Welcome to the official blog of the community/outreach team for the WordPress open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project!
This team oversees official events, mentorship programs, diversity initiatives, contributor outreach, and other ways of growing our community.
If you love WordPress and want to help us do these things, join in!
Getting Involved
We use this blog forĀ policyĀ debates, projectĀ announcements, and status reports. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to comment on posts and join the discussion.
You can learn about our currentĀ activities on the Team Projects page. These projects are suitable for everyone from newcomers to WordPress community elders.
You can use our contact form to volunteer for one of our projects.
Communication
We have Office HoursOffice HoursDefined times when the Global Community Team are in the #community-events Slack channel. If there is anything you would like to discuss ā you do not need to inform them in advance.You are very welcome to drop into any of the Community Team Slack channels at any time. four times a week in the #community-events channel on Slack: Mondays & Wednesdays 22:00 UTC, Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 UTC.
We also have regular Community Team meetings on theĀ first and third ThursdaysĀ of every month atĀ 12:00 UTCĀ andĀ 21:00 UTCĀ in #community-team onĀ Slack (same agenda).
Events WidgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, WordPress events are online. Please refer to our online events handbook.
For communities COVID-19 has been more effectively contained, returning to hosting an in-person meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. event is possible, with caution, using the resources provided. If you plan to move forward with an in-person meetup, you must use the provided checklist.
So you want to host a contributor dayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. or contributor event at your WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what theyāve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more.. Awesome!
The Community Team would love to encourage more WordCamps to host contributor days or events. Below is an outline of what to expect and what to plan for.
Contributor Days generally need two people to help run them: one to organize the logistics and one to organize the contributor teams (more below) and another to bring together the day-of the event.
Event planning can have some challenges, and it can be easier to combine the organization of the contributor day logistics (venue, food, etc) along with the WordCamp logistics.
As far as organizing the day-of the event, the best person will be someone local to the community who has contributed to Make WordPress before, regardless of their area of contribution. There is more information below to help you with what the roles involved.
Contributor days and events should be free. While everyone gets value from, it is important that new contributors feel welcome and invited. Buying a ticket to contribute can make someone them less interested, especially as you are asking them to give up time for the WordPress community. This means you will need to build the cost of the contributor day into your budget, including venue, lunch (more below), and any other expenses.
Contributor days and events are for everyone, on every experience level. Even someone who knows very little about WordPressĀ can contribute. The exception is, perhaps, focused WordCamps (i.e. Developer WordCamps) where attendees are expected to know a bit about development, and thus the accompanying contributor day can be mostly developer-focused. Even then, it is useful to have a plan in case new contributors arrive who are not developers. Make sure you emphasize this point in all your communication with potential attendees.
An event can be held before or after the main WordCamp. If it is held afterwards, you can heavily promote the contributor day during the WordCamp, which may result in more enthusiasm. Attendees feel most excited about WordPress right after a WordCamp. Use that excitement to encourage them to attend the contributor day.
Post multiple times about your contributor event. Your WordCamp blog is a great way to get the word out about the event. Many attendees may miss the first blog postā¦ and the secondā¦ post four weeks ahead of time about the contributor, then three weeks. At two weeks, start allowing sign-ups (m ore below).
Post a separate sign-up form for your contributor day. WordCamps that have combined the sign-up for the WordCamp itself and the contributor day have been disappointed with the lack of attendees. It is often the case in free software, that contributors may āover commit and under deliverā. The same is true for contributor days. A second sign-up form requires more effort ā and explicit effort ā from a potential attendees and will give you a better idea of how many people will attend.
If possible, allow attendees to ājust show upā to contributor day. Sometimes this is not possible due to venue requirements, but encouraging attendees at your WordCamp to ājust show upā will increase attendance and, again, lets you promote the day during your WordCamp.
Remind attendees to bring their laptops (or tablets). It seems logical, but many people do not realize they will need their laptops (or a tablet) to contribute. Remind them both on the website and in any emails about contributor day.
Attendance will be lower than planned. Because contributor days are free ā and sign up is free ā attendance will be lower than your sign ups. This is true with all free or inexpensive events.
Do not start your contributor day before 10 a.m. Expecting attendees to wake up in time for a contributor day the morning after a WordCamp after party at even 10 a.m. is hard. We recommend starting at 11 a.m. or even noon, with your free lunch at 1 p.m. or so.
