Moderators: Let’s curate the Best of WordPress.tv

TL;DR – If you are a WordPress.tv moderator, and see a video that is of excellent quality, has slides edited in, and contains interesting subject matter, add the “Featured” tag before publication so we can highlight this content.

As Jen Mylo announced recently, there have been some changes made to the way we as WordPress.tv mods will be publishing content, and one big part of that change is that we will be taking a more active role in promoting the best content we see every week in the videos we moderate.

To that end, I want to create a weekly “Best of WordPress.tv” blog post that will be published on blog.wordpress.tv (which is fed into the Planet WordPress feed and WordPress dashboards everywhere) that will allow us to feature beautifully produced and engaging content from the week’s published videos.

While the responsibility of publishing these posts will be mine starting out, I’d like all mods to help out in making sure that we are surfacing and sharing only the very best videos we see every week.

Featuring only the best of the best!

Because capturing video 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. sessions is usually a volunteer-run effort, quality can often run the gamut from great to passable. On WordPress.tv currently we try to use as much latitude as possible in determining what is “publishable” because there is some utility in having as many sessions as possible available as a reference for past attendees or anyone interested in a specific presentation.

However, for our forthcoming “Best of WordPress.tv” posts, I want to put the focus on only the best videos we see every day, both in terms of technical quality and the quality of the presentation itself.

Moderators – How you can help

On WordPress.tv we already use the “Featured” tag to promote content on the homepage, though it is underutilized at the moment. Starting today I want to change that, so we feature any video that meets ALL of the following criteria:

  • Excellent audio/video.  No edge cases; they have to be well lit, easy to watch, and have clear and noise free audio
  • Camera focused on the speaker, with slides edited in – Videos that show both the presenter and projection screen at the same time will not be featured.
  • The subject of presentation is engaging, interesting, informative and/or current.

Example Video – What we want to “Feature”

The following video from a recent camp demonstrates all the qualities listed above.

If you see a video like this, please add the Featured tag prior to publication! This will help keep content on the homepage fresh, as well as give me a good pool of videos to pull from for my weekly post.

Let’s chat about promoting video this Wednesday

As posted earlier in the week, we will be having a moderator meetupMeetup Meetup 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. in IRC this Wednesday to discuss this in detail. Hope to see you there!

Join us on IRC at #wordpress-freenode on Wednesday September 3rd at 15:00 UTC (8am PDT, 11am EDT, 17:00 CEST)

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#curation, #featured, #staff-picks, #wordpress-tv

This Week in Meetups

Rolled in two meetupsMeetup Meetup 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. to the chapter program this week:

Scheduled a couple of chats for next week to roll in more groups.

#meetup-com, #meetups-2

More on WordPress.tv Publishing

As @roseapplemedia mentioned, the way wptv videos are published has changed, so they can all be pushed live right away rather than one every few days to avoid overwhelming the Planet feed in the dashboard. At my request and with Matt’s approval, the wptv portion of the Planet feed has been changed. From now on it will not pull the video posts at all, and it will not pull all of the blog posts from http://blog.wordpress.tv/ (not that there have been really any), only the ones tagged with “announcement”.

Since these posts go to the planet feed in every WordPress dashboard, there needs to be some quality control on the content to make sure everything is spelled correctly, etc. To that end, I’ve asked @jerrysarcastic to be in charge of publishing something 2-3 times per week. Each post should note a collection of videos that’s up — 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. Russia Session Videos — or in some cases might call out a particular session with a little review — VIDEO: Matt Mullenweg Q&A at Las Vegas MeetupMeetup Meetup 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.. While I’ve asked Jerry to be responsible for publishing posts to the feed for now (since he’s been editing with the docs team for some time now and has shown his editing abilities), everyone on the wptv team could contribute to writing the posts as a contributor to the blog, with Jerry reviewing before publishing. (Jerry can add people with the contributor role to the blog.)

All you WPTV mods can figure out the process that will work best for you in your next chat. The one thing I would like to see is posts going up as soon as new WC videos are pubbed. So even if a WC didn’t submit them all yet, but you’ve got 10 going up, you could do a post like “First Videos from WordCamp Seattle 2014” or something.

#blog-posts, #planet-feed, #wordpress-tv

Team Chat Agenda August 28 2014 General Topic…

Team Chat Agenda: August 28, 2014
General Topic: Contributor recognition, .org sites

  • Check in on the progress re wc sign-in before ticket purchase
  • Setting up summit/team meetupMeetup Meetup 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. planning site section
  • WCSF livestream access for meetup groups

Other stuff for meeting? Suggest in the comments.

#agenda

WordPress tv Moderator Squad Update

“I try to avoid long-range plans and visions – that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up.”
Linus Torvalds

In the past any videos submitted to WordPressTV would be reviewed by a moderator and then scheduled to be published. And to not overwhelm anyone’s feeds, there were 3 or 4 videos scheduled to be published a day. This process along with the time it can take a 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. to edit and submit videos meant that a presentation can be weeks even months old before it was published on WordPressTV.

