Post Sin Título

Category: Newsletters

  • Post Sin Título #5

    Can “the community” be a job? Is there anyone who doesn’t want cookie banners to disappear? Where’s your traffic in the age of AI? What about the people behind open source? Anything to say about “the Matt thing”? How to survive when XCancel shuts down? All this in today’s newsletter.

    🪡 “Bringing People Together”

    I imagine that many of you on the other side have helped organize an event at some point in your lives. You might even be part of a community (whether it’s a WordPress community or a knitting group). There’s bound to be someone who considers themselves a “community manager”—not in the sense of “the person who updates Instagram,” but someone who actually manages a group of people with a shared interest. Maybe you even do that for a living, or you’re wondering right now if it could become a very valuable career, in a world where human connections are becoming increasingly necessary amid all this AI.

    This excellent article by Francisco Opazo on Led by Community (in terms of both quality and length) explains“why the language of community managers needs to mature if we want a budget, influence, and job security.” The fact is, we often fall into the trap of saying, “My job is to bring people together and let things happen,” while overlooking the immense amount of effort that goes into it.

    The work isn't just about creating a place where people can come together. It's about ensuring that this coming together generates value for the members and for the organization.

    So the next time you think you’re just setting a date and a place for the community to show up, give it some thought and don’t sell yourself short. Doesn’t it sound much better to say , “I create the conditions that help the right people learn, contribute, trust one another, and create value together”? There’s no need to turn this into over-the-top LinkedIn jargon, but neither should we publicly downplay what we know takes so much dedication.

    Take note. And follow Francisco because he creates a ton of amazing content on managing communities at a professional level—for companies, brands, and all kinds of projects.

    🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...

    🧙‍♂️ Published thanks to...

    Weglot supports this newsletter because they speak our language—and many others.

    Weglot is the solution that makes any website multilingual in minutes, without touching the code. With AI trained to maintain your brand voice in every language, managing your translations has never been easier. More than 111,000 companies worldwide already trust Weglot to grow internationally.

    And by the end of this month, they'll have some news that you're going to like.

    If anyone was expecting to find an analysis today of this week’s big news in the WordPress world (“Automattic’s Board of Directors Forces Matt Mullenweg to Take a Temporary Leave of Absence and Appoints CFO Mark Davies as Interim CEO”), I don’t have much to contribute right now. Does anything change? Does everything change? Does nothing change? Right now, I only have questions, unfounded theories, and a lot of work because the wheel of community events isn’t going to stop at all. Maybe later there will be more to say.

    And I'll leave you with this super-useful tool that my great friend JaviLopezG has created: yups.io. “YUPS is a lightweight, privacy-focused HTTP routing gateway that redirects web users to alternative, open-source, privacy-protecting interfaces for the most popular platforms (such as Twitter/X, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Medium, Imgur, Goodreads, ENS, and I2P), with general archiving options as an alternative.” It lets you share links without having to jump through the tech giants’ hoops and without worrying about whether they’ll shut down one service or another. Highly recommended.

  • Post Sin Título #4

    Retro cameras, absurd games, a TV series, accessibility, magic, emotions, and, of course, a little self-reassurance that we need to keep building an internet where we feel at home. That’s what’s on the menu for this newsletter, which is back on Friday in case you feel like opening the email over the weekend.

    🪑 Let's do stuff

    Spencer Chang says in his article "The Internet Has No Benches" that “In the face of a hostile internet, abstinence has become the mainstream accepted response. We crave the spontaneity we know to be in the physical world. It’s true that we often feel the only solution to endless scrolling, hours wasted on AI-generated memes, hateful rhetoric, or unchecked data mining, is to throw our phones out the window and head for the countryside.

    (…) Like cities that have prioritized cars over people, visiting the Internet now entails controlled apps and search engines, designed for extraction. There’s nowhere to rest because the benches are covered in spikes. All we can do is sink into the feed and run along the scrollbar until our eyes bleed.

