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#262 – Featured Plugins Experiment, Contributor Dashboard Pilot, Call for Testers, Black Friday 2025 and WP Agency Surveys

Issue #262   |   March 10, 2026   |   Reading time: 21 mins

Hello!

This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover the featured plugins experiment, the Contributor Dashboard Pilot, 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.

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See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

Nick Hamze shares a WordPress.org initiative to highlight newer, high-quality plugins with limited visibility. Eligible plugins have fewer than 10,000 active installs, are under 12 months old, have no open security vulnerabilities, are compatible with the latest WordPress release, and have been updated within the last 6 months.

Eight plugins are selected every two weeks based on technical standards, ecosystem fit, and developer engagement, with the process tracked openly and feedback welcomed via #featuredplugins Slack channel.

📰  WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

The WordPress Contributor Dashboard pilot is now live, mapping contributor activity across Make WordPress teams into a contributor ladder framework. The dashboard is intended to help the community better understand how contributors get involved and grow over time.

🔧 TIP OF THE WEEK
Avoid WP_Query When You Can

WP_Query is powerful—but it’s also heavy. Many themes rely on it even when simpler, faster tools are available. Reducing unnecessary queries keeps your site fast and reduces database load.

Use Lightweight Alternatives

Instead of spinning up new queries everywhere, try:

1. get_posts()

   A simpler, lighter version of WP_Query—perfect for basic lists.

2. pre_get_posts

   Modify the main query instead of creating additional ones.

3. Use ACF Relationship Fields

    Fetch related posts without running custom queries at all.

Always Reset After Custom Loops

If you do use a custom query, clean up properly:

wp_reset_postdata();

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

The survey by WP BizDev aims to gather insights from WordPress businesses about what worked and what didn’t during their Black Friday 2025 campaigns. The survey is open until March 20, and participants who complete it have a chance to win a Partner Membership worth $199.

