A little over a week since proposing reforms to restore trust and improve transparency following months of bans on WordPress.org and Slack, WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard is drawing both praise and criticism from the community.

In her May 21 blog post, Restoring Trust while Preserving Safety, Hubbard floated several ideas, including a formal appeals process, updated Slack conduct guidelines, and rotating roles in moderation and community safety as a starting point for reform. The goal: to repair the damage left by the opaque and sudden bans that locked out dozens of contributors and users — some of whom had publicly criticized WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg over his handling of a public feud with WP Engine.

But while some see Hubbard’s post as a meaningful first step, others are calling it incomplete or deflective, particularly in its failure to address Mullenweg’s role.

“Trust is a two-way street,” wrote Wes Taters, Managing Director of Rapyd Cloud, in a comment below Hubbard’s post.

“For the contributor community — the people for whom the faith and passion and belief in the project are their drivers … any new guidelines for Slack or other spaces need two-way governance … otherwise the mistrust that leads to a belief that this could happen again will sadly likely continue.

“Simply put … could this happen again tomorrow?”

Others were more direct. “Until [Matt] is held accountable, this is unfortunately all just talk,” developer Daniel Hayes Smith wrote on X in response to a post promoting Hubbard’s proposals. Several users echoed the sentiment.

Still, Hubbard has received support from some contributors. Anne McCarthy, an Automattic-sponsored contributor, said she backed the idea of rotating roles and suggested onboarding overlap. “We have the benefit of a huge amount of historical knowledge and experience that I’d love to intentionally leave space for,” she wrote in a comment.

On the Crossword podcast, WordPress Plugin Review Team contributor Luke Carbis offered a more nuanced take, suggesting Hubbard may already be having an impact behind the scenes.

“When all of this rubbish was happening with Matt [Mullenweg], a lot of people were saying, ‘Can somebody just sit down and ask him if he’s okay? Something weird is going on. Somebody needs to tell him to chill,’” Carbis said. 

“Then he stopped for a little bit… and things have died down on the drama front. My speculation is that is because of Mary.”

He acknowledged the difficulty of Hubbard’s role, particularly following former Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy. “Mary is very, very good at operating behind the scenes,” he said. “She’s in a position where she has influence with Matt, she has the trust of Matt… and they have a good working relationship. So I think this is her trying to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg. And I think this is welcome.”

One of the strongest responses came from Sé Reed, CEO of The WP Community Collective, who has been at the center of the moderation controversy since her own ban earlier this year. In a detailed comment under Hubbard’s blog post, Reed challenged the framing of the reinstatements as a “Jubilee”-style reset, calling it a continuation of the “character defamation” she had previously reported.

Reed outlined a timeline of events beginning in September 2023, when she filed a code of conduct complaint about sustained harassment from a member of project leadership. An independent Incident Response Team (IRT) upheld her report in early 2024, calling the behavior “unacceptable” and warning of further consequences if it continued. Yet in January 2025, Reed’s WordPress.org account was deactivated without warning, and her name was included in a public post that she says spread false claims.

She submitted a second harassment report that same month, which she says remains unaddressed. “Project leadership is currently exempt from both the formal expectations of IRT and, subsequently, the code of conduct,” she wrote.

While welcoming Hubbard’s proposed reforms as “positive steps,” Reed emphasized that future changes mean little without accountability for past actions. “Trust cannot be restored while some individuals remain outside the bounds of accountability,” she said.

For now, there’s been no formal response to Reed’s comment or to others raising concerns about Mullenweg’s role. Hubbard hasn’t yet outlined a timeline for implementing the proposed changes, but may share more during her scheduled fireside chat with Mullenweg on day two of WordCamp Europe next week.

Image: Justin Nealey Photography.