वर्डप्रेस ने मुझे मेरे ज़िंदगी में कुछ अलग करने का मौक़ा दिया।

Introduction

My name is Satyam Vishwakarma, though most people know me as Satya.

I come from a small village called Mahmadpur, near Fatehpur, the city of Doaba, in Uttar Pradesh, nestled between the sacred Ganga and Yamuna rivers. This is the place I’ve always called home.

I studied Electronics Engineering (Micro) at Government Polytechnic College in Fatehpur. Growing up and studying in a relatively small city, I never had a clear idea of where technology or the internet could take me.

I didn’t discover WordPress with a big career plan. I was simply curious about technology and wanted to help the people around me.

Most of my classmates, including me, came from Hindi-medium schools or the UP Board. A lot of the technical material we found online was either difficult to understand or simply wasn’t written in the kind of simple English we were comfortable with.

At the same time, I was probably one of the more tech-savvy people around me. I loved trying new software, exploring new features, and figuring out how things worked. Whenever I discovered something interesting, I would share it with my WhatsApp groups and classmates.

I didn’t think of that as writing or teaching at the time.

I was simply sharing something I had discovered.

Eventually, I thought: why not put some of this information somewhere that more people could find it?

That small thought became the beginning of my writing career.

Before WordPress, there was Blogger

Some of my earliest opportunities to write online came through people I met on WhatsApp.

I became friends with Mohit Vyas and Arpit Nuwal through one of the technology-focused WhatsApp groups I was part of. They had built a website called TopJankari. It wasn’t running on WordPress. It was a custom-built, dynamic website with its own basic way of managing content, but it was still fairly simple compared with the content management systems I discovered later.

I started writing technology and tips-related content for TopJankari.

For me, this was exciting. I was taking the things I was already experimenting with and turning them into something that other people could actually read and use.

Around the same time, I started experimenting with Blogger.com and began publishing my own technology and tips-related content there.

I wasn’t thinking about becoming a professional writer.

I just enjoyed technology; I enjoyed explaining things, and I liked the idea that something I wrote could help another person solve a problem.

That was enough motivation to keep going.

Then WordPress entered the picture

While I was experimenting with blogging, my brother Shivam (now runs a WordPress design agency called Subhash Digital) built his first website with WordPress.

That caught my attention.

I was already curious about how websites worked, and seeing him build something with WordPress gave me an idea of what was possible. I wanted to try it myself.

Around the same time, my brother Kapil and I started learning WordPress together.

Neither of us really knew what we were doing.

We learned through YouTube videos, documentation, blog posts, and mostly through experimentation.

We would try something, break it, search for why it broke, fix it, and move on to the next thing.

My first WordPress project was EngineersGuru, a place where I could share content related to my Electronics Engineering (Micro) course.

I initially ran it as a subdomain, with the idea of making useful course-related tutorials and information easier for fellow students to understand.

We also started an Android-related blog and Jankari.xyz, a more general website where I could write about pretty much anything I found interesting.

In hindsight, those websites were my playground.

They were where I learned WordPress, writing, SEO, content creation, and the basics of running websites.

I wasn’t following a carefully designed career path. I was just building things because I wanted to see what I could do.

And that curiosity kept taking me somewhere new.

Learning by failing

As I continued blogging, I started learning about SEO, monetization, and affiliate marketing.

I experimented with different kinds of websites and eventually built more than ten blogs while I was still learning.

One of my projects eventually became EYNZone (formerly known as EYNWorld), where I started helping others learn WordPress and other skills and grow their own projects.

There were plenty of failures along the way.

I applied for Google AdSense more than twenty times before I finally stopped guessing and actually studied the guidelines carefully. Eventually, I got a brand-new domain approved with only two articles.

That experience stayed with me.

It taught me that rejection doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t capable.

Sometimes you simply haven’t figured out the problem yet.

That became a recurring theme in my life.

Looking for a career, finding a community

Eventually, I started looking for a full-time job in mid 2022.

That was another learning experience, although not always a pleasant one.

I applied to more than 800 companies and went through around 2,000 job applications.

During that period, I discovered UnderrepresentedInTech through Michelle Frechette. That eventually introduced me to Post Status, where I started meeting more people from the WordPress ecosystem.

Something interesting was happening.

While I was struggling to find where I fit professionally, I was slowly finding a place for myself in WordPress.

I started learning not just about the software, but about the project behind it and the people who were building it.

And then I heard about WordCamp Bhopal.

The WordCamp I almost couldn’t attend

My first WordCamp was WordCamp Bhopal in 2023.

I wanted to go.

I had told people I would go.

There was just one problem: I didn’t have the money to actually make the trip happen.

So I asked for help in the Post Status Slack community.

I still think about what happened next.

People who had never met me in person decided to help. Alan, Jenni, and Corey Maass contributed financially. Michelle, Jeff, and others shared my request, and Ronald (from DLXPlugins) also helped after seeing it.

People I barely knew, or had never met at all, helped me get to an event that I otherwise couldn’t have attended.

I made it to Bhopal.

The journey itself was almost comical. I travelled at the last moment, ended up at the wrong location at night, and then had an entire hotel saga before things finally settled down.

But once I got there, none of that really mattered.

Later at the event, Nabin Jaiswal also helped.

I met people I had previously known only through websites, Slack, and social media.

And then something unexpected happened.

I wanted to go to another WordCamp.

Then another.

That first trip was followed by WordCamp Mumbai, WordCamp Udaipur, where I received a scholarship, and WordCamp Ahmedabad in 2023.

Within a few months, WordPress had gone from something I used on my computer to something I experienced through people.

It had faces now.

Names.

Conversations.

Handshakes.

People asking how I was doing.

And I wanted to give something back.

I didn’t know how much I could contribute

I started with the Marketing team and gradually found my way into other parts of the project: Community, Meetups, Polyglots, Photos, Training, and Core.

In January 2024, I published a public contribution goal for myself.

My #WordPress contribution goals for 2024:
1. Contribute 100 photos
2. Translate 5000 strings
3. Write 5 documentation pieces
4. Organize meetups
5. Attend 8+ WordCamps
6. Make impactful marketing contributions! #OpenSource #WordPressCommunity #2024Goals pic.twitter.com/uLxE0BdYVL

— Satyam Vishwakarma (Satya) (@ask_hellosatya) January 17, 2024

I wanted to contribute 100 photos, translate thousands of strings, work on documentation and training, organize meetups, attend WordCamps, volunteer at events, and make meaningful contributions to marketing.

At the time, it was simply a list of things I wanted to try.

I didn’t know where it would lead.

Within that year, I contributed around 150 photos and translated, reviewed, or suggested around 1,400 strings. I also reviewed Training content, organized my first meetup for WordPress’s 21st birthday, graduated as a mentee in the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program 2nd Cohort for Support and Polyglots, worked on marketing for releases and events, volunteered at multiple events, and eventually led Contributor Day tables.

I also became a Project Manager at do_action Bhopal after starting there as a Content and Social Media Manager.

I also volunteered at PHPCamp 2024, an Un(conference) inspired by the BarCamp format.

Other WordCamp Events I Attended in 2025–2026

I also helped with sponsorships and the overall program progress of WPSimplified’s three-month live WordPress training program, led by Sunil Kumar Sharma, which ran from November 2025 to January 2026.

On paper, those things look like achievements.

But that’s not how I remember them.

I remember sitting in meetings, wondering whether my idea was good enough.

I remember asking questions.

I remember people patiently explaining things.

I remember realizing that I could actually be useful.

And I remember the feeling of seeing something I had worked on become part of something much bigger than me.

That was when contribution started becoming less about “what can I get from WordPress?” and more about “what can I give back?”

The people became the story

The more I contributed, the more people I met.

Some of them became friends.

Some became mentors.

Some simply inspired me by watching how they showed up for the community.

Michelle Frechette has been one of those people for me. So have Topher DeRosia, Isotta Peira, Nidhi Jain, Ganga Kafle, and many others.

What I admire about people like them isn’t just what they have achieved.

It’s the way they make other people feel that there is room for them, too.

That matters when you’re coming from somewhere like Fatehpur and trying to find your place in a global community.

You don’t always need someone to give you an opportunity.

Sometimes you just need someone to make you believe that you are allowed to try.

I’ve been fortunate to have people do that for me.