  • 2026 WordPress Agency Survey by The Admin Bar: The survey is in its 5th year, and invites WordPress agencies and freelancers to share anonymous insights about their businesses. The short survey gathers data on revenue, pricing, services, growth, and the impact of AI, with the full results later released to the community.
  • Checkout Summit 2026 Founding Contributor initiative: Contributors receive recognition on the website, including their Gravatar and a dofollow link, along with event credit worth double their contribution for the next summit.
  • Web Agency Summit 2026 registrations now open: The registrations for the four-day event scheduled for April 27 – 30, 2026, is now open and is comeptlely free.
  • WordCamp Asia 2026 has announced the seventh round of speakers: The speakers are Chiharu Nagatomi (mgn Co. Ltd), Chirag Patel (Multidots Inc.), Fumiki Takahashi (Tarosky Inc), and Mayur Keshwani (Multidots Inc.).The YouthCamp registrations are also now open. The official Wapuu has been revealed, named Wapuulika. Along with this, the YouthCamp Wapuu has also been showcased, and both were designed by Arundhati Kane. The team has also published a guide to help attendees get SIM cards, internet connectivity, and UPI payments set up in India.
  • Yoast SEO Schema Aggregation launched: Built in collaboration with NLWeb, this is a new opt-in feature that organizes your website’s structured data into a single, connected schema map, making it easier for search engines and AI agents to understand your content.
  • Advanced Forms for ACF version 1.9.3.7 released: This update adds a copy-to-clipboard button for quickly copying form shortcodes and includes a Pro fix for an ACF 6.7+ compatibility issue that caused HTML in integration field labels to display incorrectly.
  • Accessibility Checker v1.38.0 released: This version introduces a new Block Editor sidebar that displays accessibility scan results, issues, and quick navigation tools. It also improves issue management with clearer labels, reasons for dismissing issues, and the ability to reopen them, along with visual enhancements, terminology updates, and several bug fixes and stability improvements.
  • Highlight and Share v6.0.0 now available: This version reorganizes the Sharing tab, adds a global save bar, per-post highlight and share controls, and so on.
  • Caddy 3.0 launched: This release is a major rewrite, introducing faster and more reactive cart updates using the WordPress Interactivity API and WooCommerce Store API while removing the jQuery dependency. It also includes performance improvements, better compatibility with themes and checkout plugins, and more.
  • Jetpack 15.6 released: This release includes customizable posts for each social network, AI-powered image generation, a redesigned preview modal showing exactly how content will appear, a unified sharing history, and a pre-publish confirmation to catch errors before posting.
  • FlowMattic 6.0 now live: This update brings AI Agents for intelligent workflows, a MCP Client to connect with any external tools, new core modules, and so on.
  • IvyForms 0.9 is here: The update includes customizable rating fields for structured feedback, a new HTML field, and several more practical upgrades.
  • FluentCRM 3.0 Beta is now available: This introduces a built-in SMS marketing, a refreshed UI, a Gutenberg-native email builder, transition to Vue 3, and so on.
  • Introducing Brizy AI for WordPress: Brizy AI is now integrated into WordPress, allowing users to generate website layouts or full sites directly from the dashboard.
  • Open Channels.fm has launched a new YouTube channel and two new newsletter: Bob Dunn has announced the launch of a new Open Channels FM YouTube channel featuring video episodes, shorts, and curated “Open Clips,” along with two newsletters. BackTalk, which highlights memorable quotes and insights from past conversations, and Open Channels Rewind, a weekly recap of the network’s content.
  • WPZOOM User History is now available in the plugin repository: It tracks all changes made to user profiles and displays a complete history log on the user edit page.
  • Different Domain per Language add-on for Translate Press: This add-on allows users to assign unique domains or subdomains to each language on your multilingual WordPress site.
  • Testers needed for Blueprint Exporter plugin: Ciprian Popescu is looking for testers to test out the plugin, which allows users to export your WordPress site configuration as a WordPress Playground Blueprint JSON file.
  • Updating extended providers experiments in the WordPress AI plugin: James LePage shares that he’s working on updating it to add many additional connectors.
  • MinimalCMS: A lightweight, flat-file CMS inspired by WordPress architecture. No database required, and content lives in Markdown files, configuration in JSON.
  • RFP Pre-Qualifier Skill for Claude desktop: It helps agency owners and account managers quickly score inbound RFPs, flag red flags, and avoid wasting time on projects that aren’t a fit.
  • FontCrafter: The tool by Chris Pirillo allows you to create your own handwriting font in the browser for free.
  • Satyam Vishwakarma reflects on six years with WordPress: This month marks six years since he started using WordPress, and he shared the journey that took him from experimenting with websites in a small town to building a career in the WordPress ecosystem.
  • Jamie Marsland wonders if block themes are still too complex: Comparing adoption rates between Ollie and Kadence, he wonders whether slower growth for block themes signals that the new approach hasn’t fully resonated with the broader WordPress community.
  • Elementor is now sponsoring David Levine: He is being sponsored to contribute to the WordPress Core AI team.
  • Pavel Ciorici conducted a poll on WordPress team growth: The results revealed that 27.1% reduced team size, 28% stayed the same, 6.8% grew the team, and 38% are solo.
  • Claude for Open Source: Lydia Hallie announced that Claude is providing six months of free Claude Max 20x access to open source maintainers and core contributors. Matt Mullenweg also commented and highlighted that he applied for WordPress and can point to the top 10 volunteer contributors who could benefit.
  • Bluesky leadership transition: Jay Graber announced she is stepping down as CEO of Bluesky to become the Chief Innovation Officer. Toni Schneider, former CEO of Automattic and partner at True Ventures, will serve as interim CEO while the company searches for a chief executive.
🚀 NEW PROJECTS
“I tried to make AI image generation and editing feel like part of WordPress core.“

Balazs Piller about creating the WP Banana.
  • WP Banana: The plugin by Balazs Piller allows users to generate and edit images with AI, right inside your WordPress admin.
  • InstaWP CLI: This lets you create WordPress sites, sync files and databases, run remote WP-CLI commands, and integrate with AI agents. Interested folks can contact Vikas Singhal for early access.
  • MCP WPDB: Developed by Brad Vincent, this adds read-only DB query and schema inspection tools to the MCP Adapter plugin.
  • Excerpt Check: The plugin by Tom McFarlin prompts authors to add an excerpt before publishing or scheduling a WordPress post.
  • WebberZone Link Warnings: The plugin alerts users when a link opens in a new tab or leads to an external site using inline indicators, confirmation modals, or redirect screens.
  • WP Astro MCP: Developed by Varun Dubey, this is an MCP server for migrating WordPress sites to Astro.
  • Local-wp-cli: A Claude Code skill by Aslam Doctor that lets you run WP-CLI commands against any Local by Flywheel site directly from Claude Code.
  • SureCookie: An upcoming cookie consent manager plugin, and interested folks can sign up for early access now.
  • Activity Log: The plugin tracks user logins and logouts, content changes (posts, pages, media), plugin and theme events, comment activity, taxonomy changes, menu updates, and critical WordPress settings modifications.
  • CuraMedix: A lightweight, responsive WordPress theme designed by Tarek Reza for clinics, hospitals, and healthcare professionals.
  • Tufte Blocks: A WordPress block theme by Derek Hanson that is inspired by Edward Tufte’s design principles. Typography-first, with generous margins, ET Book serif type, and minimal ornamentation. Derek also shared the story of shipping Tufte Blocks.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

