We Broke It. Now Let’s Fix It.
Valid email addresses like max@müller.de or domains such as müller.engineer are compliant with modern internet standards — yet WordPress Core and widely used plugins often reject them.
This session kicks off a full-day contributor challenge focused on fixing domain and email validation issues across the WordPress ecosystem.
In this introduction, we will cover:
- Why IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) and UTF-8 email addresses matter
- Where WordPress currently fails
- How validation works (and where it breaks)
- Common pitfalls in Core and plugin implementations
- How participants can test and document issues
- The structure of our shared documentation portal
After this session, participants will spend the day actively testing WordPress Core and popular plugins (newsletter, SMTP, contact forms, etc.), documenting reproducible validation issues.
This is not theoretical.
We’re here to find real bugs.
If you would like to help us test popular plugins, or if you build plugins, work on Core, and care about a truly global web — this challenge is for you.