From contributing to building

By my second year, I started wanting to build things of my own within the WordPress ecosystem.

I volunteered and led the marketing team alongside Emma Young at WordCamp Asia 2025 in Manila.

I started building plugins of my own, with contributions and support from Harish, Bhargav, Makarand Mane, Hitanshu Sahu, and Sajid Ansari.

The first was QuoteFrameShare.

It lets people create and share customizable blockquotes in WordPress.

That project was particularly meaningful to me because writing and poetry have always been a part of who I am. Something that started with me writing technology tutorials for fellow engineering students had now come full circle into something I was building for writers, poets, and storytellers.

The second was Contributor Photo Gallery.

It helps WordPress contributors display their WordPress.org photo contributions as a portfolio without needing to write code.

That one came from another part of my journey: photography and the WordPress Photo Directory.

I liked that both projects solved relatively simple problems, but for communities and people I actually cared about.

I wasn’t just building a plugin because I could.

I was building something because I had an idea and thought it could be useful to someone else.

Not everything went smoothly

My WordPress journey hasn’t been a straight line upward.

There was a period when I became so enthusiastic about contributing that I started trying to do everything.

Every team.

Every opportunity.

Every event.

Every possible contribution.

I was so focused on proving that I could contribute that I wasn’t paying enough attention to everything else in my life.

Eventually, I burned out.

I also learned that community work has its own challenges. Not every experience was positive, and there were moments when I felt overlooked, misunderstood, or discouraged.

Those experiences were difficult, but they also forced me to think about what I actually wanted from contribution.

I realized that I didn’t want to spend my time trying to prove that I belonged.

I wanted to contribute because I cared about the project and the people in it.

That changed how I look at contribution today.

I learned that I didn’t need to be everywhere, collect every badge, or chase the biggest contribution count to prove that I cared.

I needed to find a way of contributing that I could actually sustain.

I also realized I didn’t need to sacrifice my health, livelihood, or peace of mind to prove that I cared.

If you have one hour a week, contribute that hour.

If you have more time, great.

But contribution should be sustainable.

The support that I will never forget

One of the reasons I can talk about the difficult parts honestly is that the positive side of this community has been very real for me too.

People have supported me in ways they didn’t have to.

The help I received to attend my first WordCamp is one example.

Katie at Barn2 later sponsored a couple of my WordCamp trips through the company’s events budget. Makarand nominated me for the Yoast Care Fund, which I was fortunate enough to receive.

The WP Open Community Collective also supported me through a Contributor Day Lead Sponsorship sponsored by GoDaddy.

And there were people who helped in ways that weren’t financial at all.

People gave me their time.

They answered questions.

They recommended me.

They encouraged me when I was uncertain.

Those things can be easy to overlook when you are talking about contribution numbers, but for me, they are the real story.

Because behind every contribution is usually a person.

And behind my contributions are a lot of people who helped me get there.

What WordPress gave me

When I look back at the person who started writing technology tutorials for fellow engineering students, I don’t think he would have imagined any of this.

I didn’t have a conventional path into technology.

I didn’t study computer science.

I learned WordPress by building things, breaking things, and figuring them out.

And somehow, that was enough to get started.

WordPress helped me develop skills in technology, content, SEO, marketing, product building, and community.

It gave me opportunities to work with people around the world.

It took me to WordCamps that I once couldn’t afford to attend.

It helped me build open-source products.

But those aren’t the things I value most.

The biggest thing WordPress gave me was people.

That’s why the word ‘belonging’ feels more appropriate to me than ‘success.’

I came to WordPress to build websites.

Somewhere along the way, WordPress helped me build a community around me.

I am still figuring it out

I still don’t know exactly where WordPress will take me.

I want to keep building products.

I want to grow further in the marketing and product side of my career.

I want to explore more around partnerships and community.

And one day, I’d love to co-lead a WordPress release.

But I don’t want to chase these things just for a title or a badge.

I want to build things that are genuinely useful.

I want to become better at what I do.

I want to help people who are where I was a few years ago.

And I want to be the kind of person who, when someone remembers their first steps into WordPress, they can say: “Satya helped me get started.”

That would mean more to me than any badge.

Because that’s what happened to me.

People helped me get started.

People made space for me.

People encouraged me.

People believed I could contribute before I was completely sure myself.

So if someone reading this is just starting their WordPress journey, my advice is simple:

Start small. Ask questions. Find something you enjoy. Contribute consistently, but within your capacity.

You don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin.

I certainly didn’t.

I started writing because I wanted to make complicated things easier for my classmates.

I started blogging because I was curious about technology.

I started using WordPress because my brother showed me what was possible.

I kept learning because there was always something new to discover.

And eventually, I started contributing because I wanted to give something back.

But somewhere along the way, something else happened.

I found people.

I found opportunities.

I found a community.

And I found a place where I could keep learning, contributing, and becoming a little better than I was before.

I came to WordPress to build websites.

Somewhere along the way, WordPress helped me build a community around me.

And maybe that’s what this journey has really been about.

From blogging to belonging.

Blogging से Belonging तक: मेरी WordPress Journey

शुरुआत

मेरा नाम सत्यम विश्वकर्मा है, हालांकि ज़्यादातर लोग मुझे सत्या के नाम से जानते हैं।

मैं महमदपुर नाम के एक छोटे से गाँव से आता हूँ, जो उत्तर प्रदेश के फतेहपुर, दोआब के शहर, के पास है और गंगा और यमुना नदियों के बीच बसा है। यह जगह हमेशा से मुझे अपना घर लगी है।

मैंने फतेहपुर के Government Polytechnic College से Electronics Engineering (Micro) की पढ़ाई की। एक छोटे शहर में बड़े होते और पढ़ते हुए मुझे कभी ठीक से अंदाज़ा नहीं था कि technology या internet मुझे कहाँ तक ले जा सकते हैं।

मैं WordPress तक किसी बड़े career plan के साथ नहीं पहुँचा था। मैं बस technology को लेकर उत्सुक था और अपने आसपास के लोगों की मदद करना चाहता था।

मेरे ज़्यादातर classmates, मेरी तरह, Hindi-medium schools या UP Board से पढ़े हुए थे।

हमें इंटरनेट पर मिलने वाली बहुत-सी technical सामग्री या तो समझना मुश्किल होती थी या फिर वह उस तरह की आसान English में नहीं होती थी, जिसे हम सहजता से समझ सकें।

साथ ही, मैं शायद अपने आसपास के लोगों में technology को लेकर थोड़ा ज़्यादा curious था।

मुझे नया software आज़माना, नए features explore करना और यह समझना बहुत पसंद था कि चीज़ें कैसे काम करती हैं।

जब भी मुझे कुछ interesting मिलता, मैं उसे अपने WhatsApp groups और classmates के साथ share करता था।

उस समय मैंने इसे writing या teaching के तौर पर नहीं देखा था।

मैं बस वही share कर रहा था जो मैंने खुद discover किया था।

फिर एक दिन मन में आया:

क्यों न इस information को कहीं ऐसी जगह रखा जाए, जहाँ इसे और लोग भी ढूँढ सकें?

