WordPress.org

WordPress 5.3.1 is now available!

This security and maintenance release features 46 fixes and enhancements. Plus, it adds a number of security fixes—see the list below.

WordPress 5.3.1 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.4.

You can download WordPress 5.3.1 by clicking the button at the top of this page, or visit your Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now.

If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.

Security updates

Four security issues affect WordPress versions 5.3 and earlier; version 5.3.1 fixes them, so you’ll want to upgrade. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.3, there are also updated versions of 5.2 and earlier that fix the security issues.

• Props to Daniel Bachhuber for finding an issue where an unprivileged user could make a post sticky via the REST API.
• Props to Simon Scannell of RIPS Technologies for finding and disclosing an issue where cross-site scripting (XSS) could be stored in well-crafted links.
• Props to the WordPress.org Security Team for hardening wp_kses_bad_protocol() to ensure that it is aware of the named colon attribute.
• Props to Nguyen The Duc for discovering a stored XSS vulnerability using block editor content.

Maintenance updates

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Administration: improvements to admin form controls height and alignment standardization (see related dev note), dashboard widget links accessibility and alternate color scheme readability issues (see related dev note).
• Block editor: fix Edge scrolling issues and intermittent JavaScript issues.
• Bundled themes: add customizer option to show/hide author bio, replace JS based smooth scroll with CSS (see related dev note) and fix Instagram embed CSS.
• Date/time: improve non-GMT dates calculation, fix date format output in specific languages and make get_permalink() more resilient against PHP timezone changes.
• Embeds: remove CollegeHumor oEmbed provider as the service doesn’t exist anymore.
• External libraries: update sodium_compat.
• Site health: allow the remind interval for the admin email verification to be filtered.
• Uploads: avoid thumbnails overwriting other uploads when filename matches, and exclude PNG images from scaling after upload.
• Users: ensure administration email verification uses the user’s locale instead of the site locale.

For more information, browse the full list of changes on Trac or check out the version 5.3.1 HelpHub documentation page.

Thanks!

In addition to the security researchers mentioned above, thank you to everyone who contributed to WordPress 5.3.1:

123host, acosmin, Adam Silverstein, Albert Juhé Lluveras, Alex Concha, Alex Mills, Anantajit JG, Anders Norén, andraganescu, Andrea Fercia, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Ozz, Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko, aravindajith, archon810, Ate Up With Motor, Ayesh Karunaratne, Birgir Erlendsson (birgire), Boga86, Boone Gorges, Carolina Nymark, Chetan Prajapati, Csaba (LittleBigThings), Dademaru, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniele Scasciafratte, Daniel Richards, David Baumwald, David Herrera, Dion hulse, ehtis, Ella van Durpe, epiqueras, Fabian, Felix Arntz, flaviozavan, Garrett Hyder, Glenn, Grzegorz (Greg) Ziółkowski, Grzegorz.Janoszka, Hareesh Pillai, Ian Belanger, ispreview, Jake Spurlock, James Huff, James Koster, Jarret, Jasper van der Meer, Jb Audras, jeichorn, Jer Clarke, Jeremy Felt, Jip Moors, Joe Hoyle, John James Jacoby, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jonny Harris, Joost de Valk, Jorge Costa, Joy, Juliette Reinders Folmer, justdaiv, Kelly Dwan, Kharis Sulistiyono, Kite, kyliesabra, lisota, lukaswaudentio, Maciej Mackowiak, marcelo2605, Marius L. J., Mat Lipe, mayanksonawat, Mel Choyce-Dwan, Michael Arestad, miette49, Miguel Fonseca, mihdan, Mike Auteri, Mikko Saari, Milan Petrovic, Mukesh Panchal, NextScripts, Nick Daugherty, Niels Lange, noyle, Ov3rfly, Paragon Initiative Enterprises, Paul Biron, Peter Wilson, Rachel Peter, Riad Benguella, Ricard Torres, Roland Murg, Ryan McCue, Ryan Welcher, SamuelFernandez, sathyapulse, Scott Taylor, scvleon, Sergey Biryukov, sergiomdgomes, SGr33n, simonjanin, smerriman, steevithak, Stephen Bernhardt, Stephen Edgar, Steve Dufresne, Subrata Mal, Sultan Nasir Uddin, Sybre Waaijer, Tammie Lister, Tanvirul Haque, Tellyworth, timon33, Timothy Jacobs, Timothée Brosille, tmatsuur, Tung Du, Veminom, vortfu, waleedt93, williampatton, wpgurudev, and Zack Tollman.

You’ve probably heard that WordPress is open-source software, and may know that it’s created and run by volunteers. WordPress enthusiasts share many examples of how WordPress changed people’s lives for the better. This monthly series shares some of those lesser-known, amazing stories.

Meet Jill Binder

Jill Binder never meant to become an activist. She insists it was an accident.

Despite that, Jill has led the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training working group in the WordPress Community team since 2017. This group is dedicated to increasing the number of women and other underrepresented groups who are stepping up to become speakers at WordPress Meetups, WordCamps, and events. 

