Every Friday at 8:30 am PST we host the WP-Tonic Round-table Show where we discuss the latest WordPress and the general web news of the week. You can also watch the show LIVE on our WP-Tonic’s Facebook page.

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This Weeks Special Guest Panelist

Special Guest Jonathan Word:

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Week’s Articles That We Discuss During The Show

#1 – Why I Dislike, So Much, Matt Mullenweg Style of Benign Dictatorship For The WordPress Community

On Thursday evening, I decided to make a video that had been brewing inside me for months. See a lot of the WordPress articles that we have been discussing doing the WP-Tonic’s round-table shows over the past 18 months have become to my mind classic “Groundhog Day” moments and most of these posts have mostly come from the Taven, and in my honest view, the main reason for this is down to Matt Mullenweg’s leadership and what seems to be his total refusal to really listen to the wider WordPress community in any real effective or constructive way.

So my video was going to be about “the great leader” Matt Mullenweg, and what Matt sees as his beneficial benign dictatorship of the WordPress community.

See, I don’t particularly appreciate how he has effectively become the non-elected possible lifetime dictator of the whole WordPress community, and In his own words ” The Benign Dictator of WordPress” which includes both Automattic and the WordPress Foundation, which is effectively the main body that directly controls WordPress.org would be a slight understatement. See I totally believe in this well-known saying, that “Power Tends to Corrupt; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.”

Please don’t get this wrong; it’s nothing personal about Matt, “the man,” I’m sure he is a nice guy in private. However, his leadership style, in my opinion, is damaging the larger WordPress community.

I also don’t feel that he is that effective as the CEO of Automattic.

To my mind, it has become clear that the company has become too large for him and his management style to “manage effectively”; this has been clearly demonstrated, in my mind, by his inability to delegate effectively connected to the Gutenberg Project. This normally wouldn’t matter to the WordPress larger community but because of Matts’s actions, Automattic is now so interlocked with WordPress.org’s future that it really does matter!

I also now realize that Matt Mullenweg is in some ways the semi equivalent of “open source” to what Alan Greenspan was to “finance”. I say this because half the time you listen to one of Matt’s interviews, it feels like you need a translator to tell you what he was really saying, and this was the same case with Alan Greenspan.

Many in the WordPress community see this as a sign of brilliance; however, I’m not buying it. Once again this normally wouldn’t matter but Matt, through his actions, is now totally linked to WordPress and is seen as the total public face of the WordPress community and because of this, I really do see that it is a slight problem that we have an individual who is seen as “Mr. WordPress” who won’t or can’t answer straight questions with straight answers!

Also, I see Matt’s leadership recently, and I’m really personally saddened to have to say this, is becoming increasingly a semi-reactionary and antidemocratic force in the WordPress community which is strongly affecting its ability to move forward in a positive and real community way.

However, in the end, I decided to pull down the video on the WP-Tonic’s YouTube channel. I did this for two primary reasons.

#1 – I was told by colleagues and friends in the WordPress community that the video came across as a personal attack on “Matt, the man” and not his leadership abilities.”

Also, WordPress friends thought the video come across a bit like a “personal attack piece”; this was not what I was trying to achieve by doing the video. I just want the WordPress community to wake up and get some balls because, and please “mark my words here” as a fundamentally open-source community project we are coming to a real crunch moment in the  20-year history of WordPress, i.e will this project which I and you love so much, have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

#2 – To be totally honest, the last thing I need is to cross swords with “Matt Mullenweg.” and his lieutenants at Automattic.

However, I want to apologize to you the regular listeners and viewers of the podcast, because you have had to listen to more than 30 minutes of discussion on a video that you won’t be able to watch for yourself. However, hopeful you understand why I decided that it was best for me and the show to remove the video from WP-Tonic’s YouTube channel? If you have any remarks or feedback that you like to share with me and the WP-Tonic community you can do this on WP-Tonic’s Facebook page.

Matt Last YouTube Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNUXX2p2xA8

 

#2 – Contributing to Open Source Is ‘Better Than Any College Degree’

Contributing to Open Source Is ‘Better Than Any College Degree’

#3 – 4 Clues That Your Prospective Client May Not Be A Great Fit

https://chrislema.com/4-clues-that-your-prospective-client-may-not-be-a-great-fit/

Panel Recommendations of the Week

Jonathan Denwood: Video “Malcolm X – one of his most famous speeches “Ballot or Bullet” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRNciryImqg

Spencer Forman: Plugin “Headline Lorem Ipsum” https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-anchor-links/

John Locke: Blog by Christie Chirionos: https://christiechirinos.com/2021/07/on-open-source-and-college/

Andrew Palmer: Online Course “DesignClass” http://flixframe.com/designclass/

Jonathan Word?

Our Regular Panel Members

Andrew Palmer Andrew Palmer
John Locke Lockedown SEO
Sallie Goetsch wpfangirl.com
Spencer Forman wplaunchify.com
Jonathan Denwood wp-tonic.com
Heather Renze Heather Wild

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#612 WP-Tonic Round-Table Show on Friday,16th of July, 2021 at 8:30 am PST was last modified: by