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  • Jen Mylo 9:59 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: contributors, team reps, training   

    Training Group, Team Reps, and Growing the Team 

    Hi Support Team! A bunch of things today….

    Welcome Training to Support

    At the community summit, we went a little bit team-creating-crazy. As such, we splintered people into groups (like docs out of support) rather than splintering into projects within larger teams. For Support, this meant that electing team reps was especially hard, since the people getting votes were repping other teams.

    One of these new teams, Training, started with excitement but then petered out with no activity for a couple of months. The solution to these two issues seemed pretty clear: merge Training back into Support, and have Christine Rondeau serve as the 2nd team rep. @ipstenu was in favor, so there we go. Welcome Christine back to the fold!

    Christine will be working closely with the Community Outreach group, and we’re starting to plan our first training project already. It’l be focused on Troubleshooting WordPress, aimed at leveling up people to the point that they can do more with WP professionally, and could be more confident contributing to forums. She’ll undoubtedly be asking you all for ideas and help. Note: in line with the diversity initiatives, we’re going to do this first workshop for women, a la railsbridge. It’ll also get posted online for all and sundry.

    Contributor Drive

    I’ve been scouring every open source project’s community sites to see how they approach things, and one had a great concept that I want us to steal modify, use, and redistribute. :) The idea was this:

    Weekend Project: Become a Contributor

    We’ve done things like this at WordCamps (usually on dev day, and mostly focused on contributing to core), but what I was thinking of for support was something not too intensive: 20 Questions.

    20 Questions Proposal:

    • Publicize the weekend project to become an official wp forums contributor, called 20 Questions.
    • People can sign up to be part of the weekend contributor drive. Current volunteers (approved as knowing their stuff) will be the mentors.
    • Their goal is to answer 20 questions successfully (mentor says yes, good answer) during the weekend before the cutoff time.
    • Keep at least 1 support person in IRC channel for team at all times during the weekend (make schedule in advance).
    • At cutoff, tally the results! People who got at least 20 right are officially congratulated and welcomed as support contributors. We can make a graphic they can put in their sidebars or something maybe. People who didn’t make it are thanked for their efforts, and pointed to resources to help them level up. The person with the most questions answered gets a prize. The person who answered the hardest question gets a prize (so they aren’t incentivized to just do easy ones). We can do wp swag and/or WC tix for prizes.

    What do you guys think? I think it would be super fun.

     

    • Tom Willmot 10:05 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      A contributor drive sounds like a great idea. + 1 from me.

    • Carrie Dils 10:05 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Hi Jane, I love the idea. I think the 20 questions would give someone like me the opportunity to know for sure whether my knowledge level is up to par (and the confidence to jump into forums). I also like offering resources to give people pointed feedback for increasing knowledge. +1

    • masonjames 10:08 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Love this idea. It gives a very specific time to for engagement and criteria for success. Count me in. I’ll do what I can to bring some peeps with me as well and would be happy to be on IRC.

    • nofearinc 10:20 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I feel pity about the Training group, but seems like the majority of training academies and speakers are working solo. Anyway, that contributor drive is great and I look forward to it!

      • Jen Mylo 10:25 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        There’s no reason to feel pity…. the people and the projects are still alive, but now in a more supportive group environment that will encourage participation.

      • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 4:13 pm on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        To add on to what Jen said, training is the other half of support. It helps us get better at giving support, and helps the people who get support get better at what they do. It’s a logical grouping :)

    • Emil Uzelac 11:35 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      +1 Jen!

      • Avi_Lambert 3:30 am on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        +1 for the 20 questions concept – IRC, Google Hangout, Twitter Chat, I’m in for all of ‘em.

    • Kathy Drewien 6:17 am on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I want to play. My intentions of getting more involved in training and support never seem to materialize into action. Perhaps a public declaration will propel me forward.

      • Christine Rondeau 5:05 pm on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        I declared it publicly on my about page years ago – http://about.me/crondeau
        It’s nothing official, but it’s there anyway.

        If you do contribute to the forums, core, themes, etc… I would just add that to your bio or wherever. I don’t think that there are any rules about that.

    • Aaron Nimocks 2:56 am on January 19, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Is the contributer drive a go for the weekend? I’m sure I’ll answer at last 20 either way but it is a cool idea. Gives me a goal.

      • Jane Wells 3:26 am on January 19, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        Not for this weekend; we would need to officially set up available mentors, publicize the drive etc. I would think we’d want 2 weeks advance notice.