Jill’s back story

Internship

Jill’s WordPress story begins in 2011, in Vancouver, Canada. Jill secured an internship for her college program, working on a higher education website that was built in WordPress. As a thank you, her practicum advisor bought Jill a ticket to WordCamp Vancouver 2011: Developer’s Edition. After that Jill began freelancing  with WordPress as a Solopreneur. 

First steps in the WordPress community

The following year her internship advisor, who had become a client, was creating the first ever BuddyCamp for BuddyPress. He asked Jill to be on his organizing team. At that event she also moderated a panel that had Matt Mullenweg on it. Then, Jill was invited to be on the core organizing team for WordCamp Vancouver.

Part of this role meant reviewing and selecting speakers. From 40 speaker applications that could be a fit the team had to pick only 14 to speak.

The diversity challenge when selecting speakers

For anyone who has organized a conference, you know that speaker selection is hard. Of the 40 applications, 7 were from women, and the lead organizer selected 6 of those to be included in the speaker line up.

At this point Jill wasn’t aware that very few women apply to speak at tech conferences and suggested selection should be made on the best fit for the conference. The team shared that not only did they feel the pitches were good and fit the conference, but they also needed to be accepted or the Organizers would be criticized for a lack of diversity.

Selecting women for fear of criticism is embarrassing to admit, but that’s how people felt in 2013.

By the time the event happened, though, the number of women speakers dropped to 4. And with an additional track being added, the number of speakers overall was up to 28. Only 1 speaker in 7 was a woman (or 14%) and attendees did ask questions and even blogged about the lack of representation.

What keeps women from applying?

Later that year at  WordCamp San Francisco—the biggest WordCamp at the time (before there was a WordCamp US)—Jill took the opportunity to chat with other organizers about her experience. She found out that many organizers had trouble getting enough women to present.

Surprisingly Vancouver had a high number of women applicants in comparison to others, and the consensus was more would be accepted  if only more would apply.

Jill decided that she  needed to know why this was happening? Why weren’t there more women applying? She started researching, reading, and talking to people.

Though this issue is complex, two things came up over and over:

• “What would I talk about?”
• “I’m not an expert on anything. I don’t know enough about anything to give a talk on it.”

A first workshop with encouraging results

Then Jill had an idea. She brought up the issue at an event and someone suggested that they should get women together in a room and brainstorm speaker topics.

So Jill became the lead of a small group creating a workshop in Vancouver: the talented Vanessa Chu, Kate Moore Hermes, and Mandi Wise. In one of the exercises that they created, participants were invited to brainstorm ideas—this proved that they had literally a hundred topic ideas and the biggest problem then became picking just one!

In the first workshop, they focussed on:

• Why it matters that women (added later: diverse groups) are in the front of the room
• The myths of what it takes to be the speaker at the front of the room (aka beating impostor syndrome)
• Different presentation formats, especially story-telling
• Finding and refining a topic
• Tips to become a better speaker
• Leveling up by speaking in front of the group throughout the afternoon

Leading to workshops across North America and then the world

Other cities across North America heard about the workshop and started hosting them, adding their own material.

Many women who initially joined her workshop wanted help getting even better at public speaking. So Jill’s Vancouver team added in some material created from the other cities and a bit more of their own. Such as:

• Coming up with a great title
• Writing a pitch that is more likely to get accepted
• Writing a bio
• Creating an outline

At WordCamp Vancouver 2014—only one year since Jill started—there were 50% women speakers and 3 times the number of women applicants! Not only that, but this WordCamp was a Developer’s Edition, where it’s more challenging to find women developers in general, let alone those who will step up to speak.

More work is needed!

Impressive as those results were, the reason Jill is so passionate about this work is because of what happened next:

• Some of the women who attended the workshop stepped up to be leaders in the community and created new content for other women.
• A handful of others became WordCamp organizers. One year Vancouver had an almost all-female organizing team – 5 out of 6!
• It also influenced local businesses. One local business owner loved what one of the women speakers said so much that he hired her immediately. She was the first woman developer on the team, and soon after she became the Senior Developer.

Diversity touches on many levels

Jill has seen time and again what happens when different people speak at the front of the room. More people feel welcome in the community. The speakers and the new community members bring new ideas and new passions that help to make the technology we are creating more inclusive. And together we generate new ideas that benefit everyone.

This workshop was so successful, with typical results of going from 10% to 40-60% women speakers at WordCamps, that the WordPress Global Community Team asked Jill to promote it and train it for women and all diverse groups around the world. In late 2017, Jill started leading the Diverse Speaker Training group (#wpdiversity).

Dozens of community members across the world have now been trained to lead the workshop. With now dozens of workshops worldwide, for WordPress and other open source software projects as well, there is an increase in speaker diversity. 

As a result of the success, Jill is now sponsored to continue the program. The first sponsor is Automattic. She’s proud of how the diversity represented on the stage adds value not only to the brand but also in the long-term will lead to the creation of a better product. She’s inspired by seeing the communities change as a result of the new voices and new ideas at the WordPress events.

