 So 2008 was the very first WordCamp event, and it's my massive record 10 years ago. This was prior to the idea of WordCamps being something that everyone could organize was real. So it was called WordPress Vancouver. It was organized by Tazu and Ms. 604, who's still a relatively well-known person in Vancouver, I think. If you've ever searched for things to do in Vancouver this weekend, guarantee you've seen Rebecca's content. This event happened at the network hub, which is on Richards. The network hub has been a huge supporter of the WordPress community since way before 2008, but definitely at 2008. And it was a group of people just like you who really cared about WordPress, this new upstart thing that a couple of people were working on and wanted to figure out how to use it for their own business or for just publishing content on the web in general. Some notable people were there. This is Rebecca Baldwin, Ms. 604, who was then considered Vancouver's most important blogger and is still considered Vancouver's most important blogger. The other one person there is John Chow, who at the time was trying to figure out if he could earn enough money with his blog to not have a job. I don't know how much money John Chow earns now, but he has every version of the Tesla and lives in California. And I think he earns more money than he did back then. If you go to johnchow.com, you'll see what I'm talking about. So this event was a true camp. There was a chair for the computer and a projector on another chair. Everyone was sitting on the floor. Mobile demos were done on mobile devices. This, by the way, is Dwayne's story from Vancouver. He created the WP mobile. It was the plug-in everyone was using to get their sites to become mobile before responsive web design was a thing, because as you know, responsive web design was invented in 2010. So WordPress, and Dwayne in particular, was well ahead of that. Dwayne just released a new plug-in, an SEO plug-in, this week that he wants everyone to test out, just so you know. Go on the internet and look up. So this is what it looked like. There were lots of interesting people there. There was lots of interesting people there. I particularly like this guy, who's like, that guy's full of shit. That, by the way, is Raul. He was a prolific blogger in the WordPress community. He now lives somewhere in South or Central America and does very important research on water. He's also become like a notebook fanatic and talks a lot about this everything notebook thing that you should go follow him on the internet too. So the topics of the day at WordCamp, Vancouver, 2008, the joys of amateur blogging, how to make money using a WordPress blog, that was John Chow, blogging and social media, WordPress for total website development, good typography in WordPress, using WordPress to create a custom library catalog and WordPress and mobile blogging. It's fine because when you look at these things, you see that these are the things that are still relevant today, 10 years later. There also shows you how far we have come since 2008. We've come from a little weird meeting in two hours on the floor of the network hub to hundreds and hundreds of WordCamps worldwide every year. The WordPress of 2008 was an upstart blogging platform and if you told people you were working on WordPress, they would ask you, why are you not working with Drupal? And they would honestly laugh at you and say, you're not a real web developer. The WordPress of 2018 is 31.9% of the web. In American terms, that is a large portion of a football field and like a third of the Empire State building. To me, WordPress is the idea of the web made real. Tim Berners-Lee created the web with a very specific purpose and that was to make it possible for anyone to publish content at the time of scientific research but eventually all content onto the web in such a way that any other person with a connection to the internet could pull that content down and consume it in whatever way they want. And WordPress is that stopgap between the technology and the human being in that conversation. WordPress is an interface. WordPress is what facilitates your idea getting into a database and someone else being able to access that idea from that database without really knowing much about how the web works and without needing to know much about how the web works. And WordPress has actually built the web. It's hard to understand unless you've followed the last 10 years but WordPress is in fact the thing that has built the web. The idea of WordPress is huge. This concept of democratizing publishing letting every single person in the world install a simple package onto a server. Write, take photos, make videos, put them onto the internet and then any other person in the world gaining access to it. All without having to pay to use that package and then being able to contribute back to that project and make it better. That's revolutionary. Back in 2008 that was considered a weird quirk, the biggest blogging engines were ones you paid for and they were the ones that were considered the only viable options. Today all the competitors to WordPress are desperately trying to figure out how to get people to pay money for something WordPress does better for free. The reason why I can tell you about WordCamp and Coover 2008 is because of WordPress. Because all the people that were there they blogged about it on their WordPress sites and because they own their own content and published it on their own sites, it's still there. If you go to the Ms604's website and search for WordCamp and Coover 2008 you will find her live blog with all the pictures and everything and all the links and you'll realize why it's so important that we own our own content because she also did a video live