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Friday, 16 October 2026 Reading Room

Tech

Matt Mullenweg Orders Accessibility Revert

therepository.email ·

Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, recently stripped Andrea Fercia of his roles within WordPress.org, stating he was "no longer interested in his contributions." Fercia, an accessibility specialist, has been a core committer for WordPress for over a decade, contributing to 33 releases. He initially opened a ticket to make WordPress admin notices more accessible for screen reader and keyboard users.

The ticket took six years to progress through multiple releases before being reverted by Joe Dolson last weekend. Following Mullenweg's comment, Fercia's WordPress.org account was disabled, cutting him off from showcasing his contributions. Mullenweg later issued an apology for the unintended account lockout, stating he was unaware of the action taken.

This incident has reignited debates around the accessibility team's role and influence within WordPress.

Written by urgent.news from Lobsters's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

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Rank Trackers Are Getting Poisoned Google SERPs. Here's How I Check Drops With the Search Console API

If your rank tracker showed a page-one keyword falling off a cliff in late September and then coming back a few days later, it may not have been your site at all.

  • Rank trackers experiencing poisoning, with 8.0% of analyzed SERPs affected since September 13.
  • Poisoned SERPs show only 20.7% of usual organic sites, while normal pages retain 88.5%.
  • Python script developed to check drops in rankings using Google Search Console API.

·dev.to

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