Estela Rueda

Tag: documentation

  • Teaching ChatGPT the language of WordPress

    I’ve been doing some research within ChatGPT and Gemini about how to teach LLMs the language of WordPress.

    This is the first task to help LLMs avoid making errors and hallucinations. Recently I was horrified by a publication that claimed that WordPress.org “can be monetized”, this article was written by ChatGPT.

    Why is this wrong, simple, WordPress.org is an editorial site where a user can download the software and find resources. The obvious mistake is that ChatGPT confused WordPress.org with WordPress-the software.

    Not reinventing the wheel

    I asked ChatGPT the difference between WordPress.com, WordPress.org and WordPress (the software). Still got the wrong answer:

    1. WordPress (the software)
      • What it is: Free, open-source software (a CMS – content management system) you can download and use to build websites.
      • Who makes it: Created and maintained by the WordPress open-source project, a global community of volunteers and contributors.
      • Where it lives: Available at WordPress.org.
      • Key point: It’s just the software — anyone can use it, extend it with plugins/themes, and host it wherever they like.
    2. WordPress.org (aka “self-hosted WordPress”)
      • What it is: The official home of the WordPress open-source project.
      • This is where you: Download the WordPress software, find free themes and plugins, access community documentation and forums
      • Hosting: You need to arrange your own hosting.
      • Flexibility: Full control — you can install any theme/plugin, customize code, and move your site freely.
      • Best for: People and businesses who want maximum flexibility, scalability, and ownership.
    3. WordPress.com
      • What it is: A commercial hosting platform run by Automattic (a company founded by WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg).
      • Hosting: WordPress.com hosts the site for you — no need to buy separate hosting.
      • Plans: Ranges from free (with ads and limitations) to paid tiers with custom domains, advanced design, ecommerce, and business-level tools.
      • Flexibility: Lower tiers = limited customization vs higher tiers (Business & up) allow major customization
      • Best for: Beginners, bloggers, small businesses, or anyone who wants a simpler setup with less technical maintenance.

    After letting ChatGPT know that its definition of WordPress.org was wrong, it redefined it but still got it wrong.

    Interactions with ChatGPT

    Prompt: You are wrong in your definition of WordPress.org

    ChatGPT said:
    You are right to flag that—thanks for catching it. Let me reframe it carefully, because WordPress.org is not a separate product (like .com is), but the official website for the WordPress open-source project.

    Here’s the corrected breakdown:

    WordPress.org
    The official site of the WordPress open-source project.
    Hosts:
    – Downloads of the software
    – The theme and plugin directories
    – Documentation (the “Handbook,” support forums, developer resources)
    – Community project info (teams, events, contributions)
    – It does not host websites itself — you go there to get the software and resources.
    When people say “a WordPress.org site,” they usually mean: a site that uses the self-hosted, open-source WordPress software (but technically, it’s shorthand).

    Much better definition, except for that last sentence. So I prompted to give me a short explainer for beginners.


    – WordPress.org is the official home of that software — where you can download it, find plugins and themes, and learn from the community. If you use WordPress this way, you’ll need your own web hosting. This is often called “self-hosted WordPress.”
    – WordPress.com is a service run by a company called Automattic. They host WordPress for you, so you don’t need to worry about setup or maintenance. It’s easier to start with, but advanced features may require paid plans.

    ➡️ In short: WordPress.org = do it yourself with full control.
    WordPress.com = hosted for you, easier but with limits.

    We were doing so well!! Again, the in short expression WordPress.org = do it yourself with full control is wrong.

    Second attempt


    Prompt:
    WordPress.org = do it yourself with full control. This expression is still wrong. WordPress.org is only an editorial website, the only way users can interact with it is by downloading the software or consulting resources like documentation, code, posting questions in the forums, etc

    ChatGPT said:
    You’re absolutely right—thank you. Here’s a corrected, beginner-friendly explainer that avoids that shortcut:

    – WordPress is free, open-source software for building websites.
    – WordPress.org is the official resource site for that software. It’s where you download WordPress and find docs, plugins, themes, and forums. You don’t build or host a site on WordPress.org.
    – Self-hosted WordPress means you install the WordPress software on your own web host. This is the “do it yourself with full control” option.
    – WordPress.com is a hosting service by Automattic that runs WordPress for you. Easier setup; advanced features may require paid plans.