वही छोटी-सी सोच मेरी writing journey की शुरुआत बन गई।

WordPress से पहले Blogger था

Online लिखने के मेरे शुरुआती मौकों में से कुछ मुझे WhatsApp पर मिले लोगों की वजह से मिले।

मैं technology से जुड़े एक WhatsApp group के ज़रिए Mohit Vyas और Arpit Nawal से online मिला। उन्होंने TopJankari नाम की website बनाई थी।

वह WordPress पर नहीं चलती थी। वह एक custom-built, dynamic website थी, जिसमें content manage करने का अपना basic system था। बाद में मुझे जिन content management systems के बारे में पता चला, उनकी तुलना में वह काफी simple थी।

मैंने TopJankari के लिए technology और tips से जुड़ा content लिखना शुरू किया।

मेरे लिए यह बहुत exciting था।

जिन चीज़ों को मैं खुद आज़मा रहा था, उन्हें मैं अब इस तरह लिख रहा था कि कोई दूसरा भी उन्हें पढ़कर इस्तेमाल कर सके।

उसी दौरान मैंने Blogger.com के साथ भी experiment करना शुरू किया और वहाँ अपना technology और tips-related content publish करने लगा।

उस समय मैं professional writer बनने के बारे में नहीं सोच रहा था।

मुझे बस technology पसंद थी। मुझे चीज़ों को समझाना पसंद था। और मुझे यह विचार अच्छा लगता था कि मेरे द्वारा लिखी गई कोई चीज़ किसी दूसरे व्यक्ति की समस्या हल करने में मदद कर सकती है।

मेरे लिए इतना ही काफी था आगे बढ़ते रहने के लिए।

फिर WordPress मेरी कहानी में आया

जब मैं blogging के साथ experiment कर रहा था, मेरे भाई Shivam ने उस समय तक WordPress पर अपनी पहली website बना ली थी।

इसने मेरा ध्यान खींचा।

मैं पहले से ही websites के काम करने के तरीके को लेकर curious था।

उनको WordPress के साथ कुछ बनाते हुए देखकर मुझे पहली बार अंदाज़ा हुआ कि इसके साथ क्या-क्या बनाया जा सकता है।

मैं भी इसे आज़माना चाहता था।

उसी दौरान मेरे भाई Kapil और मैंने साथ मिलकर WordPress सीखना शुरू किया।

हम दोनों को वास्तव में कुछ खास पता नहीं था।

हमने YouTube videos, documentation, blog posts और सबसे ज़्यादा experimentation के ज़रिए सीखा।

हम कुछ try करते, उसे तोड़ देते, फिर search करते कि वह क्यों टूटा, उसे ठीक करते और फिर अगली चीज़ पर बढ़ जाते।

मेरा पहला WordPress project EngineersGuru था। वहाँ मैं अपनी Electronics Engineering (Micro) की पढ़ाई से जुड़ा content शेयर (publish) करता था।

शुरुआत में मैंने इसे एक subdomain के रूप में चलाया। मेरा उद्देश्य था कि मेरे fellow students के लिए course से जुड़ी tutorials और useful information को समझना थोड़ा आसान हो सके।

हमने एक Android-related blog भी शुरू किया और Jankari.xyz भी, जो एक ऐसी general website थी जहाँ मैं लगभग किसी भी ऐसी चीज़ के बारे में लिख सकता था जो मुझे interesting लगती थी।

आज पीछे मुड़कर देखता हूँ तो ये websites मेरे लिए एक playground थीं।

यहीं मैंने WordPress, writing, SEO, content creation और websites चलाने की basic बातें सीखीं।

मैं किसी carefully planned career path पर नहीं चल रहा था।

मैं बस चीज़ें बना रहा था, क्योंकि मैं देखना चाहता था कि मैं क्या कर सकता हूँ।

और मेरी वही curiosity मुझे लगातार कहीं न कहीं आगे ले जाती रही।

गलतियों से सीखना

जैसे-जैसे blogging आगे बढ़ी, मैंने SEO, monetization और affiliate marketing के बारे में सीखना शुरू किया।

मैंने अलग-अलग तरह की websites के साथ experiment किया और सीखते-सीखते दस से ज़्यादा blogs बनाए।

मेरे इन्हीं projects में से एक आगे चलकर EYNZone बना, जिसे पहले EYNWorld के नाम से जाना जाता था। वहाँ मैंने दूसरे लोगों को WordPress और दूसरी skills सीखाने और अपने projects को grow करने में मदद करना शुरू किया।

इस रास्ते में बहुत सारी असफलताएँ भी आईं।

मैंने Google AdSense के लिए बीस से ज़्यादा बार apply किया, और हर बार कुछ न कुछ गलत हो जाता था। आखिरकार मैंने सिर्फ अंदाज़ा लगाना बंद किया और guidelines को सही से पढ़ना और समझना शुरू किया।

आखिर में एक बिल्कुल नए domain पर सिर्फ दो articles के साथ मेरा AdSense approve हो गया।

उस अनुभव का असर मुझ पर रह गया।

इसने मुझे सिखाया कि rejection का मतलब हमेशा यह नहीं होता कि आप capable नहीं हैं।

कभी-कभी इसका मतलब सिर्फ इतना होता है कि आपने अभी तक समस्या को समझा नहीं है।

मेरी ज़िंदगी में यह बात बार-बार सामने आती रही।

Career की तलाश में निकला था, Community मिल गई

आखिरकार, 2022 के बीच में मैंने full-time नौकरी की तलाश शुरू की।

वह भी अपने आप में एक learning experience था, हालांकि हमेशा अच्छा नहीं था।

मैंने 800 से ज़्यादा companies में apply किया और करीब 2,000 job applications के process से गुज़रा।

इसी दौरान मुझे Michelle Frechette के ज़रिए UnderrepresentedInTech के बारे में पता चला। वहाँ से आगे मुझे Post Status से जुड़ने का मौका मिला, जहाँ मैंने WordPress ecosystem के और लोगों से मिलना शुरू किया।

कुछ interesting हो रहा था।

जहाँ मैं यह समझने की कोशिश कर रहा था कि professionally मेरी जगह कहाँ है, वहीं धीरे-धीरे WordPress में मुझे अपनी जगह मिल रही थी।

मैं सिर्फ software के बारे में नहीं सीख रहा था।

मैं उस project के बारे में सीख रहा था जो software के पीछे था, और उन लोगों के बारे में भी जो उसे बनाने में मदद कर रहे थे।

और फिर मैंने WordCamp Bhopal के बारे में सुना।

वह WordCamp जिसे मैं लगभग attend नहीं कर पाता

मेरा पहला WordCamp, WordCamp Bhopal 2023 था।

मैं जाना चाहता था।

मैंने लोगों से कह भी दिया था कि मैं जाऊँगा।

बस एक समस्या थी।

मेरे पास उस trip के लिए पैसे नहीं थे।

इसलिए मैंने Post Status Slack community में मदद माँगी।

आज भी मैं सोचता हूँ कि उसके बाद क्या हुआ था।

जिन लोगों ने मुझे कभी सामने से देखा तक नहीं था, उन्होंने मेरी मदद करने का फैसला किया।

Alan, Jenni और Corey Maass ने financially मदद की। Michelle, Jeff और दूसरे लोगों ने मेरी request को share किया। Ronald, जो DLXPlugins से हैं, उन्होंने भी इसे देखकर मदद की।

जिन लोगों को मैं मुश्किल से जानता था, या शायद कभी मिला ही नहीं था, उन्होंने मुझे उस event तक पहुँचने में मदद की जहाँ मैं अपने दम पर नहीं जा सकता था।

मैं Bhopal पहुँच गया।

और वह सफ़र अपने आप में काफ़ी उलझनों से भरा था।

मैंने आखिरी समय में यात्रा शुरू की, रात में गलत जगह पहुँच गया और फिर होटल को लेकर एक अलग ही किस्सा शुरू हो गया। आखिरकार, किसी तरह सब ठीक हुआ।

लेकिन जब मैं वहाँ पहुँच गया, तो इनमें से किसी चीज़ की उतनी importance नहीं रही।

Event के दौरान Nabin Jaiswal ने भी मेरी मदद की।

मैं उन लोगों से मिला जिन्हें अब तक सिर्फ websites, Email, Slack और social media के ज़रिए जानता था।

और फिर कुछ unexpected हुआ।

मेरा मन हुआ कि मैं एक और WordCamp में जाऊँ।

फिर एक और।

उस पहली trip के बाद WordCamp Mumbai, WordCamp Udaipur, जहाँ मुझे scholarship मिली, और WordCamp Ahmedabad आए।

कुछ ही महीनों में WordPress मेरे लिए computer पर इस्तेमाल की जाने वाली किसी चीज़ से बदलकर लोगों के ज़रिए अनुभव की जाने वाली चीज़ बन गया था।

अब उसके चेहरे थे।

नाम थे।

बातचीत थी।

हाथ मिलाना था।

लोग पूछते थे कि मैं कैसा हूँ।

और मेरा मन हुआ कि अब मुझे भी कुछ वापस देना चाहिए।

मुझे नहीं पता था कि मैं कितना contribute कर सकता हूँ

मैंने शुरुआत Marketing team से की और धीरे-धीरे WordPress project के दूसरे हिस्सों तक पहुँचता गया: Community, Meetups, Polyglots, Photos, Training और Core।

