Issue 1 · June 2026
Hey folks,
This is the first WPFolks newsletter. It will land in your inbox once a month with what’s happening on the platform, the upcoming Folks Academy sessions worth showing up for, and a short digest of what’s going on across the WordPress world.
May was a big month. Folks Academy went live on WordPress’s 23rd birthday. The leaderboard now has Impact and Total tabs so real wp.org contributors get the recognition the previous setup buried. 73 folks here got credited on the WordPress 7.0 release. And we crossed 782 folks in the directory.
No fluff, no marketing language. Just the things worth knowing, in one short monthly read.
If you have feedback on what should be in here, hit reply or write to hello@wpfolks.org. I read every email.
— Ankit
What shipped this month
Folks Academy launched on May 27 — WordPress’s 23rd birthday. Free live sessions hosted by community speakers, recorded, then archived. 30 contribution tracks open today, from Translation and Core to Photos, Playground, and Openverse. Anyone can host. Anyone can attend.
Leaderboard split into Impact and Total tabs — Impact ranks folks by wp.org contribution quality plus on-site engagement together, so real WordPress contributors outrank score farmers. Total stays as a pure activity rank. Alkesh Miyani currently holds the all-time top spot with 16 plugins and 11.8k+ active installs.
73 folks here shipped WordPress 7.0 — WordPress 7.0 dropped on May 20. 73 of the 904 contributors credited in the release are folks on this platform. Link your wp.org profile in settings and the Core Shipper badge lands automatically with your full version history.
Engineering badges, auto-awarded from GitHub — Connect GitHub on your settings page and the system reads your public repos. CI/CD Enabled, Modern PHP, WPCS Compliant, Security Audit Clean, Tested on PHP 8.3+, Static Analysis, and High Test Coverage all award themselves. Real signals from real code, no self-reporting.
Two WordPress birthday meetups sponsored — WPFolks was the Community Sponsor for the Ahmedabad WP Birthday meetup and the Headline Sponsor for the Surat WP Birthday meetup. The Uganda Website Projects Competition on June 9 is up next.
Featured Event block on the homepage — The next big WordCamp now sits at the top of the page on every visit. Live countdown, attendee count, and folks from your network surfaced first. Right now it’s pointing at WordCamp Europe in Kraków — four folks from here are already heading.
Upcoming Folks Academy sessions
AMA: WP.org Plugin Submission and Contribution
Fri, Jun 5 · 1:00 pm UTC — with Mehul Gohil
The first live Academy session. Bring your questions about getting a plugin reviewed, approved, and indexed on wp.org. Live Q&A with someone who has been through it.
Theme Submission on WP.org
Sat, Jun 6 · 5:30 am UTC — with Darshit Rajyaguru
Walks through preparing a theme for the wp.org review queue. Common review-team rejections, what trips up first submissions, and how to ship the second version cleaner.
Translation Contribution on wp.org
Sat, Jun 6 · 11:00 am UTC — with Darshit Rajyaguru
The simplest, lowest-friction way to ship your first wp.org contribution. We’ll translate strings live, walk through Translation Editor permissions, and earn your first Translation track badge in the session.
See the full schedule at wpfolks.org/academy/calendar, or propose a session.
WPFolks right now
- 782 total folks on the platform
- 635 plugins shared on WPFolks
- 406 wp.org plugins maintained by folks here
- 73 folks credited in WordPress 7.0
- 3 Academy sessions in the next week
- 30 contribution tracks open in the Academy
Featured folks this month
Alkesh Miyani — @miyanialkesh7 All-time top contributor. 16 wp.org plugins with 11.8k+ active installs, 9 badges, and 10 folks invited to WPFolks. The current score to beat is 821.
Darshit Rajyaguru — @darshitrajyaguru Hosting two of the first three Academy sessions: Theme Submission and Translation Contribution. WordPress 7.0 contributor, 11 badges, ranked #2 on the all-time leaderboard.
Mehul Gohil — @mehulgohil Hosting the very first Folks Academy session, the wp.org Plugin Submission AMA on June 5. Also runs ThemeRouter and is currently offering 40% off all plans to folks here.
Ronald Huereca — @ronaldhuereca Writer and software engineer with roots at iThemes and 10up. 15 plugins on wp.org with 380.2k+ active installs. Held the top contributor spot for April 2026.
What folks shipped this week
Hand-picked from the last seven days on the platform.
- Plugin — Rank Bix SEO by Sumit Singh
- Theme — UpFront by Krupal Panchal
- Snippet — MemberPress: Disable the Default WordPress Password Reset Link E-Mail by Divyesh Kakrecha
- Idea — HTML5 Instant Game Builder for WordPress by Darshan Chauhan
- Resource — Mastering WordPress Plugin SVN Upload: An In-Depth Beginner’s Guide by Ankit Panchal
From the WordPress world
WordPress 7.0 shipped on May 20 — The biggest release since Gutenberg. Native AI Client API in core with pre-registered connectors for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. New DataViews replaces the old list tables. 904 contributors credited; 73 of them are folks here.
WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków, June 4–6 — 3,000+ attendees expected. 49 talks and workshops. Matt Mullenweg closes the event with a look at where WordPress and the open web go next. CERN will share how they’re moving 800+ sites onto a customized WordPress.
Real-time collaboration pulled from 7.0 — The headline collab feature was cut on May 8 after race conditions and memory issues showed up under concurrent load. The block-level Notes system shipped instead — covers most of what editorial teams actually need day-to-day.
Gutenberg 23.1 released with grid package and image editor — A new @wordpress/grid package landed for consistent grid UIs, plus an experimental image editor modal with freeform cropping for Image and Site Logo blocks. Early work on a Content Types system also started.
What’s new for developers (May 2026) — The dev news roundup covers the new AI Client API, the DataViews migration path, and the new block APIs introduced in 7.0. Worth a scan before WordCamp Europe so the hallway conversations make sense.
Coming next month
Hire Mode — A discoverable “available for work” view for folks who want to be found by clients and agencies. Filter the directory by availability, skills, and timezone. Clients can reach out without signing up first.
More Academy sessions — Schedule fills out as speakers confirm through June and July. 30 contribution tracks are open: Core, Docs, Design, Accessibility, Photos, Playground, Openverse, and more. Reply to this email if you want to host one.
Sponsorship is open
WPFolks is free forever, and it stays that way because of sponsors. A third of every sponsorship goes straight to the Community Fund — sending folks to WordCamps, sponsoring meetups, and backing community gatherings worldwide.
Founding · $500 / year Renewal price stays $500 every year, never goes up. Gold “Founding Sponsor” badge that no future tier can earn. Listed first on the sponsors page above everyone who joins later. Tier retires 3 months after launch.
Community · $1,500 / year Logo on the homepage and in every weekly digest. Sponsor badge on every team member’s profile. A sponsored post a month on the community feed.
Feature · $3,000 / year Own one feature permanently: Folks Academy, Folks TV, Plugin Directory, Job Board, Events Hub, Leaderboard, Deals Board, or Resource Library. Shown as “powered by [Company]” every time a folk uses it.
Featured Deal · $150 / week Your deal pinned at the top of the Deals board for a week. Click tracking, verified badge, and a slot in that week’s digest. No annual commitment.
Reserve your spot → — or email sponsors@wpfolks.org.
One ask
We’re at 782 folks. 218 more and we hit four digits. If you know someone in the WordPress community who’d find WPFolks useful, share this post or send them to wpfolks.org. The community grows because folks share it.
That’s the first one. If you’re heading to Kraków, find me on the floor. See you next month.
— Ankit Founder, WPFolks · hello@wpfolks.org