Jill’s leadership in the development and growth of the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training initiative has had a positive, measurable impact on WordPress community events worldwide. When WordPress events are more diverse, the WordPress project gets more diverse — which makes WordPress better for more people.”

Andrea Middleton, Community organizer on the WordPress open source project

Resources:

• The Workshop: http://diversespeakers.info/
• More information: https://tiny.cc/wpdiversity
• How to build a diverse speaker roster
• Diversity Outreach Speaker Training Team

Contributors

Alison Rothwell (@wpfiddlybits), Yvette Sonneveld (@yvettesonneveld), Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune), Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe)

This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. HeroPress highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.

Meet more WordPress community members over at HeroPress.com!

Correction: December 7, 2019
The original article mentioned the team Jill lead, but did not mention the team members who joined her. Those have been added. Apologies to Vanessa, Kate, and Mandi. 🙂

November has been a big month in the WordPress community. New releases, big events, and a push for more contributors have characterized the work being done across the project — read on to find out more!

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The release of WordPress 5.3 “Kirk”

WordPress 5.3 was released on November 12, and is available for download or update in your dashboard! Named “Kirk,” after jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 5.3 enhances the block editor with new APIs and theme-related features, adds more intuitive interactions, and improves accessibility in a number of areas — including CSS in the dashboard, the media manager, core widgets, and dozens of other areas.

You can read the full details of all the included enhancements in the 5.3 Field Guide.

Along with 5.3 came the new Twenty Twenty theme, which gives users more design flexibility and integrates with the block editor. For more information about the improvements to the block editor, expanded design flexibility, the Twenty Twenty theme, and to see the huge list of amazing contributors who made this release possible, read the full announcement.

Want to get involved in building WordPress Core? Follow the Core team blog and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group. You can also provide feedback on the 5.3 release process.

At Last! bbPress 2.6!

bbPress 2.6 was released on November 12 after a little over six years in development. This new release includes per-forum moderation, new platforms to import from, and an extensible engagements API. You can read more about all of this in the bbPress codex.

Version 2.6.1 and 2.6.2 quickly followed, both of which fixed a number of bugs that required immediate attention.

Want to get involved in building bbPress? Follow the bbPress blog and join the #bbpress channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

State of the Word

WordCamp US 2019 was held in St. Louis, MO this year on November 1-3. At the event, @matt gave his annual State of the Word address, during which he shared what had been accomplished in the past year, announced what is coming next, and shared several ways to get involved.

You can watch the State of the Word as well as the Q&A session at the end, and read Matt’s recap of the address. If you didn’t make it to St. Louis, you can still watch all the sessions at your leisure.

Five for the Future

During the State of the Word, Matt announced that there is now a dedicated landing page for Five for the Future, which features the people and organizations that commit at least it 5% of their resources to the WordPress open source project. There are many ways to contribute to WordPress, such as core development, marketing, translation, training, and community organizing, among many other important paths to contribution.

Five for the Future welcomes individuals and organizations, and highlights all the incredible ways we build WordPress together. For more information, visit the Five for the Future page.

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Further Reading:

• After releasing WordPress 5.3, the Core team announced a tentative release schedule for 2020 and 2021.
• The Core team has announced a new CSS focus to complement the existing ones for PHP and JavaScript — this focus comes with dedicated tags, targeted work, and a new #core-css Slack channel.
• Version 2.2 of the WordPress Coding Standards has been released — this new release is ready for WordPress 5.3, includes five brand new sniffs, and plenty of new command-line documentation.
• The latest update to the Theme Review Coding Standards, v0.2.1, is compatible with v2.2 of the WordPress Coding Standards, and helps authors to build more standards-compatible themes.
• The WordCamp US team has announced the dates for next year’s event in St. Louis, MO — WordCamp US 2020 will be held on October 27-29. This will be the first time that the event will be held during the week and not on a weekend. The team has also announced a Call for Organizers. If you are interested in joining the team, learn more. 
• The WP Notify project, which is building a unified notification system for WordPress Core, is on hiatus until January 2020.
• A working group on the Community Team has updated their Handbook to help organizers create more diverse events.
• The WP-CLI team released v2.4.0 of the WordPress command-line tool. This release includes support for WordPress 5.3 and PHP 7.4.
• Gutenberg development continues rapidly with the latest 7.0 release including an early version of the navigation menus block, among other enhancements and fixes.

Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it here.

Late-breaking news on the 5.2.4 short-cycle security release that landed October 14. When we released the news post, I inadvertently missed giving props to Simon Scannell of RIPS Technologies for finding and disclosing an issue where path traversal can lead to remote code execution.

Simon has done a great deal of work on the WordPress project, and failing to mention his contributions is a huge oversight on our end.

Thank you to all of the reporters for privately disclosing vulnerabilities, which gave us time to fix them before WordPress sites could be attacked.