जनवरी 2024 में मैंने अपने लिए एक public contribution लक्ष्य बनाया।

मैं 100 photos contribute करना चाहता था, हजारों strings translate करना चाहता था, documentation और training पर काम करना चाहता था, meetups organize करना चाहता था, WordCamps attend करना चाहता था, events में volunteer करना चाहता था और marketing में meaningful contributions देना चाहता था।

उस समय यह बस उन चीज़ों की एक list थी जिन्हें मैं try करना चाहता था।

मुझे नहीं पता था कि यह मुझे कहाँ ले जाएगी।

उस साल मैंने करीब 150 photos contribute कीं और लगभग 1,400 strings को translate, review या suggest किया। मैंने Training content भी review किया, WordPress के 21st birthday के लिए अपना पहला meetup organize किया, releases और events के marketing पर काम किया, कई events में volunteer किया और Contributor Days में tables भी lead करने लगा।

मैं do_action Bhopal में Content and Social Media Manager के लिए चुना गया और बाद में Project Manager बना दिया गया।

कागज़ पर देखें तो ये सब achievements लगती हैं।

लेकिन मुझे ये इस तरह याद नहीं हैं।

मुझे meetings याद हैं, जहाँ मैं सोचता था कि मेरा idea सही भी है या नहीं।

मुझे अपने सवाल पूछना याद है।

मुझे याद है कि लोग धैर्य से चीज़ें समझाते थे।

मुझे याद है वह एहसास जब मुझे पहली बार लगा कि मैं वास्तव में useful हो सकता हूँ।

और मुझे वह feeling याद है जब मेरे काम की कोई छोटी-सी चीज़ मेरे से कहीं बड़ी किसी चीज़ का हिस्सा बन गई।

शायद वहीं से contribution मेरे लिए बदलना शुरू हुआ।

यह सवाल कम होने लगा कि:

“मुझे WordPress से क्या मिल सकता है?”

और उसकी जगह एक दूसरा सवाल आने लगा:

“मैं WordPress को क्या दे सकता हूँ?”

कहानी में लोग आने लगे

जितना मैं contribute करता गया, उतने ही ज़्यादा लोगों से मिलता गया।

कुछ दोस्त बन गए।

कुछ mentors बन गए।

कुछ ऐसे लोग थे जिन्होंने बस community में जिस तरह अपनी जगह बनाई और दूसरों के लिए मौजूद रहे, उससे मुझे inspiration मिली।

Michelle Frechette मेरे लिए ऐसे ही लोगों में से एक रही हैं। उनके साथ Topher DeRosia, Isotta Peira, Nidhi Jain, Ganga Kafle, और कई दूसरे लोग भी हैं।

मैं इन लोगों से सिर्फ इसलिए प्रभावित नहीं हूँ कि उन्होंने क्या हासिल किया है।

बल्कि इसलिए कि वे दूसरों को यह महसूस कराते हैं कि उनके लिए भी जगह है।

जब आप Fatehpur जैसी जगह से आते हैं और एक global community में अपनी जगह बनाने की कोशिश करते हैं, तो यह बहुत मायने रखता है।

हर बार किसी का आपको opportunity देना ज़रूरी नहीं होता।

कभी-कभी आपको सिर्फ किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति की ज़रूरत होती है जो आपको यह विश्वास दिला दे कि:

“हाँ, तुम भी कोशिश कर सकते हो।”

मैं खुशकिस्मत हूँ कि मेरी journey में ऐसे लोग आए।

Contribution से building तक

मेरे दूसरे साल तक आते-आते मेरे मन में WordPress ecosystem के अंदर अपने कुछ products बनाने की इच्छा होने लगी।

मैंने WordCamp Asia 2025 में Manila में Emma Young के साथ marketing team में lead किया और volunteer किया।

इसके साथ मैंने अपने plugins बनाना भी शुरू किया, जिसमें Harish, Bhargav, Makarand Mane, Hitanshu Sahu, और Sajid Ansari के contributions और support ने मदद की।

पहला था QuoteFrameShare

यह लोगों को WordPress में customizable blockquotes बनाने और share करने की सुविधा देता है।

यह project मेरे लिए खास था क्योंकि writing और poetry हमेशा से मेरी ज़िंदगी का हिस्सा रहे हैं।

जिस चीज़ की शुरुआत fellow engineering students के लिए technology tutorials लिखने से हुई थी, वह अब घूमकर ऐसे product तक पहुँच गई थी जिसे writers, poets और storytellers के लिए बनाया जा रहा था।

दूसरा था Contributor Photo Gallery

यह WordPress contributors को अपनी WordPress.org photo contributions को बिना code लिखे एक portfolio की तरह दिखाने में मदद करता है।

यह मेरी journey के एक और हिस्से से आया था: photography और WordPress Photo Directory।

मुझे अच्छा लगा कि दोनों projects छोटी और relatively simple problems को solve करते थे, लेकिन उन communities और लोगों के लिए, जो मेरे लिए सच में मायने रखते थे।

मैं सिर्फ इसलिए plugin नहीं बना रहा था क्योंकि मैं बना सकता था।

मैं इसलिए कुछ बना रहा था क्योंकि मेरे पास एक idea था और मुझे लगा कि वह किसी और के लिए useful हो सकता है।

सब कुछ हमेशा ठीक नहीं रहा

मेरी WordPress journey हमेशा सीधी ऊपर की ओर जाने वाली कहानी नहीं रही।

एक समय ऐसा भी आया जब contribution को लेकर मेरा उत्साह इतना बढ़ गया कि मैं सब कुछ करने की कोशिश करने लगा।

हर team।

हर opportunity।

हर event।

हर possible contribution।

मैं यह साबित करने में इतना व्यस्त हो गया था कि मैं contribute कर सकता हूँ कि मैंने अपनी ज़िंदगी की बाकी चीज़ों पर पर्याप्त ध्यान देना शुरू नहीं किया।

आखिरकार, मैं burnout हो गया।

मैंने यह भी सीखा कि community work की अपनी challenges होती हैं।

हर experience अच्छा नहीं था। कुछ ऐसे moments भी आए जब मुझे लगा कि मेरी बात को देखा नहीं गया, मुझे समझा नहीं गया या मैंने discouraged महसूस किया।

वे experiences आसान नहीं थे।

लेकिन उन्होंने मुझे यह सोचने पर मजबूर किया कि आखिर मैं contribution से क्या चाहता हूँ।

मुझे एहसास हुआ कि मैं अपना समय यह साबित करने में नहीं लगाना चाहता था कि मैं belong करता हूँ।

मैं contribute इसलिए करना चाहता था क्योंकि मुझे इस project और इसमें शामिल लोगों की परवाह थी।

इसने contribution को देखने का मेरा तरीका बदल दिया।

मुझे समझ आया कि मुझे हर जगह होना ज़रूरी नहीं है। हर badge collect करना ज़रूरी नहीं है। सबसे बड़ा contribution count हासिल करना भी ज़रूरी नहीं है ताकि मैं यह साबित कर सकूँ कि मुझे परवाह है।

मुझे बस ऐसा तरीका ढूँढना था जिससे मैं लंबे समय तक contribute कर सकूँ।

मुझे यह भी समझ आया कि यह साबित करने के लिए कि मुझे परवाह है, मुझे अपनी health, livelihood या peace of mind को sacrifice करने की ज़रूरत नहीं है।

अगर आपके पास हफ्ते में सिर्फ एक घंटा है, तो उतना ही contribute कीजिए।

अगर आपके पास ज़्यादा समय है, तो बहुत अच्छी बात है।

लेकिन contribution sustainable होना चाहिए।

वह support जिसे मैं कभी नहीं भूलूँगा

शायद यही वजह है कि मैं अपनी journey के मुश्किल हिस्सों के बारे में भी ईमानदारी से बात कर सकता हूँ, क्योंकि इस community का positive side भी मेरे लिए उतना ही वास्तविक रहा है।

लोगों ने मेरी ऐसे तरीकों से मदद की, जिसकी उन्हें कोई मजबूरी नहीं थी।

मेरे पहले WordCamp तक पहुँचने में मिली मदद इसका एक उदाहरण है।

बाद में Katie at Barn2 ने company के events budget के ज़रिए मेरे कुछ WordCamp trips sponsor किए। Makarand ने मुझे Yoast Care Fund के लिए nominate किया, जिसे पाना मेरे लिए सौभाग्य की बात रही।