    But… is there another solution? Spencer talks about neighborhoods in the article. I won’t spoil the full text for you, but it’s very interesting and hopeful. That said, it’s not enough to just sit there and nod your head. If we want something, we all have to take action together. We’ll definitely come back to these ideas in future newsletters.

    If, after reading this, you check out his personal website at https://spencer.place/, you’ll get a sense that the internet many of us long for is still out there—perhaps hidden, or perhaps just a click away—a link that no one had ever pointed out to us before.

    🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...

    • Anime vs. Marvel/DC: Designing Digital Products With Emotion In Flow by Alan Cohen, about design decisions that go beyond colors and shapes. Tone, microinteractions, good examples… and terrible ones. Design isn’t only pixels and patterns. It’s pacing and feelings, too. Some products feel cinematic as they guide us through uncertainty, relief, confidence, and calm without yanking us around.
    • "This is The GREATEST Card Magician of All Time! " by Chris Ramsay. A couple of weeks ago, Juan Tamariz, the great magician who introduced so many of us to the world of the impossible, passed away. In this video, they analyze some of his tricks—not the technical aspects, but the “magic” he created and the psychology he used to take everyone exactly where he wanted them to go. These are truly excellent tips to follow in all kinds of situations. Or, quite simply, to have a good time marveling at this man. 🎻🎻🎻
    • The WP Accessibility Day 2026 program has been released and looks amazing. It’s a free online event on October 7. If you want (and you should) to learn how to create a fully accessible experience for your website, product, or project—one that leaves no one behind—you’re sure to learn a lot here.

    🧙‍♂️ Published thanks to...

    Weglot supports this newsletter because they speak our language—and many others.

    Weglot is the solution that makes any website multilingual in minutes, without touching the code. With AI trained to maintain your brand voice in every language, managing your translations has never been easier. More than 111,000 companies worldwide already trust Weglot to grow internationally.

    And in a few weeks, they'll have some news that you're sure to find interesting… stay tuned!

    Some might say… but this guy only ever talks about websites, WordPress, and events… doesn’t he ever do anything else? Well, yes… here are a couple of recommendations: if you can, check out the series Silo on Apple TV, definitely do it. Season 3 just wrapped up, and it’s spectacular. If you like basketball and/or those quick manager-style games that are becoming more and more common “thanks” to AI, check out The Real MVP from Skyhook Magazine and play a few rounds to see how far you can go… Anyone up for NBA MVP?

    And if you have an iPhone, I also recommend this app for “escaping the overwhelming millions of colors and megapixels of the modern era” and taking photos with a 1-bit camera.

    If you have any similar recommendations, feel free to reply!

  • Post Sin Título #3

    How many times have you decided not to post something online because it wasn’t perfect? How many times have blog posts, social media updates, or photos that “weren’t all that bad, but…” fallen by the wayside? How many times have you said… “it doesn’t make sense now” or “it’s too late now” or “anyway, what’s the point?”

    During these months of “reflection”—from newsletter #2 to #3—I’ve thought a lot about what drives us to share and what holds us back. Some people don’t have that filter (though a few of them should), but I’m sure many of you reading this can relate.

    From now on, I plan to create a lot more content in this newsletter, on the blog, and wherever else it comes up. These newsletters aren’t going to be perfect. That’s okay. They don’t have to be. If I were capable of creating perfect newsletters every week, I’d be doing it professionally. But if my goal is to share things that might be useful to you, the “audience,” then the only thing that doesn’t make sense is… not doing it.

    🌐 Back to the basics

    Artificial intelligence already does everything. Or so they say. But when you ask it about a topic you’re knowledgeable about, you start to see its limitations. That’s why it’s essential to keep learning and educating ourselves about the things that interest us. Because there’s little point in speeding up work if it only serves to create chaos at a faster rate.

    Manuel Matuzović is a front-end developer, consultant, and accessibility auditor from Austria, and he has released his HTML Boilerplate updated for 2026. For all of us who work in the world of the web, there’s nothing more basic and fundamental than a website’s HTML. It’s what we see when we right-click on any page and view the source code. It’s what our WordPress, our AI, or whatever we use to create a website generates. It’s what our browser understands. And it’s what we should understand, too.

