Joost de Valk 11:54 am on October 30, 2020

Proposal: Event Schema for WordCamp.org

We have taken some great steps in improving the SEO of WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. sites by rearranging the URL structure. I think the next step should be outputting Event Schema, to allow WordCamp sites to get rich event snippets. Wordcamp.org should output event schema on event homepages as well as on the individual WordCamp centralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. event page.

What is “event schema”?

Event schema is metaMeta Meta 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. data, in JSONJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML.+LD format, that tells Google, and other search engines and platforms, about our events. It gives them the most important event details in computer readable format, so they can use that when they highlight an event.

Schema examples

Below are the examples for event schema that should be shown on the WordCamp.org event homepage. When adding this Event schema to WordCamp Central (here, for example) we should add a url attribute at the top level, pointing to the WordCamp homepage URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org.

Note that this event schema can be left on the page after the event is done. The event schema can also stay on the previous homepage, so a 2019 version of a WordCamp could still have the 2019 schema.

Schema for online events

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Event",
  "organizer": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "WordCamp Finland 2020 organizing team",
    "url": "https://finland.wordcamp.org/2020/about/organizers/"
  },  
  "name": "WordCamp Finland 2020",
  "description": "Join the Finnish, Nordic and European WordPress Community for a full day of learning, sharing and fun!",
  "image": "https://finland.wordcamp.org/2020/files/2020/09/wpfi2020-logo-black.png",
  "startDate": "2020-11-12T12:00+02:00",
  "endDate": "2020-11-12T17:00+02:00",
  "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled",
  "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OnlineEventAttendanceMode",
  "location": {
    "@type": "VirtualLocation",
    "url": "https://example.com/"
  },
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "name": "Free ticket",
    "price": "0",
    "priceCurrency": "EUR",
    "validFrom": "2020-10-27",
    "url": "https://finland.wordcamp.org/2020/tickets/",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock"
  }
}

Schema for offline events

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Event",
  "organizer": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "WordCamp Alaska 2020 organizing team",
    "url": "https://alaska.wordcamp.org/2020/about/organizers/"
  },  
  "name": "WordCamp Alaska 2020",
  "description": "Join the Alaskan WordPress Community for a full day of learning, sharing and fun!",
  "image": "https://alaska.wordcamp.org/2020/files/2020/09/wp-alaska-2020-logo-black.png",
  "startDate": "2020-11-12T12:00+02:00",
  "endDate": "2020-11-12T17:00+02:00",
  "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled",
  "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode",
  "location": {     
    "@type": "Place",
    "name": "Our WordCamp venue",
    "address": {
      "@type": "PostalAddress",
      "streetAddress": "Address line 1",
      "addressLocality": "City",
      "addressRegion": "AK",
      "postalCode": "12345",
      "addressCountry": "US"
    }
  },
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "name": "Regular ticket",
    "price": "25",
    "priceCurrency": "EUR",
    "validFrom": "2020-10-27",
    "url": "https://alaska.wordcamp.org/2020/tickets/",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock"
  }
}

Schema for cancelled events

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Event",
  "name": "WordCamp Finland 2020",
  "description": "Join the Finnish, Nordic and European WordPress Community for a full day of learning, sharing and fun!",
  "image": "https://finland.wordcamp.org/2020/files/2020/09/wpfi2020-logo-black.png",
  "startDate": "2020-11-12T12:00+02:00",
  "endDate": "2020-11-12T17:00+02:00",
  "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventCancelled",
  "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OnlineEventAttendanceMode",
  "location": {
    "@type": "VirtualLocation",
    "url": "https://example.com/"
  },
  "organizer": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "WordCamp Finland 2020 organizing team",
    "url": "https://finland.wordcamp.org/2020/about/organizers/"
  },  
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "name": "Free ticket",
    "price": "0",
    "priceCurrency": "EUR",
    "validFrom": "2020-10-27",
    "url": "https://finland.wordcamp.org/2020/tickets/",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock"
  }
}

UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. controls

A lot of this data comes from existing fields / settings in the system. I think these are the ones that we might need to be able to change manually:

event attendance mode (online vs offline vs mixed);
event status dropdown (type can be one of these event types), where I suggest we do not add support for EventPostponed and EventMovedOnline;
- when an event is rescheduled, it needs a setting plus previousStartDate attribute for its previous date;
event description;
virtual location URL.

Decisions still left to make

Should the organization bit refer to the organizing team or to the WordCamp foundation or something else?

Thanks to @francina, @sippis and @jonoaldersonwp for providing early feedback on this idea.