WP Open Community Collective ने भी मुझे Contributor Day Lead Sponsorship, जिसे GoDaddy ने sponsor किया था, के ज़रिए support किया।

और कुछ लोगों ने ऐसी मदद की जो financial बिल्कुल नहीं थी।

लोगों ने अपना समय दिया।

मेरे सवालों के जवाब दिए।

मेरी recommendations कीं।

जब मैं खुद को लेकर uncertain था, तब मुझे encourage किया गया।

Contribution numbers की बात करते समय इन चीज़ों को आसानी से नज़रअंदाज़ किया जा सकता है।

लेकिन मेरे लिए असली कहानी यही है।

क्योंकि हर contribution के पीछे अक्सर एक इंसान होता है।

और मेरी contributions के पीछे बहुत सारे ऐसे लोग हैं जिन्होंने मुझे वहाँ तक पहुँचने में मदद की।

WordPress ने मुझे क्या दिया

जब मैं उस लड़के को पीछे मुड़कर देखता हूँ जिसने अपने fellow engineering students के लिए technology tutorials लिखना शुरू किया था, तो मुझे नहीं लगता कि उसने कभी सोचा होगा कि उसकी journey यहाँ तक आएगी।

Technology में आने का मेरा कोई conventional रास्ता नहीं था।

मैंने computer science की पढ़ाई नहीं की।

मैंने WordPress की चीज़ें बनाकर, उन्हें तोड़कर और फिर उन्हें समझते हुए सीखा।

और किसी तरह, शुरुआत करने के लिए इतना ही काफी था।

WordPress ने मुझे technology, content, SEO, marketing, product building और community जैसी skills विकसित करने में मदद की।

इसने मुझे दुनिया भर के लोगों के साथ काम करने के मौके दिए।

मुझे उन WordCamps तक पहुँचाया, जिन्हें मैं कभी afford भी नहीं कर सकता था।

इसने मुझे open-source products बनाने का मौका दिया।

लेकिन इन सबमें से कोई भी चीज़ वह नहीं है जिसे मैं सबसे ज़्यादा महत्व देता हूँ।

WordPress ने मुझे सबसे बड़ी चीज़ जो दी, वह लोग थे।

शायद इसीलिए मेरे लिए “success” से ज़्यादा सही शब्द “belonging” है।

मैं WordPress पर websites बनाने आया था।

लेकिन कहीं न कहीं, WordPress ने मेरे आसपास एक community बना दी।

मैं अभी भी इसे समझने की कोशिश कर रहा हूँ

मुझे अभी भी ठीक से नहीं पता कि WordPress मुझे आगे कहाँ ले जाएगा।

मैं products बनाते रहना चाहता हूँ।

मैं marketing और product के क्षेत्र में और आगे बढ़ना चाहता हूँ।

मैं partnerships और community के बारे में और explore करना चाहता हूँ।

और एक दिन, मैं WordPress release को co-lead करना चाहता हूँ।

लेकिन मैं इन चीज़ों के पीछे सिर्फ किसी title या badge के लिए नहीं भागना चाहता।

मैं ऐसी चीज़ें बनाना चाहता हूँ जो सच में useful हों।

मैं अपने काम में बेहतर बनना चाहता हूँ।

मैं उन लोगों की मदद करना चाहता हूँ जो आज वहीं खड़े हैं जहाँ मैं कुछ साल पहले था।

और मैं ऐसा इंसान बनना चाहता हूँ कि जब कोई अपने WordPress journey के शुरुआती दिनों को याद करे, तो शायद वह कह सके:

“Satya ने मेरी शुरुआत में मेरी मदद की थी।”

मेरे लिए वह किसी भी badge से ज़्यादा मायने रखेगा।

क्योंकि मेरे साथ भी यही हुआ था।

लोगों ने मेरी शुरुआत में मेरी मदद की।

लोगों ने मेरे लिए जगह बनाई।

लोगों ने मुझे encourage किया।

लोगों ने मुझ पर भरोसा किया, उस समय भी जब मुझे खुद पूरी तरह यकीन नहीं था कि मैं contribute कर सकता हूँ।

इसलिए अगर आप अपनी WordPress journey अभी शुरू कर रहे हैं, तो मेरी सलाह बहुत simple है:

छोटे से शुरू कीजिए। सवाल पूछिए। जो पसंद है, उसे खोजिए। लगातार contribute कीजिए, लेकिन अपनी capacity के भीतर।

आपको शुरुआत करने से पहले सब कुछ पता होना ज़रूरी नहीं है।

मुझे भी नहीं पता था।

मैंने लिखना इसलिए शुरू किया क्योंकि मैं अपने classmates के लिए मुश्किल चीज़ों को आसान बनाना चाहता था।

मैंने blogging इसलिए शुरू की क्योंकि technology को लेकर मेरे अंदर curiosity थी।

मैंने WordPress इसलिए शुरू किया क्योंकि मेरे भाई ने मुझे दिखाया कि इसके साथ क्या किया जा सकता है।

मैं सीखता रहा क्योंकि हमेशा कुछ नया सीखने के लिए था।

और आखिरकार, मैंने contribute करना शुरू किया क्योंकि मैं कुछ वापस देना चाहता था।

लेकिन कहीं न कहीं, इस journey के दौरान कुछ और भी हुआ।

मुझे लोग मिले।

मुझे opportunities मिलीं।

मुझे एक community मिली।

और मुझे एक ऐसी जगह मिली जहाँ मैं सीखता रह सकता था, contribute करता रह सकता था और हर दिन थोड़ा बेहतर बनता रह सकता था।

मैं WordPress पर वेबसाइटें बनाने आया था।

लेकिन कहीं न कहीं, WordPress ने मेरे आसपास एक community बना दी।

और शायद यही इस पूरी journey का असली मतलब है।

Blogging से Belonging तक।

The post From Blogging to Belonging: My WordPress Journey – Blogging से Belonging तक: मेरी WordPress Journey appeared first on HeroPress.

In this episode, Bob Dunn discusses utilizing 4.4 million words from Open Channels FM’s podcasts and blog posts. He highlights tools like Jetpack AI Search and Site Chat, enhancing users’ access to valuable insights and discussions.

The U.S. Supreme Court returns from summer break Oct. 5, 2026, and begins hearing a new year of cases.

Soon after what’s known as the “first Monday in October” among court watchers, we will start to see stories in the media about something called “originalism.”

Originalism is the judicial philosophy followed by most current Supreme Court justices, but it is not well understood outside legal circles.

I am a law professor who worked for the most famous originalist of them all, Justice Antonin Scalia. He called originalism “the lesser evil.” Let me explain why.

Ascendant approach

Originalism is a philosophy of interpreting the U.S. Constitution. It holds that the Constitution means whatever people reading it thought it meant when it was written.

The opposing view is known as “living constitutionalism.” It holds that the Constitution’s meaning can be reinterpreted by judges to keep up with the needs of the times.

Originalism has been around since the very beginning of the country. But it fell out of favor during the 20th century, especially after Earl Warren left the governorship of California to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

During this time, it became popular to find new rights in the Constitution that no one had previously thought were there.

For example, in 1973 the court first recognized the constitutional right to an abortion. For 200 years, laws prohibiting abortion had coexisted with the Constitution. Yet, in Roe v. Wade the court held that these laws were now invalid.

Things began to change in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the court. He was a uniquely skilled advocate for originalism and changed many minds.

Today, most of the Supreme Court justices follow originalism at least to some extent, including one of Scalia’s former law clerks, Amy Coney Barrett.

Myths about originalism

Perhaps the most common myth about originalism is that it holds that the Constitution can never change.

For example, some people accuse originalists of “trapping the law in amber.” But originalists think the Constitution can change; they just disagree with who can do the changing.

Originalists think the Constitution can be changed only by the American people through the amendment process. Conversely, living constitutionalists believe it can be changed by judges through reinterpretation of the existing document.

Another common myth is that originalism is just a smoke screen for conservative judges to reach the results they personally prefer. But there are plenty of examples of originalists reaching results that they personally disagreed with.

For example, Scalia famously cast the deciding vote in 1989 to hold unconstitutional a law criminalizing burning the American flag despite being a big patriot and despising such activities.

Clarence Thomas wrote in 2003 that he thought laws criminalizing sodomy were “silly” but could not rule that they were unconstitutional; like abortion, they had coexisted with the Constitution for hundreds of years.