Introducing our most refined user experience with the improved block editor in WordPress 5.3! Named “Kirk” in honour of jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the latest and greatest version of WordPress is available for download or update in your dashboard.

5.3 expands and refines the block editor with more intuitive interactions and improved accessibility. New features in the editor increase design freedoms, provide additional layout options and style variations to allow designers more control over the look of a site.

This release also introduces the Twenty Twenty theme giving the user more design flexibility and integration with the block editor. Creating beautiful web pages and advanced layouts has never been easier.

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Block Editor Improvements

This enhancement-focused update introduces over 150 new features and usability improvements, including improved large image support for uploading non-optimized, high-resolution pictures taken from your smartphone or other high-quality cameras. Combined with larger default image sizes, pictures always look their best.

Accessibility improvements include the integration of block editor styles in the admin interface. These improved styles fix many accessibility issues: color contrast on form fields and buttons, consistency between editor and admin interfaces, new snackbar notices, standardizing to the default WordPress color scheme, and the introduction of Motion to make interacting with your blocks feel swift and natural.

For people who use a keyboard to navigate the dashboard, the block editor now has a Navigation mode. This lets you jump from block to block without tabbing through every part of the block controls.

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Expanded Design Flexibility

WordPress 5.3 adds even more robust tools for creating amazing designs.

• The new Group block lets you easily divide your page into colorful sections.
• The Columns block now supports fixed column widths.
• The new predefined layouts make it a cinch to arrange content into advanced designs.
• Heading blocks now offer controls for text and background color.
• Additional style options allow you to set your preferred style for any block that supports this feature.

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Introducing Twenty Twenty

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Improvements for Everyone

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For Developers

The Squad

This release was led by Matt Mullenweg, Francesca Marano, and David Baumwald. They were enthusiastically supported by a large release squad:

• Editor Tech: Riad Benguella (@youknowriad)
• Editor Design: Mark Uraine (@mapk)
• Core Tech: Andrew Ozz (@azaozz)
• Docs Coordinator: Justin Ahinon (@justinahinon)
• Marketing/Release Comms: Mike Reid (@mikerbg)
• Media/Uploader: Mike Schroder (@mikeschroder)
• Accessibility: JB Audras (@audrasjb)
• Default Theme Wrangler: Ian Belanger (@ianbelanger)
• Default Theme Designer: Anders Norén (@anlino)

The squad was joined throughout the twelve week release cycle by 645 generous volunteer contributors (our largest group of contributors to date) who collectively fixed 658 bugs.

Put on a Rahsaan Roland Kirk playlist, click that update button (or download it directly), and check the profiles of the fine folks that helped:

