#236 - Content-Creators Slack Channel, WP Hosting Survey, Repo Archived By Automattic

Issue #236 | September 9, 2025 | Reading time: 14 mins

Hello!

This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover the launch of a new content-creators Slack Channel for WordPress content creators to connect, the 2025 WordPress Hosting Survey, upcoming WooCommerce 10.2, Automattic archiving theme repository, new projects, and more.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

Introducing the #content-creators Slack channel

Anne McCarthy announced a new Slack channel, #content-creators, for WordPress content creators to connect, share feedback, learn about new features, and collaborate, with the goal of growing the community and improving WordPress content creation.

📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

2025 WordPress Hosting Survey

The annual 2025 WordPress Hosting Survey invites hosting providers to share their setups and practices, covering technology stacks, security, performance, support, and WordPress-specific features. The results, including raw data and insights, will inform updates to WordPress.org hosting recommendations. The survey is open to all providers until October 15, 2025.

WordPress now supports inline embedded images: SirLouen shared that WordPress now supports inline embedded images in emails via a new parameter.
Unpatched privilege escalation in Service Finder Bookings plugin: In versions 6.1 (latest) and below, the plugin is vulnerable to a Privilege Escalation, which allows any unauthenticated attacker to escalate their privilege to administrator or even log in as any user on the site.
WooCommerce 10.2: Pre-release updates: The version is scheduled to be released on September 16, 2025, and will bring in new features such as a new carousel layout for the Product Collection block, an improved cart block, improved taxonomy filters, and much more.
WooCommerce POS is now available: The team has launched a new point-of-sale solution for Woo merchants, accessible directly within the WooCommerce mobile app.
Are you a WordPresser?: Matt Mullenweg shared a fun post about what makes someone a “WordPresser”.
EU fines Google $3.5 billion over anti-competitive ad-tech business: The European Commission fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.45 billion) for its dominance and anti-competitive ad-tech business. The EU Commission accused Google of unfairly favoring its own display advertising technology services and told Google to end these practices.
Google quietly raised ad prices, court orders more transparency: Google raised ad prices incrementally through internal “pricing knobs” that advertisers couldn’t detect, according to federal court documents.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

MapSVG plugin has been acquired by Melograno network product line: The plugin originally created by Roman Stepanov allows users to create allows you to create interactive vector maps, floor plans, and image maps.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Underscores _s theme repository has been archived

Automattic has archived the starter theme repository, explaining that since they’ve been fully focused on Block Themes since 2020, they will no longer actively update the _s starter theme, and the repo will be archived for reference only.

The PHP Foundation announces official PHP SDK for MCP: The PHP Foundation, Anthropic’s MCP team, and Symfony are working together on this project. Also, Kyrian Obikwelu joined the maintainer team, bringing his previous experience and work on MCP libraries.
Automattic featured on the Forbes Cloud 100 list: Automattic is at the 71st spot among the top private cloud companies globally.
WP Agency Forum 2025 announced: This is an event created for web development agencies and professionals who offer WordPress-based services and are looking to grow in a structured, profitable, and long-term way. It’s co-organized by Modular DS and SiteGround Spain, with Weglot and Patchstack as sponsors.
WP Amelia 8.5 released: The update introduces smarter booking, enhanced security, and more control for users. Other additions include dynamic pricing, Google reCAPTCHA for logins, Mailchimp integration, improved form management, and flexible booking logic.
Tutor LMS v3.8.0 now available: This version introduces a new Gift Course feature, allowing users to send courses as gifts to others. The update also includes manual enrollment for subscription courses, improved admin navigation, and several fixes.
SureForms 1.12.0 launched: This update brings a brand-new Custom HTML field in SureForms, giving users more flexibility to add their own HTML inside forms.
The Simple Cloudflare Turnstile plugin has been renamed: Elliot Sowersby has renamed the plugin to Simple CAPTCHA Alternative with Cloudflare Turnstile after receiving a trademark violation email from WordPress.org a few weeks back.
James Kemp on improving product reviews in WooCommerce: He highlighted that currently, anyone can leave a review on any product, whether they’ve purchased it or not. To make reviews more reliable and helpful, he’s planning to add verification logic that ensures only customers who have actually bought the product can leave feedback. He’s asking for community feedback on this approach.
Katie Keith on website traffic from India traffic vs sales: Katie noticed that India is the second largest source of visitors to Barn2 Plugins, but ranks only 20th for sales. At WCUS 2025, she learned that many users in India don’t have access to credit cards or PayPal, and that while most have UPI but plugins such as Easy Digital Downloads and Stripe don’t support it and will need other plugins to support UPI. She asks if others have implemented UPI and seen improvements in conversions from India. She also raised the question of why WooCommerce isn’t included in BuiltWith’s eCommerce usage chart.
Lana Miro has left Crocoblock: She has left Crocoblock after four years and is moving on to new adventures.
Human Made is sponsoring Adam Silverstein: Human Made is sponsoring long-time WordPress core committer Adam Silverstein’s work to create a new feature, Block Commenting, aimed at enabling real-time collaboration.
Norah Betsy Namugwere receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community: Norah Betsy Namugwere, a member of the WordPress Community, is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care fund.