    In this article, Manuel explains what a modern, simple website framework should look like. And he explains it line by line. You can try it out on your personal website and compare. Because you do have a personal website, right? If not, this page gives you 95 reasons to have one. No more, no less.

    And going back to the first paragraph about AI. Here's an article by Vitaly Friedman on the kind of AI people really want:

    Many conversations about AI are conversations about the speed of delivery. But to many people, there is little value in increasing the speed of delivery. They want to do things well, with enough time to think and make good decisions. They also want to enjoy the time they spend working on things, rather than just ship faster. There is an enormous feeling of reward and achievement that slowly disappears, one vibe-coded change at a time.

    And his final conclusion:

    No, people don’t need more AI in their lives — they need AI to automate all the boring stuff they have to deal with every day, so they have more time and headspace to do things that they actually love and enjoy doing. That doesn’t mean spending more time with AI — but spending more time with people they love.

    🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...

    • Taken. “You’ve opened this page. It already knows the following.” We all know that browsers can track us down to the last detail, but sometimes it’s a little scary to see just how much they know about us simply by clicking a link. Take a look.
    • The Story Behind the Gifts from the WCEU 2026 Local Team The impact of an event isn’t limited to the people who attend. As organizers, we can also make a real impact on the community around us. In this article, Sebastian Misniakiewicz explains how, by commissioning the creation of the gifts "by outsourcing the job to the Occupational Therapy Workshop, many people were able to use their skills during production, giving each mascot a deeper meaning. We got handmade mascots, and people with intellectual disabilities got work and an income that will support their social integration."
    • Automattic and director Bao Nguyen have released *Code for the People*, a short documentary that explores the past, present, and endangered future of the open web. It’s 19 minutes well spent.

    🧙‍♂️ Published thanks to...

    Weglot continues to support this newsletter because they speak our language—and many others as well.

    Weglot is the solution that makes any website multilingual in minutes, without touching the code. With AI trained to maintain your brand voice in every language, managing your translations has never been easier. More than 111,000 companies worldwide already trust Weglot to grow internationally.

    And they'll have some really cool new stuff coming soon.

    Two final points. First, we’re working hard to ensure you have an exceptional WordCamp Galicia in A Coruña from October 16 to 18. It’s a new challenge for a team full of energy. The program is worth far more than the 40-euro admission fee.

    And second, I love that every month Smashing Magazine publishes an article with really cool wallpapers. I think over the last decade I've always had wallpapers from their collections. Right now I have “Searching For Higgs Boson” from this August collection.

    If you want to share what you have as your desktop background… just reply to this email!

  • Post Sin Título #2

    I know that the irregular frequency of this newsletter is part of its charm, but if there’s one thing I learned from Enlace Permanente, it’s that you like to get the email right on time, on the same day at the same hour (so you can read it whenever it’s convenient for you, if you ever do), and I… would like that, too. But it doesn’t always happen.

    It’s not that I’m going to start with excuses (like, “I only write when I’m on a train headed to Madrid”—which is 100% true for the last two editions)—but today I’m going to talk a little bit, using links, about that huge gap that usually exists between what we’d like, what we do, and what actually happens. In the world of the web, that is. You haven’t gotten the wrong email.

    🌐 The old Internet is still around

    The link I’d like you to read this week is this short article by Tyler Gaw titled “The Old Internet is Still Here.” Blogs are still around. RSS feed readers are still around. There are forums for all kinds of niches just waiting to be discovered—without being recommended by an AI or a “For You” tab on a “social” network.

    Years of streams and feeds have gotten us used to expecting constant updates. Content delivered straight to our eyes. Content delivered at a dizzying pace. And each new update is better than the last. Why go looking for content when the content can come to you? Part of what made the “old” Internet so great was the process of discovery. There were no streams or feeds. (…) But the Good Internet is still here.