123host, 1994rstefan, 5hel2l2y, @irsdl, Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Aashish S, Abhijit Rakas, abrightclearweb, acalfieri, acosmin, Adam Silverstein, Adam Soucie, Adhitya Rachman, Ahmad Awais, Ajay Ghaghretiya, Ajit Bohra, ajlende, Akira Tachibana, Albert Juhé Lluveras, albertomake, Alex Concha, Alex Dimitrov, Alex Lion, Alex Mills, Alex Sanford, Alexander Botteram, Alexandre D'Eschambeault, Alexandru Vornicescu, alexeyskr, alextran, Ali Ayubi, allancole, Allen Snook, Alvaro Gois dos Santos, Amanda Rush, Amol Vhankalas, Anantajit JG, Anders Norén, Andrea Fercia, Andrea Gandino, Andrea Grillo, Andrea Middleton, Andreas Brain, Andrei Draganescu, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Nevins, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Taylor, Andrey Savchenko, Andrés Maneiro, Andy Fragen, Andy Meerwaldt, Angela Gibson, Anh Tran, anischarolia, Anja Deubzer, Anthony Burchell, Anton Timmermans, Apermo, Arafat Rahman, Aravind Ajith, archon810, arena, Ari Stathopoulos, Arun Sathiya, Asad Shahbaz, asadkn, Ashar Irfan, ashwinpc, Aslam Shekh, Ate Up With Motor, atlasmahesh, au87, Aubrey Portwood, augustuswm, Aurooba Ahmed, Avina Patel, Axel DUCORON, Ayesh Karunaratne, backermann1978, Bappi, Bartosz Romanowski, Bego Mario Garde, Benjamin Intal, Benjamin Zekavica, bennemann, bgermann, Bhaktii Rajdev, bibliofille, Biranit, Birgir Erlendsson, bitcomplex, BjornW, boblinthorst, Boga86, Boone Gorges, Boro Sitnikovski, Bradley Jacobs, Bradley Taylor, Brandon Kraft, Brent Swisher, Bronson Quick, bsetiawan88, Burhan Nasir, Carlos Bravo, Carolina Nymark, Catalin Dogaru, Cathi Bosco, Chandra Patel, Charlie Merland, Chetan Prajapati, Chetan Satasiya, Chico, Chintan hingrajiya, ChriCo, Chris Aprea, Chris Van Patten, Christian Chung, Christian Wach, christianoliff, Christoph Herr, cleancoded, cmagrin, CompileNix, Corey Salzano, courtney0burton, Cristiano Zanca, Csaba (LittleBigThings), D.S. Webster, Dademaru, daleharrison, Dan Foley, Dan Jones, DanBUK, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater), Daniel James, Daniel Llewellyn, Daniel Richards, Daniele Scasciafratte, danieliser, daniloercoli, Danny van Kooten, Darren Ethier, darthhexx, Dave Parker, Dave Smith, Dave Whitley, davetgreen, David Aguilera, David Anderson, David Binovec, David Binovec, David Decker, David Herrera, David Rozando, David Shanske, daxelrod, Debabrata Karfa, Deni, Denis Cherniavsky, Denis Yanchevskiy, Dennis, Dennis Hipp, Dennis Snell, Derek Sifford, derweili, dfangstrom, Dharmin Shah, Dhaval kasavala, dhuyvetter, Diane Co, DiedeExterkate, Diego La Monica, digitalapps, Dilip Bheda, Dima, dingo-d, Dion hulse, Dixita Dusara, Dominik Schilling, Drew Jaynes, Dukex, dushanthi, ecotechie, Edi Amin, Eduardo Toledo, ehtis, Ella van Durpe, Ella van Durpe, Elliot Condon, Emerson Maningo, Emil Dotsev, Emil Uzelac, Enrique Piqueras, Enrique Sánchez, erikkroes, estelaris, evalarumbe, faazshift, Fabian, Fabian Kägy, fblaser, Felipe Elia, Felix Arntz, Fencer04, flaviozavan, flipkeijzer, Florian TIAR, Foysal Remon, Gal Baras, Garrett Hyder, Garth Mortensen, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, Gaurang Dabhi, gchtr, Gennady Kovshenin, Gesundheit Bewegt GmbH, ghoul, girlieworks, glauberglauber, Glenn, GravityView, gregsullivan, Grzegorz Ziółkowski, Grzegorz.Janoszka, gwwar, Hardeep Asrani, Hardik Thakkar, Hareesh Pillai, Hareesh Pillai, harryfear, harshbarach, haszari, He Yifei, Helen Hou-Sandi, Henry Wright, herbmiller, herregroen, hirofumi2012, HKandulla, Howdy_McGee, hoythan, Hugh Lashbrooke, Ian Belanger, Ian Dunn, ianmjones, Igor Zinovyev, Imran Sayed, intimez, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), iqbalbary, Irene Strikkers, Isabel Brison, Ismail El Korchi, ispreview, J.D. Grimes, jagirbaheshwp, Jake Spurlock, Jalpa Panchal, James Huff, James Koster, James Nylen, jameslnewell, janak Kaneriya, Janki Moradiya, janw.oostendorp, jared_smith, jarocks, Jarret, Jasper van der Meer, jave.web, javorszky, Jay Swadas, Jaydip, Jean-Baptiste Audras, Jeff Farthing, Jeff Paul, jeichorn, Jen Miller, jenkoian, Jer Clarke, Jeremy Felt, Jesper van Engelen, Jessica Lyschik, jffng, jikamens, Jip Moors, jitendrabanjara1991, jkitchen, jmmathc, joakimsilfverberg, Job, jodamo5, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, Joe McGill, Joen Asmussen, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, John Regan, jojotjebaby, Jonathan Champ, Jonathan Davis, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jonathan Goldford, Jonny Harris, Jono Alderson, Joost de Valk, Jorge Bernal, Jorge Costa, Joseph Scott, Josepha Haden, Josh Pollock, Joshua Noyce, JoshuaWold, Joy, jsnajdr, Juanfra Aldasoro, Juhi Patel, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Julio Potier, junktrunk, justdaiv, Justin Ahinon, Justin Tadlock, K. Adam White, kafleg, Kailey (trepmal), Kakshak Kalaria, Kamran Khorsandi, Kantari Samy, karlgroves, katielgc, kbrownkd, Kelly Dwan, Kelly Hoffman, Kerfred, kero, Ketan Umretiya, kevIN kovaDIA, Kharis Sulistiyono, killerbishop, killua99, Kite, Kjell Reigstad, Knut