We are trying to address all of this. We recognise we need to grow our audience and the new web page is only a part of our line of “attack”.
We are currently targeting WP 4.9 users and WP5 users with the Classic Editor plugin installed.
The reason it was decided to target these users is because:
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a) it’s an easily definable target
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b) it’s huge. WP 4.9 users amount to around a quarter of all WP sites. Users on WP5 with the classic editor installed increases this still further (possibly quite considerably).
The new web page is heavily optimised towards “wordpress 4.9” for SEO purposes and this will be monitored. The page is also likely to be quite fluid and may change according to circumstances.
The page is also being pushed and used as material for social media (follow @GetClassicPress on Twitter). As Michelle mentioned in the meeting:
I’ll be able to use a lot of this to build a social media campaign that should last us a couple of months, so if you’re on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn please keep an eye out and share.
Just to stress that point, everyone can help to promote CP. For instance, I don’t do social media but I’ve just resurrected an old Twitter account to help out.
To spread the word further, as you may have seen from this post, we are participating in the Twitter-based Hey Pressto! Conference 2020.
WP 4.9 users will not be the only target but it’s certainly a good one. Suggestions for who else to target and how to reach them will, as always, be welcomed.
As also mentioned in the meeting:
Right now, I would say we should be thinking about now . Time is of the essence. We need to try and capture the 25% because that audience will almost certainly be 0% in 5 years.
I know the minutes of the meeting are a long read but it’s worth taking a bit of time out to read them fully. You’ll see that most of what’s been mentioned since has already been discussed.
As to why people are still using WP4.9 or the Classic Editor, I think this is pretty pertinent:
However, I would just like to add:
If you’re still on WP4.9, don’t feel pressured into upgrading plugins and themes when new releases come out. If you find a version that works, is secure and does what you need, stick with it. And then you can safely use that version with CP.
Lastly, don’t forget you can easily revert to any version of WP should CP not work out for you.
There are real advantages of moving to CP, not least that a fiasco like Gutenberg would never happen here. And that is, after all, why we’re all here in the first place.
Sorry for the long post.