    There were no infinite scrolls either, like the ones Aza Raskin introduced—and which he constantly regrets (you can read the story in Retina, an article by Carmen Torres Narváez).

    It’s a fact that we’ve become complacent. But while on a personal level this might simply be a case of “I want it, but not that much,” on a professional level it’s quite dangerous. In recent weeks, we’ve seen how tools that were supposed to be the future of who-knows-what—or the “disruptive” whatever, like the virtual reality component of Meta’s metaverse or OpenAI’sSora app —have, overnight, ceased to exist. Just like so many other promises of an incredible future from Big Tech.

    Now, in hindsight, obviously everyone knew it wasn't going to work, but there are always people who believed in it (or who really pushed for it) who get left behind, and that's a shame.

    It's not as if we in the web community have much to be proud of. John Gruber writes in “Your Frustration Is the Product”:

    People are spending less and less time online because the experiences on websites are getting worse and worse, but publishers are trying—almost literally—to dig themselves out of the hole by adding more and more reader-hostile crap that’s driving people away.

    This relates to the dismal experiences of media outlets that should be setting the standard, but I think it applies in general.

    "That's all well and good," you might say, "but people need to make money and all that, right?" I know. I'm not here to offer any magic solutions (at least not yet). I am, however, here with a few small ideas—and who knows (at this point) what will come of them. Fernando Tellado has been explaining to us recently about the x402 payment protocol and how to integrate it into WordPress.

    x402 is an open protocol for native Internet payments that uses the HTTP status code 402 (Payment Required) to enable servers and clients (including AI agents) to automatically negotiate and process payments within HTTP requests themselves.

    If this sounds like something I've tried to bring up before, two things: first, thanks for being the only one who listened to me; second, we already tried this with Coil and Web Monetization, which shut down in March 2023. In this Agnic AI article, they explain how they’ve learned from the shortcomings of that proposal and how x402 is different and better. Is it enough to be a solution to something? Not yet.

    🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...

    Now anyone can generate words. A prompt and a few seconds are all it takes to write paragraphs, pages, or even a manifesto. The machine never runs out of steam. Which means that words themselves have lost their meaning. Volume has turned into silence. The strange thing—the difficult thing—is knowing when enough has been said.

    Here’s the mistake people often make with AI in meetings. The transcript records what was said, but not what really matters. A 60-minute meeting generates pages of text. The AI summary lists the topics discussed and the agreements reached, but it leaves out the moment when someone hesitated before agreeing to a timeline, the offhand comment that revealed the team’s true priority, and what wasn’t said when it should have been.

    🧙‍♂️ Published thanks to...

    Weglot continues to support this newsletter because they speak our language—and many others as well.

    Weglot is the solution that makes any website multilingual in minutes, without touching the code. With AI trained to maintain your brand voice in every language, managing your translations has never been easier. More than 111,000 companies worldwide already trust Weglot to grow internationally.

    Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

    I know, I know, there's a lot to talk about in the WordPress world with the delay of version 7.0, WordCamp Asia, the discussions on Slack… But we'll save that for the next issue.

    By the way, the schedule (what a lineup!) for WordCamp Europe in Krakow this June has been released, and I think it's about time you got excited and came to the event because it's going to be amazing. Here's the schedule. Here are the tickets. And here's what you can see in the city during a couple of days' visit.

    I'd be really happy if we could run into each other there.

  • Post Sin Título

    I am writing to you from a train traveling from Pontevedra to Madrid. With barely any cell service, almost like on an airplane, those of us traveling remain glued to our cell phones, tablets, computers, and game consoles. Few books are in sight, and since it is before seven in the morning, I am also grateful that there are not too many conversations.

    There is a talk by Carissa Veliz that I think fits perfectly here: The Power of Analog. It is a TEDx talk in Geneva in which she convinces us, almost begs us, not to leave the analog world behind and not to throw ourselves solely into the arms of the digital: cash payments, books, photographs, FM radio, and, above all, human relationships.