Sparhell, kokers, Konstantin Obenland, Konstantinos Xenos, kuus, kyliesabra, laurelfulford, lbenicio, leogermani, leonblade, lessbloat, lisota, lllor, lordlod, LoreleiAurora, Luan Ramos, luciano-croce, luigipulcini, luisherranz, lukaswaudentio, Luke, Luke Carbis, Luke Cavanagh, m1tk00, maartenleenders, Maciej Palmowski, maciejmackowiak, Mahesh Waghmare, Maje Media LLC, malthert, manooweb, Manuel Augustin, Manzoor Wani, marcelo2605, MarcGuay, Marcin Pietrzak, Marco Martins, MarcosAlexandre, Marcus Kazmierczak, Marek Hrabe, Marie Comet, Mario Aguiar, Mario Peshev, Marius Jensen, Mark D Wolinski, Mark Jaquith, Mark Uraine, Marko Heijnen, Martin Spatovaliyski, Martin Splitt, Marty Helmick, Mary Baum, masummdar, Mat Gargano, Mat Lipe, Mathieu Sarrasin, Mathieu Viet, Matt Chowning, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Haines-Young, matthias.thiel, mattyrob, Matías Ventura, Maxime Culea, Maxime Jobin, maxme, mayanksonawat, mchavezi, Meet Makadia, Mehidi Hassan, Mehul Kaklotar, Mel Choyce, Melin Edomwonyi, meloniq, Michael Arestad, Michael Babker, Michael Nelson, Michael Panaga, michel.weimerskirch, Michiel Heijmans, miette49, Miguel Fonseca, miguelvieira, mihaiiceyro, mihdan, Miina Sikk, Mikael Korpela, Mike Auteri, Mike Glendinning, Mike Hansen, Mike Jolley, Mike Reid, Mike Schroder, MikeNGarrett, Mikko Saari, Milan Dinić, Milan Petrovic, Mobeen Abdullah, Mohsin Rasool, Monika Rao, Monique Dubbelman, Morgan Kay, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Morteza Geransayeh, moto hachi ( mt8.biz ), mppfeiffer, mrmadhat, msaggiorato, mtias, Muhammad Afzal, Mukesh Panchal, munyagu, mzorz, nadir, Nahid Ferdous Mohit, Naveen Kharwar, Nayana Maradia, Ned Zimmerman, Neel Patel, Nextendweb, NextScripts, Niall Kennedy, Nick Daugherty, Nick Halsey, Nicky Lim, nicolad, Nicolas Juen, Niels de Blaauw, Niels Lange, Nikhil Chavan, nikolastoqnow, Niku Hietanen, Nilambar Sharma, Nishit Langaliya, Nitish Kaila, nmenescardi, noahtallen, notnownikki, noyle, Okamoto Hidetaka, Olaf Lindström, Omaar Osmaan, Omar Reiss, onlanka, Ov3rfly, oxyc, ozmatflc, Paal Joachim Romdahl, Paragon Initiative Enterprises, Paresh Shinde, Parmar Hardip, Pascal Birchler, Pascal Casier, patilvikasj, Patrick Baldwin, Paul Bearne, Paul Biron, Paul Schreiber, Paul Vincent Beigang, Pedro Mendonça, pepe, Peter Wilson, PhillipJohn, Pierre Gordon, pikamander2, Pilar Mera, Pinar Olguc, powerbuoy, Pramod Jodhani, Pratik, Pratik K. Yadav, Prem Tiwari, Presskopp, Priyank Patel, Quantumstate, Raaj Trambadia, Raam Dev, raboodesign, Rachel Peter, Rahul Vaza, Ramanan, Rami Yushuvaev, ramon fincken, RC Lations, rebasaurus, ReikoDD, Remco Tolsma, retrofox, Riad Benguella, Ricard Torres, Richard Korthuis, Riddhi Mehta, Rishabh Budhiraja, Robert Anderson, Robert Chapin, Robert Ivanov, rogueresearch, Roi Conde, Roland Murg, Ronak Ganatra, Ronny Harbich, Roy Randolph, Roy Tanck, Ryan Boren, Ryan Kienstra, Ryan McCue, Ryan Welcher, Sébastien SERRE, samgordondev, Sami Ahmed Siddiqui, Samir Shah, Samuel Wood (Otto), SamuelFernandez, Sanket Mehta, sarah semark, Sarath AR, saskak, sathyapulse, sbardian, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, scvleon, Sebastian Pisula, Seghir Nadir, Sergey Biryukov, Sergey Predvoditelev, sergiomdgomes, seuser, sgastard, SGr33n, Shady Sharaf, Shamim Hasan, Sharaz Shahid, Shashank Panchal, shawfactor, Shital Marakana, siliconforks, simonjanin, simono, sinatrateam, sirreal, Sixes, Slava Abakumov, Slobodan Manic, smerriman, snapfractalpop, socalchristina, Soren Wrede, Spectacula, spenserhale, spuds10, Stanimir Stoyanov, steevithak, Stefano Minoia, Stefanos Togoulidis, Stephen Bernhardt, Stephen Edgar, Steve Dufresne, Steven Word, studyboi, Subrata Mal, Subrata Sarkar, Sudhir Yadav, Sultan Nasir Uddin, sun, Suzen Fylke, svanhal, Swapnil V. Patil, swapnild, Sybre Waaijer, Sérgio Estêvão, Takayuki Miyauchi, Takis Bouyouris, Tammie Lister, Tanvirul Haque, tazotodua, technote, Tellyworth, Tessa Kriesel, them.es, Themezly, Thijs Hulshof, Thomas Kräftner, thomaswm, Thord D. Hedengren, Thorsten Frommen, Thrijith Thankachan, tigertech, Tim Carr, Tim Havinga, Tim Hengeveld, timon33, Timothée Brosille, Timothy Jacobs, timph, tmatsuur, tmdesigned, TobiasBg, tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn Fjellner), toddhalfpenny, Todor Gaidarov, Tom J Nowell, Tommy Ferry, Toni Viemerö, tonybogdanov, torres126, Torsten Landsiedel, Towhidul Islam, trasweb, Travis Northcutt, travisseitler, triplejumper12, truchot, truongwp, Tugdual de Kerviler, Tung Du, Udit Desai, Ulrich, Utsav tilava, Vaishali Panchal, vbaimas, Veminom, Venutius, Viktor Veljanovski, Vishal Kakadiya, Vishit Shah, vladlu, Vladut Ilie, vortfu, Vova Feldman, vrimill, w3rkjana, waleedt93, webcommsat AbhaNonStopNewsUK, Webdados (Marco Almeida), WebMan Design | Oliver Juhas, Weston Ruter, William Earnhardt, William P. Davis, William Patton, withinboredom, worldweb, wpgurudev, yanngarcia, Yannicki, yarnboy, yashar_hv, Yoav Farhi, yodiyo, Yui, Yvette Sonneveld, zaantar, Zack Tollman, zalak151291, Zebulan Stanphill, Česlav Przywara, АЙРАТ ХАЛИТОВ 🔥, and 水野史土.

