A CRM cycle is essential for businesses looking to effectively manage their customer relationships and drive growth. This process involves progressing through various stages to achieve success.

Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search "needs very few links to rank pages."

Google is testing showing answers in the Discussions and Forums section within the search results. Google will show the question and then add a shaded box with one of the selected answers under the question.

Forbes has blocked its coupons section of its web site at forbes.com/coupons using an x-robots-tag: noindex directive prior to Google enforcing the upcoming site reputation abuse policy. As a reminder, Google will enforce that new policy on May 5th both algorithmically and through manual actions.

Google is testing showing a "Post" button in the carousel of buttons in the Google Business Profile local listing panel. So when you view your owned business in Google Search, you may see a "Post" button near the call, directions, share, and save. There is also an "Edit" button there.

It is good to have choices but too many choices might not be good, said some wise man. Well, here is Google giving you 16 choices of bikes in the shopping ad spot at the top of the Google Search results.

In accordance with our security release policy, the Django team is issuing Django 5.0.2, Django 4.2.10, and Django 3.2.24. These releases address the security issue detailed below. We encourage all users of Django to upgrade as soon as possible.

CVE-2024-24680: Potential denial-of-service in intcomma template filter

The intcomma template filter was subject to a potential denial-of-service attack when used with very long strings.

Thanks Seokchan Yoon for the report.

This issue has severity "moderate" according to the Django security policy.

Affected supported versions

• Django main branch
• Django 5.0
• Django 4.2
• Django 3.2

Resolution

Patches to resolve the issue have been applied to Django's main branch and the 5.0, 4.2, and 3.2 stable branches. The patches may be obtained from the following changesets:

• On the main branch
• On the 5.0 release branch
• On the 4.2 release branch
• On the 3.2 release branch

The following releases have been issued:

• Django 5.0.2 (download Django 5.0.2 | 5.0.2 checksums)
• Django 4.2.10 (download Django 4.2.10 | 4.2.10 checksums)
• Django 3.2.24 (download Django 3.2.24 | 3.2.24 checksums)

The PGP key ID used for this release is Natalia Bidart: 2EE82A8D9470983E

General notes regarding security reporting

As always, we ask that potential security issues be reported via private email to security@djangoproject.com, and not via Django's Trac instance, nor via the Django Forum, nor via the django-developers list. Please see our security policies for further information.

After five years as part of the Django Fellowship program, Mariusz Felisiak has let us know that he will be stepping down as a Django Fellow in March 2024 to explore other things. Mariusz has made an extraordinary impact as a Django Fellow and has been a critical part of the Django community.

The Django Software Foundation and the wider Django community are grateful for his service and assistance.

The Fellowship program was started in 2014 as a way to dedicate high-quality and consistent resources to the maintenance of Django. As Django has matured, the DSF has been able to fundraise and earmark funds for this vital role. As a result, the DSF currently supports two Fellows - Mariusz Felisiak and Natalia Bidart. With the departure of Mariusz, the Django Software Foundation is announcing a call for Django Fellow applications. The new Fellow will work alongside Natalia.

The position of Fellow is focused on maintenance and community support - the work that benefits most from constant, guaranteed attention rather than volunteer-only efforts. In particular, the duties include:

• Answering contributor questions on Forum and the django-developers mailing list
• Helping new Django contributors land patches and learn our philosophy
• Monitoring the security@djangoproject.com email alias and ensuring security issues are acknowledged and responded to promptly
• Fixing release blockers and helping to ensure timely releases
• Fixing severe bugs and helping to backport fixes to these and security issues
• Reviewing and merging pull requests
• Triaging tickets on Trac

Being a Django contributor isn't a prerequisite for this position — we can help get you up to speed. We'll consider applications from anyone with a proven history of working with either the Django community or another similar open-source community. Geographical location isn't important either - we have several methods of remote communication and coordination that we can use depending on the timezone difference to the supervising members of Django.

