisted execution. There are smarter ways to go about extorting your competitors.

Everyone can experience mania at some point in their life. Anything can happen because the brain works differently.

idk, perhaps he should see a shrink.

Probably mostly from Tumblr.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/12/tumblr-is-losing-30m-each-...

>Automattic is hurting financial.

What are you basing this off of?

"In 2024, Automattic's revenue reached $710M up from $580.2M in 2022. The company previously reported $580.2M in 2022, $418.3M in 2021. They do this with a small 2k team."

I’m part of the WordPress Accessibility team and I’m still working on accessibility today.

Are you 100% sure you're "not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise"? Silver Lake has its hands in a lot of companies. Odds are someone you work with in the WordPress world is connected, or one of the companies you work with.

That's the problem with a vague checkbox like that where the guidance is "talk to your lawyer." What happens when he decides he has a problem with you and uses your clicking that checkbox against you? Are you sure you can fend that off from every angle someone with his resources can attack? Can the lawyer you can afford?

You're part of it as of 2 hours ago when you replied to Matt's comment in TFA asking who should step in to replace the people that he locked out of the previous team? Or were you on the team before that comment?

> Matt: We should find some new team reps to replace them, do you have any suggestions?

> Blake: I’m of course happy to do whatever it takes to make WordPress Accessible. How can I jump in and help?

I'm sure that matt guy will just appoint himself or some random people to it.

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