    She gives some very interesting examples, from the blackout we experienced last year in Spain to what has happened in certain companies or institutions when their systems have been attacked by ransomware and no one remembers how to manage anything in "manual mode," no matter how obvious it may seem. It is well worth spending twelve minutes of your life listening to her.

    And, if you think about it, going to any event is part of this. We could watch the talks via streaming or later, whenever it suits us best. We wouldn't have to get up early, pack a suitcase, book transportation and accommodation, leave our usual surroundings, or cause our work to pile up... And yet, we can't and don't want to avoid it. These are the relationships in which, no matter how hard they try, no chatbot will ever give us what we are looking for: community. Being part of it. Whether it's two people or two hundred. So let's celebrate events and, if we see each other in Madrid these days, let's enjoy these analog possibilities.

    🔮 Things of the future... of WordPress and open source

    Yesterday, WordPress 7.0 beta 3 was released, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. In my previous post, I tried to paint a slightly less apocalyptic picture of the future than many people see, and I intend to continue doing so. I think this article by Matt Cromwell sums up the situation nicely: WordPress Faces an Event Horizon, Not a Sunset.

    (…) Event horizons are the point of no return. It's where physics is disrupted, the old rules are broken, and we have no idea what the new ones are. Once you cross the event horizon, a different, heavier gravity takes hold and carries you to a completely different place. WordPress is approaching that kind of threshold. The factors that drove its early adoption and expansion are no longer valid. This does not mean that the platform is disappearing. It means that we are on the cusp of the most exciting opportunities.

    On the other hand, there are two problems that are unrelated (or perhaps related) to the current situation, which we must face head-on in any open-source project (whether WordPress or any other): the lack of support from the large companies that benefit from it, and how to convince new generations to maintain this legacy.

    This week, Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi announced that they were jumping ship from the FAIR project that they had announced with such fanfare in June last year. The technical side will remain and continue to be developed, but plans to turn it into something massive have been shelved. Why? A lack of interest from major players ( hosting companies) in opening their wallets.

    We see this every day in most open source projects. Contributors are overwhelmed by project maintenance and development, and it's extremely difficult to get those who are benefiting from the projects to contribute resources. The solution? I don't have one either.

    For the other problem, I highly recommend this article by Abigail Cabunoc Mayes on the GitHub blog: "Who will maintain the future? Rethinking open source leadership for a new generation." Not only for what it explains, but also for the links to further reading.

    (…) We talk a lot about burnout, bus factors, and the departure of maintainers, but we don't talk enough about how to bring in new contributors or what it takes to help them become leaders.

    🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...

    • When A Book Apart closed, many great books were discontinued. A few, such as this fantastic "Accessibility for Everyone"by Laura Kallbag, are available for free online. Take a look at the collection because they are real gems.
    • You know I love personal websites. One of the best uses of the .es domain is for Personal Sit.es, a great directory of personal websites for inspiration or to meet new people.
    • "How to make a living from SEO? A guide to becoming a profitable consultant"is a comprehensive guide written by Wajari last year that is still relevant today. In a job that, like many others, is fraught with uncertainty, it is necessary to have a clear foundation, and this artist provides it.

    🧙‍♂️ Published thanks to...

    Weglot continues to support this newsletter because they are nice people. Do you know them?

    Weglot is the solution that makes any website multilingual in minutes, without touching the code. With AI trained to maintain your brand voice in every language, managing your translations has never been easier. More than 111,000 companies worldwide already trust Weglot to grow internationally.

    Try it, it's on another level.

    Hey, two weeks later and here I am. I'm not saying I've published it so you don't scold me in Madrid...

    P.S. What? You don't have a ticket yet? Well, buy yours and come learn and chat with nice people!

  • Post Sin Título

    Imagine that today, Friday, February 20, 2026, I am writing a new newsletter. Ten years and fourteen days after the first edition of Enlace Permanente, a project that accompanied me many Friday mornings week after week until its regularity went out the window.