     ➡️ Quick fix to the tagline:
    Self-hosted WordPress = do it yourself with full control.
    WordPress.org = the official hub for downloads and documentation.

    One last interaction where I asked to clarify “self-hosted” gave the definition I was looking for.


    – WordPress is free, open-source software for building websites.
    – WordPress.org is the official hub of the WordPress project. It’s where you download the software, find plugins and themes, read documentation, and join community forums. You don’t host a site there — it’s just the project’s resource site.
    – Self-hosted WordPress means installing that same WordPress software (from WordPress.org) on a hosting provider of your choice. This gives you full control over your site’s features, code, and data.
    – WordPress.com is a hosting service run by Automattic. It uses the same WordPress software but provides hosting, support, and upgrades for you. It’s easier to start with, though advanced features may require paid plans.

    ➡️ In short:
    WordPress.org = the official resource site.
    WordPress (self-hosted software) = full control.
    WordPress.com = hosted for you.

    Conclusion

    For ChatGPT to understand the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com it is necessary to add a third use for the word “WordPress”. Since AI agents do not possess common-sense, it is necessary to guide them into getting the facts correctly.

    At the end, ChatGPT learned to differentiate WordPress.org vs WordPress.com vs WordPress (the software)


    This work is sponsored by Kinsta to contribute to WordPress.

  • WordCamp Barcelona

    WordCamp Barcelona

    The most important reason why I attended WordCamp Barcelona is to continue with the WordPress.org documentation translation project.

    As expressed before, we are working with the Spanish community for our trial. The reasons are plenty, they do have a lot of documentation translated, they are near by me – thus cutting down traveling costs, and I speak the language.

    Contributor Day

    During Contributor Day we worked with members of the translation, documentation and marketing teams. The goal was to translate HelpHub sitemap into Spanish and there was a group of Catalan speakers who decided to translate it into Catalan also.

    During our short workshop, we spoke about the meaning of each term and discussed words that can carry SEO weight. It was amazing that at end of the day, we had both the Spanish and the Catalan version of the sitemap.

    NOTE: I will talk more about the evolution of the project in WordPress.org/documentation

    Talks

    Honestly, I only attended one talk about leadership, which was very interesting and the only one in English. Most of the talks were in Catalan and few talks in Spanish.

    I applaud the effort on highlighting the language of the community but there should be a better balance between Spanish and Catalan to secure more attendees and also more speakers. It also helps break language barriers. I won’t say anything about English because speaking and understanding English at a high level should never be a barrier to work with WordPress.

    The language was not a barrier to the topics, there were many to choose from.

    Small interview

    Podcast from WordCamp Barcelona 2023

    Thank you to Yoast

    For the last WordCamps, Torrelodones and Barcelona, Yoast has supported my traveling from the Yoast Diversity Fund. If you haven’t heard about it and want to do something awesome for the community, like give a talk on a WordCamp, make sure that funding is not the reason why you don’t apply.

    As with everything there are rules, read all about it

    Yoast diversity fund banner
  • My experience at WordCamp Torrelodones

    My experience at WordCamp Torrelodones

    There is something about the WordPress Spanish community that makes everything more fun and exciting. As I made my way to WordCamp Torrelodones, another participant was looking to share a Cabify (Spain’s version of Uber.) We shared a chat group with lots of jokes about the weather and luggage. Probably what surprised me most was the warm welcome I received from everyone I talked to – lots of hugs and kisses all around. The Spanish people are truly a friendly and welcoming bunch.

    After arriving at the hotel, I walked to the venue and helped with the setup. Even though, that was the intention, there were so many volunteers that the set up lasted no more than 2 hours.

    That evening the schedule called for the speakers, volunteers and sponsors dinner. At first glance, I was struck by the genuine warmth of the community. I received more hugs and kisses, ate lots of delicious food (maybe too much for my own good), and enjoyed drinks with fellow attendees. We shared or stories, our love for WordPress, and discussed new projects we’d like to implement in the community.