    • Tom Auger 7:14 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Are we talking about the Smarterer WordPress quiz (ie: http://build.codepoet.com/quiz/)?

      • Brandon Kraft 9:10 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        My understanding is forum questions- let folks answer real support questions at wp.org/support

    • Kathryn Presner 2:26 pm on January 26, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Just wanted to say how much I love both the Contributor Drive and Troubleshooting WordPress for Women ideas. I’ll be away the weekend of Feb. 15 but will be glad to publicize the drive in the Montreal & Ottawa WP community groups, no matter when it ends up happening.

    • abletec 3:51 am on February 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Hello:

      I\’d like to get involved. I realize I\’m not a known quantity. I don\’t know if I\’m even close to being knowledgeable enough. I really like security & troubleshooting aspects of wordpress. I host WP sites, help folks set them up, troubleshoot various aspects, etc. I\’m also sight-impaired so interested in accessibility as well. I\’m also a lady, so working w/other ladies would be really cool!

      So am I even welcome, &, if so, where should I start?

      Thanks for any replies.

  • Jen Mylo 5:14 pm on December 24, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: team reps   

    Team Rep Voting Results 

    Hola! Here are the results of the voting for this team.

    11 people voted. The breakdown:

    Please describe your role with the support team

    • 5 – I am an active forum moderator, and have been active on the forums within the past 3 months
    • 4 – I’m an active participant and would like to level up to moderator status
    • 1 – I don’t plan to get involved
    • 1 – I have not been involved yet, but I plan to start
    • 0 – I’m a moderator who wasn’t active in the last 3 months, but I have been in the past

    Describe your forums activity.

    • 8 – I troubleshoot more difficult issues
    • 8 – I troubleshoot basic issues
    • 7 – I check for spam and inappropriate content
    • 6 – I help other people learn how to contribute in the forums
    • 4 – Other Option
    • 4 – I post questions in the forum
    • 2 – I don’t contribute to the forums
    • 0 – I comment on other people’s questions/answers but don’t troubleshoot
    • The four “other” responses were 4 docs and 1 IRC

    Mika won the 1st slot in a unanimous vote.

    The 2nd slot is not so clear. 9 of the 11 voters entered a name for the 2nd slot.
    Both Siobhan and Jan got more than one vote. Since we just broke out docs into a separate group, Siobhan will be the rep for that team. Jan hadn’t said he was interested and voted for someone else. :) Other names put forth only got one vote each (and a couple of those are reps on other teams now, too). I’ve pinged Jan to see if he wants to take the 2nd rep role, but probably won’t know until after the holidays. If Jan chooses not to take the role, I think it makes the most sense to have Mika choose from the other names that were proposed (if they are interested).

    Eventually I think we should rethink the “team” vs “project” designation, as we have already spread ourselves into so many teams (and so many people work on multiple teams’ projects) that appointing team reps is hard, which wasn’t the intention of creating teams/team sites. When we get to June and it’s time to vote again, we should consider consolidating some teams. I think the main reason separating them out seemed better now is because P2 makes it that way. If we had a modified theme that made it visually easier to have site sections for various projects (vs the plain text pages/cat list in the sidebar widget), we could bring more of the groups together.

    Anyway, Mika is re-upped! 2nd slot TBD.

     

  • Jen Mylo 5:18 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: team reps   

    Team Reps 

    Howdy, support team! It’s that time again, for your group to elect a couple of team reps to communicate on behalf of of forum folks. You can vote for 2 people. They should not be responsible for any other team rep duties, so to that end, of your current reps, Ipstenu is still eligible, but Andrea_r and Esmi are already taken by other teams (assuming they keep those roles). Who else has stepped up lately that wants to join in the fun?

    These folks will be responsible for reporting on the progress of the group to the other team reps via weekly updates, as well as occasional chats and such. If you haven’t seen the spiel on one of the other team blogs about how team reps/voting/terms work, the longer explanation is after the jump.

    Note: It should be people who want the responsibility. Anyone interested in being a support team rep should leave a comment saying as much so people know who they can/should vote for. Voting is open until December 15, and results will be posted here once voting closes.

    Go vote!

    (More …)

     

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 7:04 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m still interested in being your rep for the next 6 months :)

    • cinghaman 7:11 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Have always looked forward to supporting / contributing in any way possible to the growth and development of WordPress in general directly or indirectly.
      Would totally be interested in being a support rep.
      yee :)
      Robin

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