# WordPress.org/news Post Rules **Format rules for anything published on WordPress.org/news.** Load this together with the WordPress Brand Writing Style Guide. The guide owns voice, tone, terminology, grammar, structure, the banned lists, and the review pass. This file owns only what is specific to a News post. Skills that produce News content (`wordpress-writer-news`, `wordpress-writer-news-event-recap`) load both. Precedence: this file overrides the guide wherever the two differ, and a skill overrides this file wherever they differ (guide, Precedence). - Canonical: https://github.com/WordPress/marketing/blob/main/shared/references/wordpress-news-post-rules.md - Raw Markdown to fetch: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WordPress/marketing/main/shared/references/wordpress-news-post-rules.md --- ## What WordPress.org/news is WordPress.org/news is the source of truth for updates about the WordPress project, its community, its software, and related properties such as Openverse. It sits within the broader WordPress.org ecosystem of learning resources, documentation, and the Plugin, Theme, Pattern, and Photo directories. Every post is published under the name of a real contributor and represents the project as a whole. ## Titles - **Title Case, no final punctuation.** Capitalize the first, last, and all major words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives). Lowercase articles (*a, an, the*), short coordinating conjunctions (*and, or, but, for*), and prepositions (*on, around, up, down*). - ✅ "Contributor Stories Live from WordCamp US" · "WordPress 6.0 Beta 4 Now Ready for Download" - **No colon.** - **Plain and direct.** AVOID clever or dramatic phrasing. - This is the one place News overrides the guide's sentence-case headline default (guide Section 10). The override keeps consistency across years of News posts. ## Subheadings - Sentence case with no final punctuation, unless a specific News format sets its own convention (the event recap skill uses Title Case for its H2 and H3 headings). - Use them sparingly. Keep them short and, where it fits, action-oriented. ## Opening - The first paragraph says what the post is about and why it matters. Never bury the lede. - **Version releases** (major, minor, maintenance, security, beta, release candidate): lead with the version and the most significant user-facing change. - **Product launches, new tools, and feature announcements that are not version releases:** lead with what distinguishes the new thing from the closest existing technology or predecessor the audience already knows. Reference what the predecessor does so the reader has context, then focus on what changed. If the source describes the new thing as built on or evolved from existing technology, that distinction belongs in the opening paragraph, not later in the post. ### Illustrative opening: choosing the detail that carries the interest These source notes and the opening are fictional. **Source notes:** Students at River College published a WordPress site with 20 recorded interviews in which local residents recall changes to neighborhood shops over four decades. Visitors can listen to recordings and read transcripts, with photographs supplied by residents alongside the interviews. No audience reactions or impact measures are available. - **Overhyped:** "River College students are transforming how the world experiences history with a groundbreaking WordPress site." - **Flat:** "River College students built a WordPress website. It contains 20 interviews. Local residents supplied photographs." - **Engaging and compliant:** > River College students have published 20 interviews tracing four decades of change in neighborhood shops. On their WordPress site, visitors can listen to local residents recall that history or read the transcripts. Photographs contributed by residents sit alongside the interviews. The opening connects the students' work to what readers can find. Its interest comes from the subject and access to the accounts, without asserting how visitors feel or claiming an impact the source has not measured. ## Ending - Close with a clear next step, a call to action, or a reminder of how this fits into the broader WordPress ecosystem. ## Links - Suggest descriptive inline links to relevant WordPress.org resources: handbooks, directories, Make posts, prior News posts. - When indicating where a link should go, bold the linked text and place the URL in parentheses immediately after: **Pattern Directory** (https://wordpress.org/patterns). - Bold is reserved for linked text. Italics may be used for emphasis, sparingly. - The event recap skill overrides this with standard Markdown links for its format. ## People - Mention individuals by name and role when quoting or referencing contributions. Credit people through their specific actions and supported results; restrained thanks are appropriate where relevant. - No "credits" section at the end. ## Historical continuity - Reference past releases, events, or News posts for context when it helps the reader. ## Optional structural elements (only when they help) - Short bulleted lists - Boxed calls to action - Quotes - Images or galleries for events --- ## News format checklist Run this after the guide's Section 16 review pass. Fix what fails. - [ ] Title is Title Case, has no colon and no final punctuation, and is plain rather than clever. - [ ] Subheadings are sentence case (unless the format sets its own convention) and few. - [ ] The first paragraph leads with the version and the biggest user-facing change (release) or with what is new versus the predecessor (launch). - [ ] The post ends with a next step, a call to action, or ecosystem context. - [ ] Links are descriptive and formatted as bold text plus the URL in parentheses, or as the format's own convention. - [ ] Bold appears only on linked text; there is no credits section.