  • Matt Mullenweg recounted a sophisticated phishing attempt that nearly compromised his Apple account.
  • On this episode of Seriously, Bud?, Rodolfo Melogli shares his journey from civil engineer to WooCommerce expert, his digital nomad experience, and his new venture, The Checkout Summit.
  • Kurt and Toby discuss the importance of continually reassessing business focus, balancing work with family life, and navigating client expectations on The WP Minute’s Agency Action podcast.
  • Rob Ruiz, on this episode of WP Tavern Jukebox, talks about WP Rig, his journey from designer to WordPress theme architect, and how this modern, open-source toolkit is shaping the future of theme development for both new and experienced developers.
  • In this WP Product Talk, Nick Hamze joins Matt Cromwell and Ian Misner to unpack how the Featured Plugin experiment came together, what the selection criteria looks like, and why this kind of in-dashboard discovery is one of the highest-leverage changes WordPress can make for small plugin makers.
  • Satyam Vishwakarma recapped his experience at WordCamp Bhopal 2025, sharing highlights from the two days, followed by his travel experiences after the event.
  • Brandon Dove explained that instead of using a SEO plugin like Yoast or Rank Math, he built a 463-line mu-plugin to handle exactly what the site needed, meta descriptions, Open Graph tags, Twitter cards, and JSON-LD structured data.
  • Carrie Dils shares her journey building the FAIR Package Manager, and despite adoption challenges, the project succeeded technically, fostered valuable collaborations, and continues to have potential beyond WordPress.
  • Mika Epstein discussed the release of FAIR 1.3, recent leadership changes, and the challenges the project faces, including limited support from large ecosystem players.
  • Chris Lema explained why he is moving his personal website from WordPress to an Astro + Payload CMS setup after more than 20 years.
  • Abhishek Deshpande shared how he gave his mu-plugins folder to Claude Code and asked it to clean it up. Claude Code turned it into a structured plugin, prompting him to revive his 16-year-old plugin WP Avoid Slow as “The Off Switch.”
  • Jonathan Bossenger explored WordPress 7.0 Beta 2, highlighting the WP AI Client integration and the new Connectors settings page for adding AI providers.
  • Anne McCarthy shared updates on improvements to Notes features that didn’t make it into WordPress 7.0, including experiments with hiding notes on the canvas, adding filters, and introducing a compact view.
  • Marko Ivanovic, Noam Almosnino, and Nick Hamze share their experiments with Telex, an AI tool from Automattic that can generate WordPress blocks from simple prompts.
  • GoDaddy’s recent survey of web designers and developers highlights key trends shaping the industry, from WordPress’s continued dominance and the rise of recurring revenue to how professionals are using AI.
  • Jake Ludington walks through accessibility audits from what’s included and who’s involved, to audit outputs, CMS integration, and making accessibility an ongoing practice.
  • Verdi Heinz shared Toine Rademacher’s journey from attendee to volunteer at WordCamp Netherlands 2025.
  • Rand Fishkin’s new research shows that search now happens across many platforms, not just traditional search engines.

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

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This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by awesome WordPress Companies 🦸‍♂️🙌

ProfilePress – Create membership sites & sell subscriptions on WordPress Check it out  →

Create a career page and start recruiting talents in a few minutes Check it out  →

Last but not least, updates from WP-CONTENT.CO 👇

WordPress 7.0 Expected New Features and Changes

WordPress 7.0 will be the first major release of 2026, scheduled for release on April 9, 2026, live…

Read more

WordPress Contributor Dashboard Pilot Launched

The WordPress Contributor Dashboard pilot is now live, mapping contributor activity across Make WordPress teams into a contributor…

Read more

Patchstack State of WordPress Security In 2026 Report Reveals Vulnerabilities Up by 42%, Hosting Defenses Block Only a Fraction of Exploits   

State of WordPress Security In 2026 report by Patchstack in partnership with Monrax reveals that a total of…

Read more

Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi Step Back from FAIR as Project Shifts Focus to TYPO3

Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi, co-founders of FAIR, announced that they are stepping back from the FAIR…

Read more

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

Issue #262   |   March 10, 2026   |   Reading time: 21 mins

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by ProfilePress, and WP Job Openings

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