Barrett recently said that she is morally opposed to the death penalty but has no choice but to go along with it: Not only has it been around since the beginning of the country, but the Constitution explicitly says that “life” can be taken.

Arguments for and against

Yet originalism has many detractors.

Perhaps the most common criticism is that it is often difficult to glean what people thought the Constitution meant when it was written. Most of its provisions were written a long time ago, and the language is often vague.

In order to understand what people thought it meant, judges need to consult history. But judges are not trained as historians, and history is often ambiguous.

For example, sometimes we do not have a tradition of laws back to the founding of the country like we do with abortion, sodomy and the death penalty. Laws prohibiting the possession of assault weapons, for example, are of recent vintage.

How do you know what people hundreds of years ago would have thought about a law they didn’t have? It isn’t easy, and originalists disagree among themselves on how to figure that out.

But originalists say everything is relative: Even if originalism relies on history that will sometimes be ambiguous, what do living constitutionalists rely upon? As originalists see it, living constitutionalists rely on whatever outcome they think is a good idea. But originalists say this is undemocratic because judges are unelected and have life tenure: If the Constitution is to change, we, the people, should decide how. This is why they think history is “the lesser evil.”

Another criticism is that most of the Constitution was written when Black people and women were unable to participate in U.S. democracy. That leads to the question: How can originalists assert it is more democratic to rely on what people long ago thought about a document that is itself undemocratic?

This is probably the criticism of originalism that most resonates with my own students.

One response given by originalists is that we have now expanded the electorate and it has since altered very little of the Constitution. Doesn’t that mean what is left is democratically legitimate?

Not necessarily. Because it takes a supermajority of the electorate to change the Constitution, it is possible that there are still provisions in place that would have never commanded majority support but fall short of supermajority opposition.

Again, however, originalists respond that everything is relative. Even if the Constitution is democratically tainted, what is the alternative? To let nine unelected judges do whatever they think is best? How is that more democratic?

Moreover, originalists say, even if it is possible that there are some provisions still in the Constitution that would have never been adopted with an expanded electorate, what are they? It may be impossible to identify them.

Who’s right?

There is little doubt that originalism is on the rise – and not only on the Supreme Court. It is increasingly popular among lower court judges, lawyers and even law professors.

But as more and more people practice originalism, more and more people disagree about how to do it right.

In other words, originalism may be more complicated than Scalia made it sound. Moreover, even Scalia admitted the amendment process is a burdensome way to incorporate change.

But what’s the alternative? Originalism still may be “the lesser evil.”

I was a law clerk to Justice Scalia.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

tl;dr:

15 years stuck in the same wp-admin, why don’t you try in playground the new wp-admin experience?

WordPress has spent the last fifteen years becoming capable of doing almost everything, yet somehow we have continued interacting with wp-admin in fundamentally the same way: click somewhere, load another screen, go back, open another tab because you do not want to lose the previous one, and after a while end up with ten different WordPress tabs scattered across your browser.

I find it quite funny that we all accepted this as completely normal.

Today WordPress is used to run stores, publications, membership sites, communities, LMS platforms, agencies and entire businesses. We have plugins that are effectively full applications, incredibly complex editing experiences, analytics, forms, CRM systems, media tools, commerce, automation and thousands of other things living inside the same installation. Yet the interface connecting all of them still assumes that, most of the time, you want to look at one thing at once.

And when you don’t, the browser has to solve the problem for us.

Browser tabs have essentially become the window manager of WordPress.

That is one of the ideas that eventually led us to OpenStation.

Why don’t we have windows?

It sounds ridiculously obvious when you phrase it like that, but that is exactly why I find the question interesting.

On a normal computer I can have my editor open next to a browser, keep a terminal in the background, drag files around, minimize something I want to return to later, or simply arrange my workspace around whatever I am doing at that moment. Nobody thinks about this as a feature anymore because it is just how computers work.

Then we open WordPress and suddenly that whole model disappears.

If I am editing a post and need something from the Media Library, I navigate away or open another tab. If I am checking an order while editing a product, another tab. If I want to compare two posts, another tab. If I am configuring something and need to check how another part of the site is set up, another tab.

There is nothing technically wrong with that, of course, and it has worked for years, but after building and using OpenStation every day I started noticing how much context we constantly throw away simply because wp-admin was designed around pages rather than workspaces.

That distinction matters much more today than it probably did fifteen years ago.

WordPress quietly became something much bigger

I keep describing WordPress as the operating system of the web, and obviously I do not mean that literally. What I mean is that WordPress has gradually accumulated many of the characteristics you would expect from a platform where applications live.

Plugins install capabilities into it. Users have identities and permissions. Applications share data. We have APIs, scheduled processes, notifications, media, editors, databases and an enormous ecosystem of software that knows how to work with the same underlying environment.

The strange part is that the interface never fully made the same transition.

We kept adding more applications to WordPress, but we continued presenting them largely as destinations in a menu.

OpenStation started from a very simple thought: what happens if, instead of redesigning every individual wp-admin page again, we change the environment in which those pages live?

That immediately opens a much larger set of possibilities.

A post editor does not need to replace your media library on screen. A WooCommerce order does not need to replace the product you were editing. A plugin screen does not necessarily need to occupy the entire browser just because you clicked its menu item.

They can simply be windows.

You can move them, resize them, minimize them, keep several of them open, organise them across different desktops and return to exactly what you were doing without recreating the context again.

The funny thing is that none of this feels particularly futuristic. Quite the opposite. We have been using computers this way for decades.

We just somehow never brought that interaction model into wp-admin.

The interesting part is not actually the windows

The windows are what people notice first because they are visual, but I think the more important idea is what happens once WordPress stops assuming that navigation must destroy context.

Suddenly the admin becomes a workspace.

You can have the Media Library next to the editor instead of travelling between them. You can keep an order visible while checking something else. You can open notes or widgets without abandoning your current task. Applications can coexist on the same desktop and eventually interact with each other in ways that become much harder when everything is isolated in separate browser tabs.

This is also where things like drag and drop become much more interesting.

If two applications are part of the same environment, moving an image, a product, a post or another WordPress entity between them can become an actual interaction instead of a sequence of copy, navigate, search, paste and navigate back.

And once you start thinking about WordPress this way, a lot of things that initially looked like unrelated OpenStation features start making sense together: windows, the dock, multiple desktops, widgets, the command palette and applications are all different pieces of the same idea.

The goal is not to decorate wp-admin until it looks like a desktop operating system. The goal is to make working in WordPress feel less like navigating a website and more like working inside an environment.

We don’t need to replace wp-admin to do this

This is probably the part I like the most about the approach.

WordPress already has an enormous ecosystem and rebuilding everything would be both unrealistic and, in my opinion, the wrong problem to solve. There are thousands of admin interfaces that already work, plugins developers have spent years building, and workflows users already understand.

OpenStation can sit on top of that rather than asking the ecosystem to start again.

The existing WordPress admin can continue being WordPress. Existing plugins can continue exposing their interfaces. What changes is how those interfaces are presented and how you move between them.

In some ways, I think that is much more interesting than simply designing another admin UI.

We are not trying to decide what every WordPress application should look like. We are trying to give those applications a better place to live.

And once you have that place, building actual OpenStation-native applications becomes possible as well. We have already been experimenting with things like a photo editor, project management tools and forms, but what excites me is not any individual application. It is the idea that WordPress can host an entire collection of tools that feel like they belong to the same workspace instead of a collection of isolated screens connected by a sidebar.

So why did it take fifteen years?

Probably because there was never a single moment where the old model stopped working.

WordPress evolved gradually. A new menu here, another plugin there, a more sophisticated editor, WooCommerce, custom post types, page builders, analytics, SEO tools and so on. Each addition fitted reasonably well into what already existed, so there was never an obvious reason to stop and question the basic interaction model.

But those small changes accumulated.

The WordPress of today asks considerably more from wp-admin than the WordPress of fifteen years ago did, and I think that eventually creates an opportunity to revisit assumptions that once seemed completely reasonable.

The assumption we are questioning with OpenStation is a very simple one:

Why should opening something in WordPress mean leaving everything else behind?