If you're interested in applying for the position, please email us at fellowship-committee@djangoproject.com describing why you would be a good fit along with details of your relevant experience and community involvement. Also, please include your preferred hourly rate and when you'd like to start working. Lastly, please include at least one recommendation.

Applicants will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Details of Django and/or other open-source contributions
• Details of community support in general
• Understanding of the position
• Clarity, formality, and precision of communications
• Strength of recommendation(s)

Applications will be open until 1200 AoE, February 16, 2024, with the expectation that the successful candidate will be notified no later than March 1, 2024.

DjangoCon Europe 2024 will be held June 5th-9th in Vigo, Spain but we're already looking ahead to the 2025 conference. Could your town - or your football stadium, circus tent, private island or city hall - host this wonderful community event?

Hosting a DjangoCon is an ambitious undertaking. It's hard work, but each year it has been successfully run by a team of community volunteers, not all of whom have had previous experience - more important is enthusiasm, organizational skills, the ability to plan and manage budgets, time and people - and plenty of time to invest in the project.

How to apply

We've set up a working group of previous DjangoCon Europe organizers that you can reach out to with questions about organizing and running a DjangoCon Europe. european-organizers-support@djangoproject.com. There will also be an informational session set up towards the end of January or early February for interested organizers. Please email the working group to express interest in participating.

In order to give people the chance to go to many different conferences DjangoCon Europe should be held between January 5 and April 15 2025. Please read the licensing agreement the selected organizers will need to sign for the specific requirements around hosting a DjangoCon Europe

If you're interested, we'd love to hear from you. This year we are going to do rolling reviews of applications, in order to hopefully give more time and certainty to the selected proposal to start planning. The board will begin evaluating proposals on February 20th. The selection will be made at any time between February 20th and May 31st. The DSF Board will communicate when a selection has been made and the application process is complete. IF you are interested in organizing it is in your best interest to get a good proposal in early.

Following the established tradition, the selected hosts will be publicly announced at this year's DjangoCon Europe by the current organizers.

The more detailed and complete your proposal, the better. Things you should consider, and that we'd like to know about, are:

• dates Ideally between early January and mid April 2025
• numbers of attendees
• venue(s)
• accommodation
• transport links
• budgets and ticket prices
• committee members

We'd like to see:

• timelines
• pictures
• prices
• draft agreements with providers
• alternatives you have considered

Email your proposals to djangocon-europe-2025-proposals@djangoproject.com. We look forward to reviewing great proposals that continue the excellence the whole community associates with DjangoCon Europe.

Recently, the DSF made some changes to our bylaws to change the definition of DSF Membership. You can read the legalese of the new language in the meeting minutes for the October 12 board meeting, but here’s the short version: previously, individual membership required contribution of intellectual property (e.g. code or documentation) we’ve changed it so that individual membership now recognizes broader contributions to the DSF’s mission. That still includes code and docs, but now also includes many more activities: organizing a Django event, serving on a Working Group, maintaining a third-party app, moderating Django community spaces, and much more. (Corporate membership hasn’t changed; this just applies to individual membership.)

The DSF’s mission, as described in our bylaws, is: 

The Foundation's purposes shall include, but not be limited to, developing and promoting the Django framework for free and open public use among the worldwide web development community, protecting the framework's long-term viability, and advancing the state of the art in web development.

Membership, then, recognizes material contributions to that mission. This is deliberately broad and inclusive: we want to allow as broad a definition of “contribution” as possible – including, critically, contributions to the community as well as code contributions. But we do want those contributions to be “material”: we want to recognize substantial or sustained contributions, not one-offs or “drive-by” contributions.

Because this definition of “material” is somewhat deliberately vague, we’ve prepared an FAQ that outlines several examples of things we believe do and do not qualify someone for membership. Ultimately, though, if you’re not sure: please apply anyway! We generally try to err on the side of saying “yes”.

To join the DSF under these new, more inclusive rules, fill out the application form here. The Board approves new members at its monthly meeting, so you can expect to hear back within about a month.