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 for policy debates, project announcements, and status reports. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to comment on posts and join the discussion.
You can learn about our current 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 – 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 the first Thursday of every month at 12:00 UTC and 21:00 UTC in #community-team on 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.
In recent weeks, all Community Team DeputiesDeputyCommunity Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. were contacted personally through SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., and asked to provide feedback on contributions to the Community Team in 2020. Deputies were also asked about their plans for contribution in 2021, and how team reps and fellow deputies could provide better support.
The check-in was done with three things in mind: to know how many active Community deputiesDeputyCommunity Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. will continue in 2021, if and where there is need for more training, and to get feedback on how to improve the deputyDeputyCommunity Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. experience. The number side of results is also meant for tracking deputy engagement long term, as the Community Team expressed interest in regular check-ins.
In this post, I’ll be sharing a summary of results and general conclusions.
Response rate and deputy balance
All 35 active deputies were contacted, and 25 (71%) of them answered in a given time (one week). From those 25 deputies, 24% (6) are fully sponsored, 32% (8) are partially sponsored and 44% (11) are contributing on a voluntary basis.
Time contributed
It’s worth noticing that deputies are very active contributors on the wider WordPress project. From all who responded, 60% (15) answered that they contribute to other teams. Over half of deputies contributing to other teams also contribute to more than one team outside of Community.
The year 2020
Deputies estimated that during the year 2020 they have contributed a total of 1051 hours monthly to the Community Team.
Number of deputies
Total hours estimated
On average per deputy
Fully sponsored
6
650
108
Partially sponsored
8
164
21
Fully volunteer
11
237
22
All
25
1051
42
The year 2021
Deputies were also asked to estimate how much time they plan on contributing to the Community Team per month in 2021.
They estimated that they would contribute 906 hours per month in total, around 36 hours on average per deputy. The estimates predict an approximately 14% decrease in contributed time when compared to this year.Â
Total hours
On average per deputy
Difference in hours from 2020(% change)
Fully sponsored
600
100
-50 (-7%)
Partially sponsored
164
21
0 (+/-0%)
Fully volunteer
142
13
-95 (-40%)
All
906
36
-145 (-14%)
Ways to contribute
Deputies were asked to tell how they have contributed to the Community team during 2020 and in which way they would like to contribute during next year. Deputies had a pre-formed list of options to choose from and a free field to list other ways that were missing from the list. Options were the same for both years and deputies were allowed to select as many options as they liked.
2020
2021
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. application vetting
18
16
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 they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. application vetting
Developing Community Team (Writing proposals or comments on the P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/., etc)
16
14
Participation on a working group
10
13
The following observations were made from the answers:
56% of deputies wish to contribute in more ways than they had this year
16% of deputies want to contribute in fewer ways than they have this year
Routine, administrative tasks, like triaging HelpScout, are not popular ways to contribute amongst fully volunteer deputies. Instead, they prefer to contribute to local communities.
More deputies wish to work with local communities and events during 2021
Partially volunteered deputies expressed interest in routine, administrative tasks during 2021
Estimates on tools
Deputies were asked to estimate when they last participated in a discussion or used tools that are specific to deputy work. This part of the results is for historical analysis, rather than measuring how the team or individuals did in 2020.
This month
Last month
In the last 3 months
In the last 6 months
This year
Not this year
Attended a Community Team bi-weekly meeting
14
3
2
1
2
3
Posted or commented on the Community Team blog
14
3
2
3
1
2
Logged in to HelpScout
13
5
0
2
3
2
Logged in to WordCamp CentralWordCamp CentralWebsite for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.
17
1
2
3
2
0
Observations from open questions
Deputies were asked to answer a few open questions: where they feel their contribution is most impactful, what team reps could do to better support deputy work, and if there are any blockers in contributions to the team.
Some observations can be made from responses to these questions:
Almost all of the deputies feel that their contribution is most impactful when mentoring event organisers and local communities.
Only a handful and mostly experienced deputies mentioned things related to Community Team management (proposals, team development, mentoring others, documentation etc.) as contributions that they feel are impactful.
Nearly half of the deputies felt that they had received enough support from team reps and fellow deputies.
Some deputies felt that the Community Team should do more outreach, frequent updates on what the team is doing, and highlight project-wide updates with the team more often.
Some things in the team are moving too fast or too much information is put out in a short period, making it challenging to follow with everything happening, especially for fully volunteer deputies.
There were suggestions for how tools and work procedures could be improved. For example, having shifts could help deputies maintain a regular cadence for routine tasks.
Deputies that found writing proposals most impactful wished for more active engagement from other deputies on Community Team blog posts, and help in getting more voices heard from the wider community.
Almost all full volunteer deputies have had time allocation challenges, because of COVID-19 implications or other things happening in their personal life.
Any follow up thoughts?
Did these results raise some questions, thoughts, additional observations or interpretations? Was there anything that came up in these results that you think we need to discuss in greater detail? Please share your mind freely on the comments! Please share your thoughts before 2021-01-07.
Big thanks to @angelasjin and @courtneypk who did the deputy check-ins with me and helped with this post!
I’d also like to use this opportunity to thank a few fellow deputies that are going to take a break from deputy duties. @francina and @bph have been long-term deputies developing the team, a great inspiration to others and really valued members of the team. Thank you for all your contributions! Luckily we still get to collaborate on other aspects of the Community Team and wider WordPress project.