blog that she published on Vidler at the time one of the biggest video platforms. I'm sure you all have accounts, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you go to Vidler today you get this, page not found 404. The content ceases to exist because the platform died. That doesn't happen with WordPress because we own our own content. We are at what philosophers call a demarcation line for WordPress right now. There was WordPress before the classic version and in a couple of months there will be WordPress next, the post-Gudenberg version. Gutenberg is this grand idea that completely re-things publishing for the web from the ground up, thinking about every single element as its own item with properties and abilities. And it's something that will revolutionize not just WordPress and not just WordPress competitors but the web in general. But in the 10 years since WordPress became something important on the web one very important aspect of the idea of the web has gotten lost and this is not a problem with WordPress. This is a problem with the web in general. We have lost our way in that we have simply forgotten the core premise of the web which is accessibility. Accessibility is the job. If we don't make accessible content for the web we are not doing the job. The web was built to be accessible. Without accessibility the job is not done. Unfortunately right now Gutenberg looks to be released without being accessible. I'm sure the organizers here hope that I'd be like, yeah, come on, let's do this. But seriously, this is not something that can happen. A work is being done to make sure Gutenberg will be accessible but the runway from today until November 19th when it's supposed to be released is simply too short. And we cannot let this happen because accessibility has always been considered a bolt-on but it's not. It's the core element of the web. Without accessibility the web has no purpose. The entire idea of the web is that we should be able to publish content and anyone should be able to access that content in any way they choose. That means accessibility must be in place. Accessibility is the job. That's why we have it enshrined in our coding standards. The coding standards explicitly say we cannot ship WordPress without it being accessible. That's why every one of you and every person who is in any way associated with WordPress needs to put accessibility as the top requirement for every project that is done because WordPress is 31.9% of the web. WordPress is so big now that decisions we make impact the web in general. If we do something you can actually see the web trends shifting because of it. And we no longer just have the responsibility of dealing with our own users. WordPress now is responsible for the web. We have a leadership role and we need to take that leadership role seriously. And it starts by saying from now accessibility is the primary concern of all web work. We have a responsibility and an opportunity to be the leaders the web need. Now there are three challenges facing the web and WordPress right now. Accessibility, privacy and security, well that's three, but sure. Those three go hand in hand because those are the three key tendons of the web. Everything has to be accessible. The privacy of the user has to be preserved and all data has to be secure. This is the place we can lead. WordPress has a crisis of leadership because some of these things are being left behind to chase a goal of better interfaces and everything else. That cannot stand. We can do better, we can lead here. And finally, we are facing the very real possibility of the closing of the open web through government control, corporate control and everything else. And WordPress is in a unique position to make sure that doesn't happen because we are 31.9% of the web and growing. These are actually opportunities for us. Accessibility, privacy and security is something we can do. There are people in this room right now who actually know accessibility, who actually know privacy and actually know security and know how to make sure the WordPress actually not just sets the bar, but raises the bar on all these efforts and every one of you can do this. Leadership, we don't just need to talk about leadership within the community. We need to take leadership in the wider web community and say WordPress leads the charge and making the web better for everyone. And every single one of you can help do that. Every single one of you has the opportunity to step up and be that leadership. We can reclaim the open web before it gets destroyed by all the people because we are 31.9%. WordPress is the community you see here right now. It's not simply software. It is all of us together doing something revolutionary. WordPress is diversity. Look around you. Normal tech conferences have mainly men, mainly white people like me. Go to a WordPress conference. There's usually more women than men. There's a large variance of people in race, color, creed, disabilities, everything else. WordPress is a fantastically diverse community. WordPress is open at its core. Really, Christine? WordPress is open. Anyone can contribute. Anyone can use it. Anyone can contribute in any way they want to. It's not just about writing code. It's about coming to this event. It's about talking to other people. It's about sharing your ideas, helping someone else. All of this is community work. And it's possible because WordPress is open. And most importantly, WordPress is you. By being here today, by being here today, you are WordPress. How many of you are here for the first time? You've never gone to a WordCamp before. These are the most important people in the room. These are the future of WordPress. I welcome you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you very much.