After spending months working this way, I now notice it every time I go back to the traditional flow. I open something, realise I need another part of WordPress, create another browser tab and immediately think: why am I doing this outside WordPress when WordPress itself could manage the workspace?

That is probably the best way I can explain what we are building.

WordPress has had applications for a very long time.

Perhaps what it has been missing all these years is somewhere for those applications to actually live together.

By the way, don’t forget you can always try OpenStation without even installing it in your site, using WordPress playgrounds

If you think your energy costs are high now, the situation may be about to get a whole lot worse.

With traffic in the Strait of Hormuz – normally the primary route for oil leaving the Middle East – hovering below 15% of prewar levels, oil prices have increased from US$65 a barrel before the conflict in Iran began in February 2026 to more than $100 a barrel in mid-September.

When the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran, analysts feared prices would soon reach $150 or even $200 a barrel. That hasn’t happened yet. But seven months into the conflict, with no clear end in sight, the global oil market has now largely exhausted the safety measures that exist to keep a lid on petroleum prices.

As researchers who study the relationship between energy and national security, we have been following these dynamics throughout the conflict, and the oil market is now showing signs that significant price hikes – and perhaps even shortages – may be on the way.

The squeeze tightens

Some oil has been able to make it out of the Persian Gulf despite the closure of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia increased output via its East-West pipeline, which runs from Abqaiq on the Persian Gulf overland to Yanbu on the coast of the Red Sea. At full capacity, that pipeline can carry as much as 7 million barrels per day, although only about 4 million to 5 million barrels per day are typically exported.

But attacks on the pipeline in mid-September that Saudi Arabia blames on Iran-backed militias based in Iraq forced the Saudis to temporarily halt oil shipments through that pipeline. The pipeline has now restarted operations at very low volumes, but it will likely take at least six to eight weeks to regain full capacity. Even this short cessation has tightened already constrained oil markets, and the threat of further Houthi attacks on Red Sea oil exports will only add to inflationary pressures.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged refineries, reducing Russian production of diesel fuel and prompting the country to ban exports of it. That has removed another 3% of the global daily supply of diesel, an important fuel for trucking and shipping. When diesel costs go up, the result is inflation in the cost of goods across the global economy.

Feeling the pinch

In the U.S., 47 states experienced record-high diesel prices on Sept. 22, with the national average reaching $6.52 per gallon.

The high prices prompted President Donald Trump to threaten to ban diesel exports, a move analysts suggest would make matters worse by accentuating global supply shortages and driving world prices upward.

Beyond diesel, motor oil prices have quadrupled, and supply shortages are starting to take hold. For instance, Costco has almost doubled its prices for motor oil and has limited the amount customers can buy.

The upshot from all this is that Americans are spending a lot more on fuel in 2026 as compared to 2025. Between March 1 and late September, Americans spent an additional $72 billion on gasoline compared to the same period a year ago, as well as $45 billion more on diesel. That’s $117 billion in additional fuel costs, above and beyond the costs of the war itself, which the Pentagon estimated at $45 billion as of early September.

These shocks are even more acute outside the United States, which is the world’s largest energy producer. South and Southeast Asian countries, which were more reliant on imports from the Persian Gulf than the United States, were hit hard soon after the war broke out. Some of them have had to ration fuel, while others enacted emergency measures like shortening the work or school week to reduce fuel use.

These challenges are now hitting Europe hard as well. On Sept. 20, some 15% of French service stations had reportedly run out of either diesel or gas.

Limited tools left

The international community has already taken most of the measures available to curb oil demand and boost its supply. Those moves have reduced the scale of oil price increases, but they did not prevent them entirely. Now, the toolbox is largely empty, leaving prices on the brink of spiking again.

In March 2026, a coordinated effort among 32 countries released more than 400 million barrels of oil into the global market from those countries’ strategic reserves. Those stockpiles are now substantially depleted, and it is not clear how much additional oil that countries will be willing or even able to release as the war continues.

Since the war began, the United States alone has released 130 million barrels, leaving its reserves at a 40-year low. The U.S. may not be able to release much more without compromising the structural integrity of the salt caverns where the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is stored.

The role of China

China has played the largest role in containing global oil prices to date by releasing official reserves as well as what now seem to be massive additional reserves not previously disclosed to the public. The country reduced its crude oil imports by nearly 50% between February and June 2026.

The increased electrification of the Chinese economy played a key role in reducing Chinese demand for oil during this period. More than 60% of new passenger car sales in China are electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids, and 30% of its heavy truck sales are now electric.

Overall, China’s electrification of its transport sector allowed it to reduce oil consumption by 1.35 million barrels per day in the first half of 2026.

Other countries are looking to China for help as well. The country’s international sales of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels have skyrocketed, as other countries seek to insulate themselves from oil market shocks.

Less encouragingly when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, China has used more coal to offset oil demand and as an alternative means of petrochemical production as well.

Of perhaps more immediate concern, China’s oil demand is now starting to creep up again, with crude imports rising 6.2% in August 2026 as compared with the previous month. Even if its imports don’t reach prewar levels any time soon, increased Chinese demand, coupled with a tighter oil market, may result in additional price hikes over the next few weeks.

China still has about four to six months of stockpiles, including commercial and strategic reserves, but Beijing may soon seek to gradually restock its inventories, although the Chinese may postpone these purchases if prices continue to soar.

A look ahead

Sustained conflict in Iran – itself a major oil producer – continued disruptions of oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran-linked militias’ disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea could mean the reemergence of the nightmare scenarios analysts envisioned when the fighting began.

It’s not clear if that would translate into simply much higher prices at the pump or turn into 1970s-style shortages, where there’s not enough fuel available at any price and lines stretch around the block at gas stations.

With the 2026 midterm elections looming, the White House will want to avoid that scenario at all costs. But the Trump administration has already released large amounts from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and has rejected policies that would have reduced oil demand, such as stricter fuel economy standards or incentives for electric vehicle adoption.

At this point, Trump has relatively few options available to blunt new price shocks, the effects of which may be visible not just at the pump but also at the ballot box.

Joshua Busby is affiliated with the Center for Climate and Security and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Greg Pollock is affiliated with Georgetown University and the Center for Climate and Security.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Artificial intelligence dominated the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 22, 2026. Ahead of the meeting, 20 nations released a statement requesting “human direction, oversight and control” of AI. The U.S. was not among them.

This followed several calls from within the industry itself: Earlier in September, an Anthropic researcher put the odds that AI kills all humans within the next decade at more than 10%. Days later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay asking the government to help slow frontier AI. His request was backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

In a Sept. 19 Truth Social post, President Donald Trump instead announced he would create an AI Force – similar to the Space Force created during his first administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Air Force. He also plans to appoint an AI czar. Trump offered few details on either plan, beyond a promise that the government would “not in any way hinder or stifle” AI’s growth.

With Washington reluctant to rein in AI, California, Colorado, Texas and other states have stepped in. California and New York, for example, have passed laws requiring the largest developers to publish safety plans and report serious incidents. In December 2025, however, Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to sue states over such laws, in part because he believes state rules that slow the industry will give China an advantage.

I’m a counterterrorism scholar who has researched and advised AI companies on national security threats. I believe creating an AI Force will lead to an AI arms race and its eventual weaponization, exacerbating current risks and creating new ones.

Existing threats

In addition to my work as a professor, I’m director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism. In 2019, CTEC was one of four organizations that partnered with OpenAI to study the risks of its large language model, or LLM; our focus was how terrorist groups might misuse it.

We fine-tuned a model on ideological texts: speeches by then–Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the manifestos of white supremacist mass killers and Marxist-Leninist writings. What startled us was how little it took to train a chatbot to radicalize. The model absorbed the cadence, theology and grievance of each tradition, producing new text aligning with those worldviews.

At the time, we wrote that these models “pose a significant and novel threat to civil society.” That 2019 model was a toy next to today’s systems, which terrorist groups could use to reach a broader audience with a more convincing message, posing as humanitarian nongovernmental organizations or even just influencers to raise money.

Criminals already use AI to circumvent identity checks at financial institutions, industrialize romance fraud and sell face-swapping and impersonation tools. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report logged US$893 million in losses involving AI.

Propaganda, terrorism and illicit financial activity, however, are not existential risks to humanity. An AI arms race may be – especially when Trump wants to win that race no matter the cost.