Provide a free lunch. It is an added cost, but a worthwhile one. Of course it is not always possible (due to budgets) to provide a free lunch, but if you can, it is Ā very helpful in convincing people to attend. Typically, pizza or something simple that can be ordered when you know how many are in attendance is the provided lunch, but we would suggest something more creative like sandwiches or burritos. If you can not provide lunch, you should at least provide a snack and beverages.
Likewise, provide free coffee, water, and/or soft drinks. In the U.S., Starbucks provides cartons of hot coffee at a reasonable charge. Water is also invaluable to have on hand in the form of cheap bottled water or an easily accessible drinking fountain with cups.
Pick three or four areas to focus on. There are a lot of ways to contribute. Unless you are planning on having a very large contributor day, it is best to focus on a handful of ways to contribute. The standard three are coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., support, and docs. Depending on available contributor team representatives and location, you may wish to include theme reviews, metaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., or polyglots as well. Each team has a page on how to contribute at a contributor day. The contributor facilitators should rely heavily on those pages if they are not familiar with contributing to that area.
Give a preview of the focus areas. Each contributor lead should introduce their focus area and talk a little bit about what people will be working on if they join that group.
If you want to put signs on the tables you can use the signage prepared by @00sleepy
There is a complete list at make.wordpress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, but below is a list, along with links to how to get started with that team at a contributor day. For each team you are planning on supporting at your contributor day, you will want to have someone familiar with contributing to that group and familiar with the contributor day page (a team facilitator). Different groups will do different things, but your group facilitator should be prepared for both experienced contributors and new contributors.
Core ā There are generally two different groups at a contributor day: those who have contributed to core before and those who have not. It is usually best to split the core group into two, letting previous contributors work on new contributions and teaching new contributors how to contribute. You will probably want two facilitators but it will depend on attendance at your WordCamp. For new contributors, you need to go through a number of things, most of which are listed in the sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. of the core contributor handbook. Be sure to cover how to use tracTracTrac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/., what makes a good ticket, how to setup a local development environment (if needed), and general best practices (coding standards).
Support ā Most contributions here will be to the support forums. You should go through what the support team does and focus on answering questions in the support forums. Be sure to give information on stock answers and help users setup a WordPress.org account.
Docs ā At contributor days, docs contributions are generally editing and improving the theme and pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developer handbooks. However, some people may want to improve the codex or contribute examples to the developer hub. Talk to a docs contributor ahead of time to make sure someone is around to give out Editor status on make/docs.
Theme Review Team ā A full walkthrough on how to review themes is important. Likewise, be sure to contact a TRT admin so they can be around during your contributor day and can assign tickets to new contributors.
Mobile ā The mobile handbook is generally up-to-date. For contributors to either the iOSiOSThe operating system used on iPhones and iPads. or Android apps, they should have a knowledge of development on their respective platform. Following the handbook at that point should not be hard.
Polyglots ā Contributing string translations to a current localization of WordPress is a great way to get started. The document linked to walks through how that should be done. If you are hosting a WordCamp in a language that does not have a full translation of WordPress (or related projects), it can be good to set one up ahead of time with the polyglots teamPolyglots TeamPolyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/. and kick off your translation work there. The first step there will be requesting a new locale.
Meta āĀ The meta team is programming-based, for the most part. The WordPress Meta Environment (based on VVV) is the best way to get setup and contribute to the open sourced projects that the meta team manages, including wordcamp.org, global.wordpress.org (rosetta), jobs.wordpress.net, developer.wordpress.org, and apps.wordpress.org.
Accessibility āĀ Generally, we group the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both ādirect accessā (i.e. unassisted) and āindirect accessā meaning compatibility with a personās assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) team with core so they can contribute their testing or programming expertise to core tickets with the āaccessibilityā focus.
Not ready year to commit to a full day? You can start with a Contributor Event: an evening or a few hours dedicated to a specific team. You can read the experience from the Contributor Night in Torino, Italy.
Tip: Here is a quizĀ on this article. Read quizzes page if you have any questions about quizzes and how to navigate them.
Contributor Day Handbook resources available to use and translate (GitHub). This is an expanding resource and includes links to videos to help new contributors set up a WordPress.org profile and join the Make WordPress Slack. These resources can save the organizers a lot of time. There are also resources to help people get started with the tools used by the the WordPress.org teams.