Monthly Archives: December 2025

Kel Santiago-Pilarski 5:34 am on December 20, 2025
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Project Thread: Contributor Dashboard Pilot Project

A Contributor Dashboard Pilot is underway within the WordPress project, building on previous community work, and responding to long-standing requests from the community for better visibility into contributor journeys – how people join, participate, and grow across Make teams.

Contribution activity, especially non-code work is spread across many tools and systems. This makes it difficult to recognize contributors, understand engagement over time, and identify where support is needed.

Project Status

This project is currently in the active pilot development phase, led by @felipevelzani, @unintended8 and @kel-dc.

A limited multi-team pilot launch is planned for the end of February 2026. This project thread will be updated as work progresses.

What We’re Building

We’re building a Contributor Dashboard that maps contributor activity across teams into a shared Contributor Ladder framework:

Connect → Contribute → Engage → Perform → Lead

The ladder is behavior-based and describes patterns of participation over time. It does not rank contributors or imply that some contributions matter more than others. All contribution types and all contributors matter.

The goal is to help teams understand participation patterns, identify where support may be needed, and improve contributor experiences over time.

Why We’re Doing This

The project addresses several challenges across the project:

  • Contribution activity is scattered or not tracked
  • Non-code contributions often lack visibility
  • Teams have limited insight into how contributors progress over time
  • Cross-team onboarding, retention, and engagement patterns are difficult to assess

How We’ll Build the Pilot Dashboard

For the pilot, we’re taking a multi-team approach using a custom pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party that maps existing contribution activity from WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ systems to ladder stages. This activity-based approach allows us to validate the model, identify data gaps, and gather cross-team insights without introducing new infrastructure or requirements for contributors.

Additional technical details and implementation notes are documented in the project’s public reference materials.  

Scope and Data

This pilot starts intentionally small and focuses on a limited set of existing contribution signals to test the dashboard and ladder approach. It does not aim to capture 100% of all contributions across Make teams.

The pilot does not replace or change Five for the Future, contributor recognition programs, or existing team processes, and it introduces no new requirements for contributors or Make teams.

Contributor privacy is a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. consideration. The dashboard uses existing WordPress.org accounts and activity data, does not display personal or sensitive information, and does not create new contributor profiles.

Hosting

  • The pilot dashboard will be hosted on Pressable to support development, testing, and iteration during the pilot phase, with the intention of moving to WordPress.org infrastructure in a future phase.
  • The custom plugin is designed to work within existing WordPress.org MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. systems and data constraints, without introducing new external dependencies.

Timeline & Milestones

• January–February 2026: Implementation, testing, and review  

• End of February 2026: Pilot launch

How to Get Involved

We’re looking for contributors to help bring this pilot to life and welcome collaboration from across Make teams. For this pilot, we’re especially looking for contributors who can help with the following: 

  • Building and improving the dashboard and plugin
  • Reviewing and validating contribution signals and ladder mappings
  • Testing the dashboard experience and reviewing insights
  • Helping iterate on documentation and communication as the pilot evolves

If you’re interested in getting involved:

We welcome ideas and participation from all Make teams and contributors during the pilot and as the project evolves. Community input will help inform iteration and improvements, while the pilot proceeds unless material concerns are raised around privacy, security, or alignment with WordPress project values.

Props @4thhubbard for post review.

Jonathan Desrosiers 9:30 pm on December 18, 2025  

Proposal: 2026 Major Release Schedule

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect and start thinking about what the major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality. schedule for the 2026 calendar year will be. This year, the community came together and published two fantastic new major versions of WordPress to the world: 6.8 “Cecil” in April and 6.9 “Gene” in December.

While 2025 saw just two releases, the goal is to return to 3 major releases in 2026 (roughly one every 4 months).

This cadence has proven to effectively balance the many different factors at play within the global contributor community. The 4 month release cycle also:

  • Is long enough to build out quality new features for each release.
  • Is short enough to encourage shipping iteratively rather than pursuing perfect software (release early, release often).
  • Allows for 1-3 minor releases in between when following a 6-8 week timeline.

2026 Schedule (Proposed)

Using the ideal 4 month spacing between each release and making efforts to avoid major holidays, the final release dates for the next three releases fall within close proximity to a few prominent in-person WordPress events for 2026.

Following the successful live release of 6.9 during State of the Word earlier in December, the schedule below was created to continue trying out this model.

WordPress 7.0 – Thursday, April 9th

To start off the year, 7.0 is targeted for release during Contributor Day of WordCamp Asia. This creates some unique and exciting teaching opportunities! Newer contributors can observe the release process live to learn about how to contribute, or even participate in the release process, pitching in to help ship a version to WordPress to the world on their first day contributing.

Important dates

  • BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1: Thursday, February 19, 2026
  • RC1: Thursday, March 19, 2026

WordPress 7.1 – Wednesday, August 19th

This date for the public release of 7.1 coincides with the final day of WordCamp US. WCUS begins on a Sunday and ends on a Wednesday, which makes the final day more suitable for a release.

Important dates

  • Beta 1: Wednesday, July 1, 2026
  • RC1: Wednesday, July 29, 2026

WordPress 7.2 – December 8th, 9th, or 10th

To round out 2026, the community can celebrate the year’s accomplishments by releasing 7.2 on or around the annual State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/. address.

Important dates

  • Beta 1: October 20-22, 2026
  • RC1: November 17-19, 2026

A Few Notes

  • A call for volunteers interested in serving on the 7.0 Release Squad will be published the week of January 4th. If you are interested, please keep an eye on Make WordPress Core or subscribe for updates via email in the site’s sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme..
  • While the releases are lining up with in-person events, there is no requirement to travel in order to be on a release squad. All communication and coordination will continue to happen in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/..
  • A healthy balance between in-person and distributed contributors on release day is actually preferred. This helps ensure that any unexpected technical issues such as poor/unavailable WiFi do not result in a delayed release.
  • The spacing between the three flagship WordCamps in 2026 presents a strong opportunity to be intentional with release timing. With the proposed April 9th date for 7.0, moving straight into the 7.1 cycle would significantly compress the alpha period for feature work. The eight-week window between WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia & WordCamp Europe is an excellent fit for a minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality., which could help to deliver meaningful improvements with confidence and adequate breathing room.
  • During the 6.9 dry run and final release, contributors identified several opportunities to improve the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. handbook, especially the pages aimed at documenting the release practices and processes. The live release of 6.9 notably shined a light on areas that require clarification to ensure both in-person and distributed contributor groups can synchronously collaborate more transparently and effectively. These will be collected and shared in a separate Make Core post in January.
  • The WordPress 7.2 date is the least flexible of the three with earlier dates encroaching on the major global financial holidays of Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Giving Tuesday, and later dates getting too close to major religious holidays and end of year time off.
  • Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday have historically been considered unsuitable for a release to avoid spoiling weekends of those who use, build with, maintain, or support anyone with a WordPress site.

Discussion & Feedback

As always, the dates above are being proposed to allow contributors to begin planning for the rough timing of each of the 3 releases in 2026. There is some flexibility to make adjustments if necessary based on community feedback or factors that were not considered.

Do you have questions or thoughts about the release schedule as proposed? Ideas for ways to improve the Core Handbook or the release process itself? Or maybe a specific feature that you’re most looking forward to in 2026? Share them below and join the conversation.

Props @annezazu, @jorbin AND @4thhubbard for helping to narrow down possible dates and/or reviewing this post.