That has now changed – there is no more scheduling videos for future publication. As soon as a video has gone through the moderation process it is published. And since WordCamp videos tend to come in batches this will shorten the time from submission to publication which means fresher current content.

Having all the information filled in on the submit form, especially the description and links to slides, will now greatly shorten the time from “Submit to Publish” for WordCamp videos.

In The Last 7 Days:

80 Videos were published from 12 WordCamps around the world

in 7 different languages.

The Top Three Most Viewed WordCamp Videos This Week

Jeff Archibald: Inside the Black Box of Web Design Pricing

Steve Zehngut: Build a WordPress Theme with Foundation and Underscores

Siobhan McKeown: Designing WordPress – A Drama in Four Parts

In Process:

Documentation, information, manuals and suggestions for setting up the equipment and getting better video and audio is in process.

#moderator-update, #wordpress-tv

ModSquad hangout next Wednesday!

It has been a while since we have had a WordPress.tv moderator hangout, and I feel like it’s long overdue. With that in mind, instead our regular office hoursOffice Hours Defined 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. on Wednesday let’s have an official hangout so we can talk shop and, well, hang out. 🙂

Join us on IRC at #wordpress-freenode on Wednesday September 3rd at 15:00 UTC (8am PDT, 11am EDT, 17:00 CEST)

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Hope to see you there!

#hangouts, #wordpress-tv

Just got word that our meetup & WC…

Just got word that our meetupMeetup Meetup 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. & WC organizer from Kathmandu, Nepal —Sakin Shrestha, who’s also a theme reviewer — got his visa approved to come to WCSF/summit/team meetup. Yay!

In this case I had to respond to a lot of (essay) questions from the consular agent in addition to the information I’d already provided in the visa invitation letter. If anyone has any contacts at the state department that I might be able to talk to about how to make this process easier in general (since it’s the same info going to consulates in multiple countries, for WordPress events), hit me up. 🙂

#diversity, #wcsf2014

Speaker Travel for WordCamps

WordCamps are locally focused WordPress conferences that bring together local communities and celebrate the cool stuff they’ve done with WordPress in the last year. In many cases, it can be exciting to bring in visiting speakers from out of town to shake things up.

Speaking at a 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. is considered a volunteer contribution to the WordPress project, just like submitting a patch to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., answering questions in the support forums, or organizing a meetupMeetup Meetup 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. (or a WordCamp!), as evidenced by the icons on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The 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/ profiles. Just as developers donate hours of time they could have been billing clients instead of writing patches for core or working in the support forums, if someone chooses to travel to speak at a WordCamp, the expectation is that they’ll cover their own expenses.

In such situations, there are more cost-effective means to involve remote speakers in events. Many WordCamps have used Skype and Google hangouts to include out-of-town speakers without incurring travel costs if they don’t have a local expert to speak on a topic the community really wants to hear about.

For many WordPress professionals, traveling to speak at a conference is a legitimate business expense, and presenting at a WordCamp can raise the speaker’s profile in the community and promote their business. Events like SXSW, DrupalCon, and Open SourceOpen Source Open 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. Bridge do not cover speaker travel, and following those examples has seemed to serve WordCamps quite well.

WordCamps are locally-focused, so there’s an inherent disconnect between paying for people from out of town to speak at a WordCamp and that emphasis on local community. Local experts are assets to their communities all year round, whereas visiting speakers don’t typically serve as ongoing resources once they have returned to their home cities.

We have experimented this year at WordCamp SF with a program that will provide travel assistance to more than 50 contributors and attendees so they can participate in the event, with assistance based on a combination of involvement in the WordPress project and financial need. Once we assess the results of this experiment, we hope we can work out a program to help overcome financial barriers to participation in WordCamps. That said, a WordCamp’s primary focus is on connecting local community and lifting up local experts, rather than blowing our budgets on flying people around the world when technology can get them there so much faster.

If you have a suggestion that will further the conversation on this topic, please share your thoughts in the comments. I will plan to discuss this issue with contributors at the WordPress community summit at the end of October; that discussion will include WordCamp and meetup organizers from around the world as well as data from the travel assistance program.

Contributor Day Attendee Survey questions

We don’t currently have a place on the current attendee survey (or template) to find out about attendees’ experience specifically at a Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor 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/.. I plan to create a branch for the centralized 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. Attendee Survey to ask Contributor Day — based on your experiences organizing or attending Contributor Day(s) what questions you think we should ask?

#contributor-day, #wordcamps

WordPress.tv – Moderator issues thread for week 35

Howdy WPTV Mods, and welcome to another week of awesome videos!

Need a second opinion, having an issue with a video you are modding, or have something you want to discuss about wordpress.tv? Please say so here in the comments.

Office hoursOffice Hours Defined 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. this Wednesday

We have our weekly office hours this Wednesday on IRC (#wordpress-getinvolved on Freenode) from UTC 15:00 – 17:00. Feel free to stop by with any of your questions!

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#office-hours, #wordpress-tv