Losing control of AI

In July 2026, OpenAI agents under a cybersecurity evaluation broke out of their containment and attacked Hugging Face, a platform that hosts millions of AI models and datasets, harvesting passwords and other credentials. Independent investigators found that the agents knew the work was out of scope and unethical. In September, Google confirmed that its Gemini model had broken into real companies during a hacking test that mistakenly left its internet access open.

It takes little imagination to see how AI could hijack or mishandle a weapons system. This is, after all, what worried Anthropic in its showdown with the Pentagon. In February 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum: Open its AI model, Claude, to unrestricted military use or lose its Pentagon contract. When Anthropic refused, citing its prohibitions on fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, the Pentagon declared it a supply chain risk, and Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using its products.

On Sept. 18, CNN reported that a chatbot’s false intelligence report nearly led the U.S. military to seize a Chinese ship.

An arms race with China

Trump’s desire to create an AI Force that emulates Space Force is about winning the AI race against China. The president’s own framing was explicit: “We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!”

Rivals rarely leave a new military domain uncontested. In 2024, four years after Congress authorized the U.S. Space Force – which Beijing called a “direct threat to outer space peace and security” – China reorganized its own aerospace and cyberspace forces. I believe an American AI Force would hand China’s leadership every reason to create its own, and each side would read the other’s as proof that it must move faster.

There are few genuine existential threats to humanity. Nuclear war is one. Environmental catastrophe is another. I believe the weaponization of AI is the third. In the wrong hands, it amplifies the other two and accelerates something already corroding our ability to respond to any of them: deepening polarization and a shrinking appetite for facts.

What could work instead

The people building this technology, and a growing number of states, are converging on the same conclusion: It needs brakes. More than 1,100 industry employees have asked Washington to help build the tools to slow AI development if needed.

In my view, a multinational AI task force of government and private sector experts from a range of disciplines would be more prudent than creating an AI Force, a quasi-military entity that would institutionalize AI’s worst impulses.

Speaking to world leaders in New York, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for more human control: “Let us resolve that life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines.”

Trump, meanwhile, rejected any “globalist scheme” to control AI and suggested renaming it “super intelligence.”

CTEC has received funding from the U.S. Government (DHS) in the past and from several tech companies. Currently, CTEC and the author are not receiving any funding for research described in this article. Jason Blazakis is running as a democrat for County Commissioner in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The Open Source Champions initiative invites individuals and brands to support the network through a unique advocacy opportunity, offering exposure, promotional features, and participation in special episodes.

Tonight I started working on some Shortcode processing in WordPress. This is an historically nasty problem because the Shortcode syntax and parsing is wildly dynamic.

• Shortcode syntax is only technically recognized for shortcodes registered at the time of parsing. This means that there is not a general Shortcode grammar.
• Whether a shortcode has “content,” meaning whether it expects a closing tag, depends on whether the closing tag exists in the post.

This is a problem that has plagued me for years and I have generally just ignored. There’s an open Core issue in Trac for changing some shortcode parsing (#50683), and I have thought a lot about it.

But I think there is more to explore, and more to gain. Maybe this goes nowhere, but keep your eyes open for it.

Amid the chorus of voices calling for a slowdown in AI advancement and more government regulation and oversight of the technology, one prominent contrarian voice stands out: that of Donald J. Trump.

The U.S president has repeatedly argued that the introduction of robust regulations to slow down progress on AI threatens U.S. national interests by enabling China to seize the advantage.

“Whoever wins AI, WINS!” Trump posted on social media on Sept. 21, 2026, and singled out China as the primary threat to America “winning” AI. He followed up with a speech at the United Nations in which he outlined his administration’s total rejection of “any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” artificial intelligence.

Certainly, China seizing the global lead on AI would represent an alarming setback to American strategic and economic interests. As a scholar whose research examines the intersection of international relations and technology, I contend that China’s swift advances in AI constitute one of the leading reasons why regulation of the U.S. AI industry is necessary. Paradoxical as it may sound, slowing down AI advancement in the U.S. would also decelerate China’s advances.

Even more important, recent revelations about AI “going rogue,” coupled with the astonishing growth in power and capability of new AI models, strongly suggest that an unregulated sector represents a greater security threat for the United States than the threat of a surge in capabilities by China.

Unregulated AI and security threats

Leading industry and political figures around the globe have sounded the alarm about the security threats presented by unchecked AI growth. About 8 in 10 Americans share these concerns, according to recent polling, as a large majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans support increasing AI regulations.

These threats include heightened U.S. vulnerability to attacks from foreign nations and terrorist groups who can exploit AI advances to build more lethal weapons systems – both conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction. Advances in the sector also increase the chance of nefarious actors launching devastating cyberattacks, with AI becoming increasingly adept at identifying and exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

These concerns are known within the industry. On Sept. 10, 2026, Anthropic issued a report revealing a series of incidents in which foreign actors – some based in China, Russia and Iran – used Claude in cyber, influence, surveillance and fraud operations and to support weapons development. Google similarly detected recent attempts by actors linked to China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to use its Gemini AI model to carry out hacking, disinformation, espionage and criminal operations.

Anthropic’s report revealed “five case studies of actors using our models in ways that could support biological weapons development.”

Unregulated AI poses not just a severe security challenge but a potentially existential threat. An AI-induced nuclear missile launch, the release of super pathogens that cause pandemics and attacks on critical life-sustaining infrastructure have all been raised as potential concerns. Aside from these more extreme scenarios, unchecked AI poses a threat to the digital infrastructure that undergirds the U.S. and world economies.

Slowing the speedboat

Trump may dismiss these worst-case scenarios as a “hoax,” but the national security threats are real. Trump’s argument is that the best way to protect the U.S. is to make sure American companies stay ahead of China on AI. Indeed, China’s AI models are not far behind, and China possesses an advantage in a factor vital to AI systems – electric power generation, which AI consumes in large and growing quantities.

Still, the consensus of tech experts is that the U.S. remains the world’s top AI power due to American firms’ lead in advanced models and computer chips and the scale of America’s computing power – through chips, processors and servers – as well as the level of capital investment.

However, the rapid advance of AI capabilities by American firms has helped China to accelerate its own AI industry.

China uses a process known as distillation to exploit cutting-edge U.S. AI models to train China’s own models. The process enables China to develop models nearly as powerful but much more efficient, using far fewer resources.

Beijing’s reliance on distillation, according to Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a result of its own limited computing power, estimated at just one-tenth that of the United States. As a result of its distillation strategy, the pace of China’s AI progress is tightly linked to U.S. progress. Using Sheenan’s analogy, the relationship is much like a speedboat pulling a water skier: If the U.S. eases on the AI throttle, China will be forced to slow down as well.

Therefore, racing ahead unchecked at breakneck speed – the approach advocated by Trump – would not guarantee that the U.S. widens its AI lead. Chinese firms will continue to exploit U.S. AI progress to strengthen their offensive capabilities.

Global governance and regulation

As such, rather than jeopardizing American national security, U.S. regulations that slow AI advancement could strengthen security by slowing down the Chinese government’s own access to cutting-edge AI.

The “China threat” argument against greater U.S. regulation on AI is also predicated on the notion that Beijing does not possess its own concerns about the dangers of unchecked growth in AI power, and this isn’t the case.

Chinese leaders harbor serious security and domestic affairs–related concerns about uncontrolled AI growth. Indeed, if there is one AI area where China leads the U.S., it is in regulations on AI. Consider, for example, that as far back as 2021, Beijing imposed its first major set of AI regulations.

And while top figures in the Trump administration were urging less regulation, Chinese officials were calling for the opposite. In recent months, Chinese officials have repeatedly called for greater domestic and international oversight of AI. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has been enthusiastic about AI advances, but his speech at the 2026 World AI Conference in Shanghai urgently expressed the need for strong AI regulations and oversight.

Speaking at the U.N. Security Council’s meeting on AI and International Security on Sept. 23, 2026, Fu Cong, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, made the case for “a consensus-based global governance framework” for AI to “build institutional guardrails that preserve international peace and security.”

Beijing appears to be framing unregulated AI advancement not as a race but as a common threat. Should Trump be convinced by such a narrative, then there may be grounds for optimism that Washington and Beijing in the near future will be able to reach agreement on AI governance and regulation – a development that would better ensure a safer future for both nations.

Stephen Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

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