    The WordCamp

    On Saturday morning, Ana Cirujano led the inauguration with her amazing team of organizers and volunteers. I was thrilled to see that we had a 93.8% attendance rate. Although I attended several talks, I focused on everything SEO related, like “El E.E.A.T. me come toda la marca” (which roughly translates to “Google’s E.E.A.T. is eating all my brand”), presented by Lucia y el SEO. Her talk was both informative and hilarious, and she presented it with exceptional style and clarity. Wajari Velazques’ “Pesadilla en la cocina – Mejora tus guisos y el SEO con Search Console” y “Tu cerebro te traiciona – los sesgos explotados por el marketing” con Pablo Moratinos. I found many of the other talks to be equally enlightening, educational, and energizing.

    On Sunday, my own talk was approaching, and my anxiety was building. To be honest, I hadn’t put much thought into it when Ana asked me to speak. But then the new website for wordpress.org/documentation launched and it was the last day of the call for speakers at WordCamp Torrelodones, and I knew I had to apply. I submitted my talk summary in English and promised to present it in Spanish. The language was my stress trigger. After this weekend, not being able to speak better Spanish is an excuse I can no longer give; I just need to work on overcoming my nerves.

    I signed up to talk at WordCamp Torrelodones but I also wanted to see my friend Ana and meet two wonderful people in person, Ohia and Wajari, we have been planning WCEU 2023 together since September last year. And made many new friends.

    Contributor Day

    Sunday’s Contributor Day was also intense, with contributors hard at work and fully invested. I took the opportunity to discuss internationalization options for documentation with a team of like-minded individuals. They worked so hard that by the end of the day, my talk was already up (in Spanish).

    Introduction to the new site for wordpress.org/documentation

    I am not one to toot my own horn but I was so proud of myself when I got the acceptance email for my talk. And on Sunday, people had nice things to say about me on Twitter, I think I blushed all day.

    Attending WordCamp Torrelodones was an incredible and enjoyable experience that left me feeling humbled. The flawless organization and exceptional organizing team were truly remarkable. I departed with a promising start to the second phase of the internationalization of documentation project, made new friends, and returned home with both a heart full of joy and a brain full of ideas. The WordPress Spanish community is truly something special, they make everything more fun and exciting.

    Gracias #WCTorre

    See you next year WordCamp Torrelodones

  • My WordPress Story

    My WordPress Story

    20 years ago, WordPress found its way into this world and I have been working with it almost from the beginning. Well, 3 years after the first version launched and then again 5 years later.

    It was 2003 when I moved back to the US. After a divorce and a child in my arms, I wanted to find a job that allowed me to stay home and raise my son but alas, the concept of distributed teams didn’t exist back then.

    One day, at a FOSE conference (a cool IT conference/trade show for government in DC), I was standing right by the Macromedia booth and I got the lucky winning number and went home with a full Macromedia set in a plastic case with about 6 CDs.

    About a year later, I discovered I could set my own business as a virtual assistant. I could work from my computer and stay home to care for my son. Except that I needed to learn how to build a website.

    Working on the Internet

    I learned that Macromedia had a software called Dreamweaver and I could build a website with it. Since I am pretty good at following instructions, I started asking around. Firefox wasn’t very helpful and Google wasn’t the information monster it is now. So I hit the library for books about Dreamweaver and Fireworks.

    Once at the library, I realized I had forgotten the sticky note with the names of the programs so I opted for my memory and I got 2 books: Dreamweaver 7 and something that was Fire-something. That Fire-something book turned out to be a book on how to install and search on Firefox ????. I didn’t give up.

    Back then, I was also a member of a group called DC Web Women, a group of women in tech founded sometime in the 90s. Those women were my source of truth and I literally learned how to build my first website by asking questions.

    While in the process someone recommended I checked WordPress out, perhaps it could helped me out with the buttons and the menu, which were the 2 things I struggled the most.

    Meeting my nemesis

    My first visit to WordPress.org was sometime in 2006, I looked for documentation and immediately, the Codex became my nemesis. I am not a developer, have never been a developer and will never become a developer, but the documentation in the Codex made me say something like ‘holy cannoli this is written for geniuses.” I ran away from WordPress and finished my first website with the help of Dreamweaver and Fireworks in CSS and HTML.

    My first site built with HTML, CSS and some fancy Fireworks buttons. Cliparts courtesy of my computer.

    Since that first visit, I became obsessed with documentation and simple language. I studied a lot to learn my way around the internet and I loved talking to my clients in an easy-to-understand language, zero developer jargon.