Many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the support forums. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time or since the first release. These releases are more successful for their efforts!

Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 5.3. Their efforts bring WordPress fully translated to 47 languages at release time, with more on the way.

If you want learn more about volunteering with WordPress, check out Make WordPress or the core development blog.

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Thanks for choosing WordPress!

You’ve probably heard that WordPress is open-source software, and may know that it’s created and run by volunteers. WordPress enthusiasts share many examples of how WordPress changed people’s lives for the better. This monthly series shares some of those lesser-known, amazing stories.

Meet Kim Parsell

We’d like to introduce you to Kim Parsell. Kim was an active and well-loved member of the WordPress community. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2015. Lovingly referred to as #wpmom, she leaves behind a legacy of service. 

How Kim became #wpmom

In order to understand how highly valued the WordPress community was to Kim Parsell, you have to know a bit about her environment.

Kim was a middle-aged woman who lived off a dirt road, on top of a hill, in Southern rural Ohio. She was often by herself, taking care of the property with only a few neighbors up and down the road.

She received internet access from towers that broadcast wireless signals, similar to cell phones but at lower speeds.

Connecting through attending live podcast recordings

By listening to the regular podcast, WordPress Weekly, Kim met members of the WordPress community and was able to talk to them on a weekly basis. The show and its after-hours sessions provided Kim a chance to mingle with the who’s who of WordPress at the time. It helped establish long-lasting relationships that would open up future opportunities for her.

Since she lived in a location where few around her used or had even heard of WordPress, the community was an opportunity for her to be with like-minded people. Kim enjoyed interacting with the community, both online and at WordCamp events, and many community members became her second family, a responsibility she took very seriously.

“Many members of the WordPress community became her second family, a responsibility she took very seriously.”

Jeff Chandler

One of the first women of WordPress

Kim is regarded as one of the first “women of WordPress,” investing a lot of her time in women who wanted to break into tech. She worked hard to create a safe environment sharing herself and her knowledge and was affectionately called #wpmom.

She contributed countless hours of volunteer time, receiving “props” for 5 major releases of WordPress, and was active on the documentation team. 

“Affectionately called #wpmom, Kim was an investor. She invested countless hours into the WordPress project and in women who wanted to break into tech.”

Carrie Dils

Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship

In 2014, she received a travel stipend offered by the WordPress Foundation that enabled her to attend the WordPress community summit, held in conjunction with WordCamp San Francisco. She shared with anyone who would listen, that this was a life-changing event for her. 

The WordPress Foundation now offers that scholarship in her memory. The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship provides funding annually for a woman who contributes to WordPress to attend WordCamp US, a flagship event for the WordPress community.

This scholarship truly is a fitting memorial. Her contributions have been vital to the project. Moreover, the way she treated and encouraged the people around her has been an inspiration to many.  

Her spirit lives on in the people she knew and inspired. Here’s hoping that the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship will serve to further inspire those who follow in her footsteps.

Drew Jaynes

Kim is missed, but her spirit continues to live on

Sadly Kim died just a few short months later. But her spirit lives on in the people she knew and inspired within her communities. The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship will serve to further inspire those who follow in her footsteps.

Contributors

Alison Rothwell (@wpfiddlybits), Yvette Sonneveld (@yvettesonneveld), Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune), Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe), Jeff Chandler, Carrie Dils, Jayvee Arrellano, Jan Dembowski, Drew Jaynes

Meet more WordPress community members over at HeroPress.com!

The fourth release candidate for WordPress 5.3 is now available!

WordPress 5.3 is currently scheduled to be released on November 12 2019, but we need your help to get there—if you haven’t tried 5.3 yet, now is the time!

