Chris Wiegman
This has been a hard post for me to write after participating in WordPress since before I even started a career in tech and, until 3 months ago, for my entire tech career. That said, it has been in the making for quite a while now and it is time that I make it official.
I’ve officially left the WordPress project after 14+ years of contributing including:
- Meetup and WordCamp Speaker
- Meetup and WordCamp Organizer
- Core code contributor
- Plugin developer
- Photo contributor
- Over 11 years as mostly the sole moderator for the official WordPress jobs site
Why leave now?
It’s true that I had largely been moving away from the WordPress project since at least 2017. I think that is when I realized just how dishonest so much of the “community” around WordPress really is.
I’ve watched people pour their lives into giving back only to have it all tossed out because their important work isn’t what Matt wanted people to focus on.
I’ve watched good people try to make the community stronger and protect users by contributing to privacy, accessibility, governance and so many more vital areas only to, not only have their contributions ignored, but to see the contributors themselves abused and pushed out of the community entirely for their basic advocacy.
I’ve watched WordPress company after WordPress company claim to be “better” in how it treats its people. The truth is nearly all of them used WordPress’ virtues as an excuse to under pay people and abuse them. From some of the most respected product companies to some of the most prominent agencies I’ve watched them chew up good people with threats that they “aren’t good enough to leave” and similar to continue to justify low pay and benefits.
I’ve watched a full cult form around Automattic, the company behind wordpress.com. In 2014 I even applied to work there but by that point I was already at a stage where I didn’t trust the org due to abuse I had seen a friend go through. I confess I took the paid trial but I intentionally did not take it seriously and I accepted another role before the trial started. All that is to say, Automattic was never honest about who it is so I really didn’t feel too bad at the time about going through such motions. They had the chance to change my mind then but that not only didn’t happen but the whole experience instead lowered my respect for the org even further.
The list goes on and on but WordPress was never an honest community, yet I stayed, for far too long.
I joined WP Engine in 2018 because it was the one company that really did seem to be honest about who they were. Like every other company they were in it to make money, but unlike every other company they didn’t hide that fact behind abusive language. They didn’t claim I was “family.” They didn’t claim their work was virtuous and therefore somehow “better” than non-WordPress orgs. No, they said they wanted to be the biggest host and went after that with the best pay I saw in the WordPress ecosystem and interesting work on top of it.
I left WP Engine in July of this year for a lot of reasons, but I don’t regret why I joined them. I stand by the fact that they were the most honest company in WordPress, an ecosystem where honesty is often harder to come by than in any other I’ve worked in.
The current WordPress implosion
So that brings us to the current WordPress drama implosion. There are plenty of folks writing the timeline of events of what is going on. That isn’t why I’m writing this post. That said, up until September I was happily still working on Kana, my WordPress development environment, and exploring a few plugin ideas I’ve had, even if WordPress isn’t the best tool for blogging anymore.
I can’t do it anymore.
The utter hypocrisy of Matt Mullenweg’s actions isn’t really unsurprising to anyone who has watched Automattic for the last decade or more but it is my final straw. Yes, I should’ve left earlier when I saw friends hurt. Somehow I guess I always thought my actions would somehow help the situation. It was a naive position, I now realize.
I won’t say WP Engine is blameless in the wider world of WordPress and open source, I didn’t leave there on a whim after all. The nature of the attack on them now, however, is beyond the pale. It finally shows the world what WordPress really is, an abusive, predatory organization/community lying about its virtues to abuse other companies and organizations in an effort to get free work.
The truth is that WordPress is, at best, past its peak and we’re going to see more fights between the companies in its orbit as they each battle for a larger slice of a shrinking pie. That isn’t something anyone can change with its current leadership and project structure.
So Long WordPress
With this action I finally see that there is no helping the situation and I fear that my continued involvement can only serve to signal to others that their own work and efforts are both safe and worthwhile. They are neither. I won’t be responsible for leading good people to an abusive ecosystem.
With this I’ve archived my last remaining WordPress projects, Kana and the theme for this site, until such a time as there is proper governance in the WordPress project. I’ve also stepped back and will no longer contribute to Meetups or other WordPress events (something I was excited about rejoining just this past summer). I’ve even stopped moderating jobs.wordpress.net, something I had done almost daily since the summer of 2013.
Should the project find new life, preferably with lesser ambitions than a huge share of the whole internet, and competent governance in the spirit of the virtues it claims to represent I will rethink my position. For now, however, So Long WordPress, and thanks for all the fish.
A note to the many good people still in WordPress
Finally, a note to the many good people still working in WordPress:
Thank you, all of you, for the years of conversation and support. While I speak of WordPress as a whole there are many of you both individually and in smaller communities that have done so much for the people in WordPress. I look forward to continuing conversations and support for your work in the future, regardless of where we all wind up.
I do, however, ask that you please consider the effects your actions have on others and be careful not to lead new victims to future abuse.