    2010, the year I fell in love with WordPress

    Around 2010, I took a class at the Northern Virginia Community College and learned how to build a website in WordPress. Someone had to teach me cause the Codex was still incomprehensible to me.

    The first website I built in WordPress in 2010

    Until the year 2017, I built about 30 WordPress sites for small businesses, not many because it wasn’t really the focus of my own business but I enjoyed it and had fun with it.

    2017 was also the year I moved back to The Netherlands and I discovered the WordPress community. That year I attended my first WordCamp in Utrecht and ventured to WCEU Belgrade in 2018. Being in The Netherlands helped me get close to the Dutch community, they helped me navigate my way around the global community. In Belgrade I met many members from the Spanish community, my forever friends.

    Contributing to WordPress

    It was during WC Utrecht that I learned about contributor day, I didn’t do much the first time. I walked around the venue, moving from table to table, totally lost and in awe at the same time. They were some of the people that helped build the software I so much loved!!

    Contributor Day at WCEU in Belgrade was intense and the design team weekly meetings on Slack were like lessons on steroids. I learned more about WordPress in a month than I did in 7 years.

    For the next few years, I volunteered at WordCamps in The Netherlands and then at WCEU in Berlin. It was Contributor Day in WCEU 2019 when I faced my nemesis again, the Codex, but I didn’t know. It was the day I was invited to help redesign the documentation pages on WordPress.org. Several meetings later, I realized that some Codex articles were moved to HelpHub, the end-user documentation, and others to DevHub or developers.wordpress.org. The Codex lifeline is expiring.

    I still contribute to WordPress and have huge plans for my future contributions so the rest of the story will be another long post about my contributions to HelpHub, personal struggles and the support of the WordPress community.

  • Redesigning the end-user documentation in the WordPress project – case study

    For the past 2 years I have been busy reading and reviewing the end-user documentation in WordPress.org. The goal was to create a new design for the articles as they look outdated. The hidden problem was the problematic search, which is far more important than the way a page looks. This project is written into two parts.

    The discovery phase

    While reviewing the documentation, I found discrepancies in the navigation. Discovered that several articles were included in more than one category, the article listing changed when going back in the browser and there was no clear navigation.

    The revision included the 15 requirements that the documentation team had gathered during the migration of the documentation from the Codex (the previous documentation repository for the WordPress Project.)

    The most urgent issues to solve were the navigation to improve search and the user experience and, identifying the users.

    Methodology

    I didn’t follow any specific methodology. After researching documentation sites for several software companies, open-source and privately-owned, I understood the path to follow.

    The path guided to find the four pillars to create the sitemap. When thinking of how to structure end-user documentation it is difficult to think about new, intermediate or advanced users because one cannot really identify who is whom or what level is each user. Instead, it is best to follow a “step-by-step” build; what do I need to know before building a site, what are the requirements, any technical hiccups (maintenance), etc.

    1. What is WordPress? What is its story? Is WordPress the best CMS for the user’s project?
    2. What does the user need to create and maintain a WordPress blog or site? First steps, requirements, maintenance, troubleshooting
    3. WordPress dashboard – daunting for new users, get to know your new software, how to add content, how to manage media.
    4. Customization – themes, blocks, FSE, plugins, colors, etc.

    Identifying the end-users

    Creating personas for a software that is used by millions of people is absolutely useless. As soon as one persona is created, you leave out 99% of the users. Instead, I identified users by roles.

    The non-developer users that search WordPress end-user documentation falls into any of these roles:

    • Bloggers – new or not, anyone who writes a blog and wants to customize it without the help of a developer.
    • New users looking for a CMS to build a website.
    • Content creators that are looking for content to create tutorials or references for their own products.
    • WordPress consultants that provide service to clients.
    • Support teams from companies that look for content to support their own products/services or, that provides tech support for their clients.
    • Translation teams/contributors that are translating documentation into their own languages.

    The result: a new site map for WordPress.org Helphub

    There were 170 articles written when we started the reclassification. The new WordPress features including the Block Editor, Full Site Editing and new blocks, increased the number of articles to about 250 and there are plans to write more. The reclassification needs to take into account the growing needs of WordPress.

    The site map now includes 4 main categories with subcategories under each to allow growth. Below is an image of the recommended sitemap. The developers column is under review.

    Image and link to the recommended new site map for end-user documentation in the WordPress project.
    The recommended new site map for HelpHub in WordPress.org