Timi Wahalahti 12:11 pm on October 30, 2020

Love the proposal, +1 for adding the schema!

event attendance mode (online vs offline vs mixed);

We already know if event is online or online, but there’s no place to say it’s mixed (like normal WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. with live streams from the venue). Thought I would personally put this to future development and focus on getting some version of the schema out because mixed event’s won’t take place probably in very near future.

event status dropdown (type can be one of these event types), where I suggest we do not add support for EventPostponed and EventMovedOnline

+1 for this, as we don’t store the previous date anywhere currently.

event description

Maybe we can use the same description that organisers update for central.wordcamp.org?

virtual location URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org

Could this be just the home page of the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more.? Because most of the events are adding links to tracks there.

Should the organization bit refer to the organizing team or to the WordCamp foundation or something else?

In my opinion, it should be WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.. It’s also more practical because we don’t know if WordCamp has published the organizer’s page and can’t be sure about its url.
- Joost de Valk 1:22 pm on October 30, 2020
  
  Maybe we can use the same description that organisers update for central.wordcamp.org?
  
  Works for me.
  
  Could this be just the home page of the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more.? Because most of the events are adding links to tracks there.
  
  I’d rather it was the true livestream URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org. If we don’t have it, just omit it.
  
  In my opinion, it should be WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each..
  
  I’m fine with that, makes this a lot easier as then we can hardcode it.
  - Joost de Valk 1:23 pm on October 30, 2020
    
    Thought I would personally put this to future development and focus on getting some version of the schema out because mixed event’s won’t take place probably in very near future.
    
    Agreed on that too, then just online and offline is fine.
Corey McKrill 12:07 am on November 4, 2020

This sounds like a good idea to me!

event attendance mode

The WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. post type currently has a checkbox for “Virtual Event Only” and a dropdown for “Streaming account to use”, which includes a “none, not streaming option” as well as some specific platform options. Between these two inputs, I think we could determine the correct online/offline/mixed value.

event status dropdown (type can be one of these event types), where I suggest we do not add support for EventPostponed and EventMovedOnline;

Just curious why we wouldn’t support EventPostponed and EventMovedOnline. Those are both statuses that would apply to multiple camps that had to change their plans this last year due to the pandemic.

Regardless, we don’t currently have fields for all the metadata required to determine the correct status from that list, so we’d for sure need to add some things.

event description

The post_content field for the WordCamp post type is used for this purpose by some camps… but not all.

virtual location URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org

There isn’t a field for this right now, as I think we just leave it up to the event organizers to put links somewhere on their WordCamp website. But it would be easy to add.

Should the organization bit refer to the organizing team or to the WordCamp foundation or something else?

Agree with the other comments here, probably should be WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each..
Kevin Cristiano 11:52 am on November 5, 2020

Should the organization bit refer to the organizing team or to the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. foundation or something else?

I would expect that the Organization would be WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program.. That is the Organization that is responsible for the events. The Foundation has been separated from the events for a number of years now (3 or so IIRC) and I’d prefer the organizing entity over the local org team.
- Hugh Lashbrooke 12:01 pm on November 5, 2020
  
  Agreed – it should be “WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program., PBC”. Or maybe we don’t need the “PBC” bit?
  
  “WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.” isn’t a registered entity or any kind – it’s more like a name we use that comprises the group of people who support WordCamps.
  
  I love this proposal and excited to see it implemented.
  - Joost de Valk 12:10 pm on November 5, 2020
    
    This works perfectly. Do we have a page about the WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. entity? Then I can make example Schema that references that URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org.
    - Kevin Cristiano 12:32 pm on November 5, 2020
      
      I am unsure we need the ‘PBC’ bit. I don’t know of a page, @hlashbrooke does one exist? If not we should create one.
      - Hugh Lashbrooke 12:57 pm on November 5, 2020
        
        Hmm – we have the announcement posts about it on this P2 and on the WPF blog, as well as this handbook page about running WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. finances through WPCSWordPress Coding Standards A collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to validate code developed for WordPress. It ensures code quality and adherence to coding conventions, especially the official standards for WordPress Core.. None of those are info pages about the entity though and I agree – a page like that would be valuable and I think it makes sense to have it hosted on wordpressfoundation.org.
        
        In the meantime @joostdevalk, you can use the WPFWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. announcement URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org: https://wordpressfoundation.org/2016/introducing-wordpress-community-support-a-public-benefit-subsidiary/ – we can update that in the future as necessary
        
        Kevin Cristiano 1:54 pm on November 5, 2020
        
        @hlashbrooke I don’t agree – anywhere EXCEPT the WPFWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. site. There is so much confusion about what enity is responsible for the events. I think WordCamp.org is the best place.
        
        Timi Wahalahti 2:08 pm on November 5, 2020
        
        +1
        
        Hugh Lashbrooke 2:08 pm on November 5, 2020
        
        Good point – I agree.