    Ten years ago, I linked to a news story that in turn linked to another news story titled "Matt Mullenweg addresses concerns that WordPress is moving too fast." If you don't know him, Matt is (now) a gentleman who will be mentioned several times in future editions, one of the creators of WordPress and CEO of Automattic. But to the point, back in 2016 we were already concerned that technology was moving too fast. Now it is moving several orders of magnitude faster still.

    Another thing that fascinates me about that WP Tavern post (another medium that has passed away) is that it has over a hundred interesting comments, with discussions, debates, and opinions. Where did that go? On social media, some might say... Unfortunately, not even there.

    That said, if you're here because you're worried that the world of WordPress is moving too fast, this isn't the place for you. But wait! First, I recommend Héctor de Prada's newsletters (Actualidad WP) and Jesús Amieiro's (La Semana PHP), which are awesome and will help you stay up to date with everything.

    And second, that you might be interested in what I have to say here. Give me a little time to get back into the swing of things. I could have asked Claude or ChatGPT to write for me, but you would have caught me—not quickly, but very quickly. Those in the know say that what's in vogue is "a personal voice." I don't have another one!

    But Juan, what is Post sin título? (You're only here because you know me and maybe I'll buy you a beer next time we meet for being one of the early adopters). It's a space where I can share some links and thoughts that I feel like sharing. Those things that stayed open in tabs for weeks. Or in a tool for saving links (in my case, Raindrop). Because they might be useful to you. Or whatever. You can write to me and let me know if they were.

    You can also unsubscribe (you're out of luck, but that's okay).

    💡 Links from issue #0.

    I'm not saying I created a newsletter just to share this link with you, but I think it's wonderful. Henry Desroches published "A website to destroy all websites" subtitled "How to win the war for the soul of the internet and build the web we want." And he talks about a pattern that the web is no stranger to.

    (…) The arrival of the automobile was a revelation in terms of access and personal freedom. With the advent of cars, members of society could travel farther, do more in a day, and adapt their limited time to their creative will (…) Although at first the automobile allowed humans to travel longer distances, it now required humans to travel those distances and demanded the creation and maintenance of infrastructure to make it possible (...) It is no longer a tool at the service of our societies, but now our societies are at the service of the automobile.

    The thing about artificial intelligence. I have many opinions, some of which contradict each other (which is normal, we are inconsistent beings). I'll also tell you that a few years ago, I was sold on the idea that by now we would all have self-driving cars, and my in-laws (bless them) are still my taxi drivers.

    "AI will replace all the jobs!" Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing by Rand Fishkin is an interesting point of view for those who want to see everything as doom and gloom. Things are going to change, for sure, as they do all the time. And we will have to adapt.

    Will they change so much that even those of us who work with WordPress will have to find something else to do? Well, who knows... but I'll also leave you with this article by Nick Hamze entitled "Nobody Rips Out the Plumbing."

    (…) When you renovate [a house], you tear out the awful kitchen. You knock down a wall to open up the living room. You add a terrace. You paint everything. Maybe you get hooked on HGTV [a home improvement TV channel] and do an extension. You know what you don't do? You don't rip out the pipes. You don't rip out the electrical wiring. You don't dig up the foundations and lay new ones because you saw a cool new concrete mix on TikTok.

    And if that's not enough, Ivana Ćirković also published a very interesting article entitled "Why WordPress?"

    🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...

    🧙‍♂️ Published thanks to...

    And watch out, this newsletter even has a sponsor. And who else could it be but Weglot?

    Weglot is the solution that makes any website multilingual in minutes, without touching the code. With AI trained to maintain your brand voice in every language, managing your translations has never been easier. More than 111,000 companies worldwide already trust Weglot to grow internationally.

    If you haven't tried it, it's pure magic.

    More soon. Maybe in two weeks. Hey, tell other people to subscribe, okay? He makes a childish face.

    P.S. I was nervous, please excuse any typos. Or the wait. Or whatever.