WordPress bans: A story about caring

I got an email from WordPress.org yesterday.

We are writing to inform you that your WordPress.org and Slack accounts have been unblocked following a recent review. This review was conducted as part of our continuous efforts to maintain a healthy and inclusive community where everyone is treated fairly and can engage positively.

I laughed. My WordPress Slack account was blocked in October 2024. I almost exclusively lurked in that Slack, sending the occasional private message. Despite that, I know what I did. I clicked a "thumbs-down" emoji as a reaction to one of Matt's messages.

Which one? No idea. It could have been any number of messages. For nearly a year, so many of them have been un-hinged nonsense. So, for the sake of guessing, it was something posted last October.

What I learned from the ban

Nothing.

Ok. That is not entirely true. What is true is that I did not care. I sent WordPress an email to ask what happened, solely because I was in the middle of a DM conversation with someone. The ban interrupted us. Otherwise, who cares? I deleted that workspace from my Slack app and forgot about the whole thing. That is, until yesterday's email.

Back to what I learned. I learned that I do not care about WordPress. At least, not as a technology. That surprised me, because up until very recently, I loved WordPress. It consumed nearly all of my development life. I customized Gutenberg blocks and the post editor in general at work. I published custom plugins outside of work. I spoke at conferences about the cool (and occasionally weird) things I did with WordPress.

But right now, I happen to be at a turning point in my career. I was burnt out as a developer and needed something to change. After a lengthy search, I landed in my current role. This role mostly consists of researching and writing stories, and making those stories engaging and accessible. The fact that I know how to write code comes in handy, but it is no longer the focus of my career.

This career shift has been a breath of fresh air. Air that made me realize something important, between this new focus at work and everything that is happening in the WordPress universe.

I can tell these stories anywhere.

Choices

My current employer primarily uses WordPress. Whether or not that will ever change is not something I have either knowledge of or power over. But, theoretically, I can do my core job using anything. Wordpress. Drupal. Static HTML and CSS. Paper and crayons.

Ok, maybe not that last one, but you get the point.

WordPress, along with every other CMS, is a means to an end. The goal is to create a manageable and beautiful website that engages users in whatever way makes sense.^[1] Sometimes, WordPress is the best choice. Sometimes, something else is best.

It is important to realize that WordPress is not the only choice. For many, WordPress is the only choice by default, because we have lived in the WordPress universe for a long time. It can be hard to think about anything else. WordPress becomes comfortable. You just get used to it, like the pile of pillows in the middle of your living room that your 6 year-old stacked one day and declared it to be her spot.^[2]

For me, I have to adhere to the platform that my organization uses and that is WordPress. However, in a vacuum, I don't know if I would make the same choice. Because...

I can tell these stories anywhere.

I can research, write, and engage on any platform. That is a privilege I have, largely because of my background. As a developer – even one who has spent so much time with WordPress – I have the skills to create web content on something that is not WordPress. I can publish using another CMS. Or I can opt to not use a CMS at all and create a static site.^[3]

This privilege lets me critically think about whether or not I care about using WordPress. I can honestly say I do not.^[4] That realization makes me sad, because I loved WordPress up until late last year. I still have a nostalgic soft spot for its technology. I grew more than I imagined as a developer over the last 9 years. I have stories about using Gutenberg, even before WordPress 5.0 was released, but that is extremely off-topic here. However, I am at a point where I am tired of drama and WordPress, at least the leadership, is not helping.

So, thank you WordPress for unblocking me, but it never really mattered anyway.

P.S. I highly recommend Chris Reynolds' article What does it feel like to be banned from WordPress? I’ll tell you , which inspired me to write this article.