Ad Astra
Community management of anything is a difficult process, from the always informative MasterWP weekly newsletter is a discussion on the Astra theme: “But, if you’d looked for Astra on WordPress.org at the weekend (or through your WordPress Dashboard), you wouldn’t have seen it: the theme review team temporarily removed Astra after it fell foul of a requirement that themes can’t have affiliate links.” And just a little more from Alex Denning, “As I understand there’s no “appeals process”, but Astra has now been re-added to WordPress.org.”
We’re in the pipe, five by five
We’re not talking about landing on LV-426 but the release of WordPress 5.5 is definitely something to talk about loud and clear. There are improvements in block editing but it’s the automattic (see what I did there) stuff that occurs will be of most use and/or frustration. Automatic updates, automatic lazy loading, automatic sitemap XML. I could have easily called this Automatic for the People.
Not hip to be Square
Our friends at Torque take on the discussion of WordPress vs Squarespace in “Why You Should Build Your Blog on WordPress vs. Squarespace.” Devin Partida hits all the high notes and ends with the oft and very valid refrain: “WordPress is more customizable and is backed by a community who is ready to help you at any minute.” Can this argument and points be applied to Shopify and Wix? Of course but there is a reason these SaaS platform are so successful. Just insanely easy and intuitive, and it’s hard to make the longterm benefits case to people who just need and want a site up and one head to kick if there are issues.