🚀 NEW PROJECTS

BlaBlaBlocks Formats: The plugin offers a collection of rich text formats for the WordPress block editor with interactive elements.
Big File Form Uploads has been released: Blake Whittle announced the release of Big File Form Uploads, a new add-on to the popular Big File Uploads plugin. It lets WordPress forms accept large files by using chunking technology, bypassing host upload limits.
ChangelogWP project launching soon: Co-founded by Ryan Logan and Derek Ashauer, the project, once launched, will be a centralized hub for changelogs within the WordPress ecosystem.
Bob’s Wild Pathways is now live: BobWP has launched a new project, and the first few episodes will explain what’s going on with this new adventure.
FormGent has been launched: A new form builder plugin, with features such as a drag and drop builder, AI-powered form creation, 20+ input fields, and many more.
Tabs add-on for Gravity Forms released: JetSloth has released a new add-on for Gravity Forms, called Tabs, that allows users to beautifully lay out forms with prebuilt designs and layout options.
SugarCart early access now available: David Michael has announced early access to SugarCart, a zero-platform-fee e-commerce plugin built for digital product sellers.
Fit To Width plugin: The plugin created by Kevin Batdorf allows users to display each line of text at full width, no matter the length of the text.
Fullworks Active Users Monitor: The plugin created by Alan Fuller provides administrators with real-time visibility of logged-in users on your WordPress site.
Chatics plugin: The plugin allows users to embed a beautiful and customizable chat widget on their WordPress website.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

The 5 best things about WordCamp US 2025: Tess Needham attended WordCamp US 2025 in Portland and highlighted her experience, including the diverse four-day program with contributor and presentation days, the engaging sponsor hall, and the city’s vibrant culture. From WordPress.com.
In conversation with Sandra Kurze: Sandra Kurze shares her journey as a musician and tech professional, discussing her career, passion for optimizing processes with AI at Greyd, love for travel, and commitment to family and wellness. She also reflects on the WordPress community and the importance of connecting with users. From Seriously, Bud?
Recommended books for business and beyond: Kurt and Toby discuss their favorite business and non-business books, exploring themes of leadership, project management, and the importance of community. From The WP Minute.
Destiny Kanno, Isotta Peira and Anand Upadhyay on how WordPress is shaping the future of education for students worldwide: The podcast discussed how WordPress is empowering students worldwide through hands-on workshops, student clubs, and the WordPress Credits program, helping learners gain practical skills and academic recognition while fostering community involvement in education. From WP Tavern Jukebox.
From Polish-only to bilingual: Lessons from WordCamp Gdynia: Maciek Palmowski reflects on co-organizing the first bilingual WordCamp in Poland, WordCamp Gdynia. He shares the challenges of shifting from a Polish-only event like location communication, multilingual website limitations, and attracting sponsors while highlighting the successes, including high-quality talk proposals, international attendees, and strong sponsor participation. From Maciek Palmowski.
Melapress WordPress Security Survey 2025 results: The results reveal that 96% of respondents have faced at least one security incident/event, and 64% have suffered a full breach. On average, respondents rate their security concerns at 7.8/10 and much more. From Melapress.
WordPress multisite vs multiple WordPress installations: How to choose: The post covers everything you need to know about WordPress multisite vs multiple WordPress installations, including the pros and cons of each approach, questions to help you choose, and some real-world examples of when to use each. From Kinsta.
Anatomy of a billion-download NPM supply-chain attack: A major supply chain attack compromised the NPM account of developer qix, resulting in malicious versions of popular packages like chalk being published. With over a billion weekly downloads affected, the malware targeted crypto wallets by swapping addresses. From Jan-David Stärk.
We’ve poisoned the well, and we can never make it pure again: Jamie Marsland reflects on how the release of ChatGPT has permanently blurred the line between human and AI-generated writing.

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

Working with WordPress templates: From WordPress.com
Implementing namespaces and coding standards in WordPress plugin development: From WordPress Developer Blog

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

LoopConf 2025 on September 25: The full schedule is now available.
WordCamp Gdynia 2025 on September 26–28: The tickets are now available, and the full schedule has also been published.
WP Suomi 2025 on October 10: The tickets are now available.
WordCamp Canada on October 16-17 2025: The call for sponsors is now open. The first round of the speaker list has been published, and the tickets are also now available.
WordCamp Nepal 2026 on January 23-24: The call for media partners is now open.
WordCamp Asia 2026 on April 9-11: The venue has been announced.
SomeConf 2026 on April 22-23: The tickets are now available.
Checkout Summit 2026 on April 23-24, 2026: The call for sponsors is now open.
WordCamp Europe 2026 on June 4-6: The call for organizers is now open.

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