There are two ways to test the WordPress 5.3 release candidate:

• Try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (choose the “bleeding edge nightlies” option)
• Or download the release candidate here (zip).

For details about what to expect in WordPress 5.3, please see the first,  second and third release candidate posts.

Release Candidate 4 contains three bug fixes for the new default theme, Twenty Twenty (see #48450), and addresses the following:

• The Twemoji library has been updated from 12.1.2 to 12.1.3 (see #48293).
• Two regressions in the Media component (see #48451 and #48453).
• One bug in the Upload component (see #48472)
• Five bugs in the Block Editor component (see #48502)

Plugin and Theme Developers

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.3 and update the Tested up to version in the readme to 5.3. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums so we can figure those out before the final release.

The WordPress 5.3 Field Guide has also been published, which details the major changes.

A new dev note has been published since the Field Guide was released, Use of the “wp_update_attachment_metadata” filter as “upload is complete” hook. Plugin and theme authors are asked to please read this note and make any necessary adjustments to continue working well in WordPress 5.3 or share any difficulties encountered on #48451.

How to Help

Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

It’s time for our annual user and developer survey! If you’re a WordPress user or professional, we want your feedback.

It only takes a few minutes to fill out the survey, which will provide an overview of how people use WordPress. We’re excited to announce that this year, for the first time, the survey is also available in 5 additional languages: French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. Many thanks to the community volunteers who helped with the translation effort!

The survey will be open for 4 weeks, and results will be published on this blog. All data will be anonymized: no email addresses or IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, check out the privacy policy.

October has been a busy month with preparations for WordCamp US as well as the next major release of WordPress. Read on to find out about all that work and more.

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WordPress 5.2.4

On October 14, WordPress 5.2.4 was released as a security release fixing 6 security issues. The fixes were backported to earlier versions of WordPress as well, so they’re available for sites not yet upgraded to 5.2.

This kind of release is only possible because people report security issues responsibly so that the Core team can address them. You can find out more specific information about the fixes on the release documentation page.

Want to get involved in building WordPress Core? Follow the Core team blog, and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

WordPress 5.3

WordPress 5.3 has seen active development over the past month, with a release date set for November 12. You can download and test the release candidate to get a taste of what to expect—this is largely what final release will look like.

This is a big release with a number of exciting and important updates. Among them are significant changes to the look of the admin interface, enhancements to the block editor that will affect developers of themes and plugins, large improvements to the way that Core processes images, updates to cater for some functions specific to PHP 7.4, improvements to the Site Health feature, and many more improvements that are all documented in the WordPress 5.3 Field Guide.

In addition to these Core updates, the upcoming major release will also include the new default theme, Twenty Twenty.

Want to get involved in building WordPress Core? You can contribute by testing the upcoming release, as well as follow the Core team blog, and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.

New Core Committers

Three new committers have been added to the WordPress Core organizational structure. Core committers are individuals who have direct access to the Core development code repositories in order to publish updates to the software.

The new committers are Ian Belanger (@ianbelanger), Timothy Jacobs (@timothyblynjacobs), and Joe Dolson (@joedolson). While Ian’s commit access is specifically for Core themes, both Timothy and Joe have full access to Core. This type of access is only given to individuals who have proved themselves with high-quality contributions and a deep understanding of how the WordPress project works.

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Further Reading:

• The Accessibility Team is looking for new team representatives for 2020.
• WordCamp US is happening on November 1-3 and is set to be the largest WordPress event in North America.
• WordCamp Asia, the first flagship event in the region, will be rolling out their next batch of ticket sales on November 1.
• Work continues on Gutenberg, with the latest update including significant updates to the Cover block and many other areas.
• The WordCamp Europe team have published an update about the Contributor Orientation tool they worked on earlier this year.
• The WordCamp US team has published the results of their Grow Your Meetup survey ahead of their 2019 event.
• The Theme Review Team is making plans to implement a curated page for displaying featured themes in the Theme Directory.

Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it here.

The third release candidate for WordPress 5.3 is now available!

WordPress 5.3 is currently scheduled to be released on November 12 2019, but we need your help to get there—if you haven’t tried 5.3 yet, now is the time!

There are two ways to test the WordPress 5.3 release candidate:

• Try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (choose the “bleeding edge nightlies” option)
• Or download the release candidate here (zip).

For details about what to expect in WordPress 5.3, please see the first and second release candidate posts.

Release Candidate 3 contains improvements to the new About page, bug fixes for the new default theme, Twenty Twenty (see #48450), and 9 fixes for the following bugs and regressions:

• Four bugs in the block editor have been fixed (see #48447).
• Three Date/Time related bugs have been fixed (see #48384).
• A regression in date_i18n() has been fixed (see #28636).
• An accessibility color contrast regression for primary buttons when using alternate admin color schemes was fixed (see #48396).

Plugin and Theme Developers

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.3 and update the Tested up to version in the readme to 5.3. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums so we can figure those out before the final release.

The WordPress 5.3 Field Guide has also been published, which details the major changes.

How to Help

Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.