Hugh Lashbrooke 6:17 pm on August 12, 2020
Tags: launch,   

Learn WordPress is Live

I’m excited to announce that the all-new Learn WordPress platform is now available!

This post contains full details and a roadmap for this project, so head over there for some background and additional useful information. Going forward, Learn WordPress is going to be focussed on three main areas of content and interaction:

Workshops

At the time of this launch, there are four workshops available with more planned to be added each week. These initial four workshops are:

  • Intro to GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Development
  • Introduction to Contributing to WordPress
  • Introduction to Open-Source
  • Intro to Publishing with the Block Editor

These workshops appeal to a wide range of WordPress users and builders – from publishers to developers and contributors – even people unfamiliar with open-source and WordPress. They also cover a wide range of topics; anything related to how people interact with WordPress is welcome! The number of available workshops will grow over time, and we will see more and more content focussed on helping people learn how to use and contribute to WordPress.

Editor’s Note: The application link below has been updated.

If you would like to submit a workshop to the site, please feel in this form – your submission will be reviewed, and you will be contacted within a few days to confirm if you should go ahead with recording it. Workshops can be submitted in any language as we would love to see this site be as multilingual as possible. Here’s a sheet with some ideas for workshops that would be valuable – you’re welcome to submit any of these as your workshop and even add to the sheet if there’s content that you would like to see on the site.

You can fill in this form if you would like to assist with reviewing submitted workshop applications.

Lesson Plans

Over the last few years, the Training team has been working tirelessly on creating lesson plans that people can use to run their own workshops. All 85 of these lesson plans are available on the site – they are an excellent resource for anyone wanting to teach people about WordPress. You could even use these lesson plans for workshops that you submit!

The Training team would love additional contributions to identify outdated lesson plans, revise and update those plans, connect multiple lesson plans into a workshop, and to create slides. You can get started here.

Discussion Groups

While recorded workshops are great for learning and personal development, one key aspect that they lack is the personal interaction that you would usually have at an in-person event. With that in mind, we will also be hosting optional discussion groups based on the content of the workshops – led by the workshop presenters themselves, as well as other community members.

The first of these discussion groups have been scheduled – you will find them on the dedicated meetup group – and more will be added as new workshops are published. Each workshop page will link to the meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. group.

Anyone interested in leading a discussion group on any of the workshops on the site is welcome to do so. For more information about what is expected of discussion group leaders, check out this Tuesday Trainings post about leading discussion groups. If you’re interested and ready to become a discussion group leader, you can apply to do so here. 

Additionally, meetup organisers can use the Learn WordPress content for their meetup events – simply ask your meetup group to watch one of the workshops in the weeks leading up to your scheduled event, and then host a discussion group for that content as your event. If you do this, then you do not have to apply to be a discussion group leader using the form above – you can just go ahead and do it as an existing organiser.

Get Involved

Workshops

You can apply to present a workshop or to assist with reviewing submitted workshops. You can also add ideas for workshops that you would like to see on the site.

Lesson Plans

You can help out with updating and contributing new lesson plans by following this guide.  Lesson plans are developed on GitHub and published on Learn WordPress.

Discussion Groups

Meetup organisers can organise discussion groups as part of their existing meetup group, or you can apply to be a discussion group leader.

Development

Development of Learn WordPress is being managed on GitHub – you can head over these to log issues and contribute code.

Getting this platform live has been a strong collaboration between the Community, Training, TV, and 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. teams – thank you to everyone who contributed to getting things ready for this launch: @rmarks, @melchoyce, @dufresnesteven, @coreymckrill, @dd32, @tellyworth, @psykro, @andreamiddleton, @angelasjin, @courane01, @camikaos, @bph, @courtneypk, @casiepa, @harishanker, @evarlese, @nao, @francina, @liljimmi, @courtneydawn, @bethsoderberg, @juliekuehl, @jessecowens, @chetan200891, @man4toman, @chanthaboune, and everyone else who provided feedback, tested the new site, and contributed so much of the content.

Thank you to the many lesson plan contributors, presenters, reviewers, and more from over the past few years: @bethsoderberg, @bharatkambariya, @bri1ckman, @BrilliantPamela, @brocheafoin, @btrandolph, @c3zh, @carolstambaugh, @chanthaboune, @chetan200891, @chiragpatel, @chmchm, @CoachBirgit, @codente, @conradhallauthor, @courane01, @courtneydawn, @danstramer, @dcoleonline, @decwinser, @donkiely, @DragonFalcon, @dufresnesteven, @epetrashen, @epkruger, @estelaris, @esteschris, @fahimmurshed, @Flash-McDirt, @gdavis0007, @geektutor, @gilzow, @gkloveweb, @gonza166, @graham2621, @GregF, @Gwendydd, @helen, @iandunn, @immeet94, @ittoufiq, @iwritten, @jakilevy, @janet357, @jankimoradiya, @jcasabona, @jenwill, @JerrySarcastic, @jessecowens, @jillbinder, @joostdevalk, @JudyLW, @juiiee8487, @juliekuehl, @kartiks16, @kdrewien, @kenso-trabing, @ketuchetan, @kevinkautzman, @KimWhite, @kshivler, @librariancrafter, @likethegoddess, @liljimmi, @lunacodes, @m_butcher, @man4toman, @meaganhanes, @megane9988, @MelChoyce, @MelindaHelt, @mike_piercy, @mikemueller, @mukesh27, @nofearinc, @noplanman, @OlalaWeb, @operapreneur, @Otto42, @owlsheadbiz, @passoniate, @pbrocks, @Pcosta88, @pdclark, @petj, @pwbrowne, @rachelcavery, @rfair404, @rtenshi, @ryancanhelpyou, @samuelsidler, @Scaryevilclowns, @sethaugustus, @shashank3105, @singhsivam, @siobhan, @skarjune, @stacyduval, @suzettefranck, @taraclaeys, @taupecat, @tecdoc, @tgibs, @toniaslimm, @torlowski, @tristup, @trynet, @viitorcloudvc, @vincek1, @vmarie, @webcreative, @webtechpooja, @webtrainingwheels, @WPAleks, @wpdevsolutions, @wpfreely, @wpnzach, @yvbrooks, @zgordon, @zoonini, and @zstepek

+make.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//training +make.wordpress.org/tv +make.wordpress.org/meta +make.wordpress.org/updates 

#launch, #learn-wordpress-2

#learn-wordpress

jillbinder 8:00 pm on September 23, 2020
Tags:   

Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on September 23, 2020

Summary: We talked about how the September intermediate workshop series went last week, upcoming workshops/trainings/discussions September through November, help needed, and the start of our Spanish translations.

Continue reading →

#wpdiversity

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on September 21, 2020
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, 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. organizers, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

Ryan Marks 4:13 pm on September 18, 2020
Tags:   

Resolved Posts plugin activated & widgets added; Learn Roadmap Proposal

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been working with the 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. team on the preferred way to collect and track non-technical roadmap or wishlist items for the the Learn WordPress initiative. I had initially proposed adding these as issues in the Learn GitHub repository. Concern was raised that we shouldn’t ask non-technical users to make a GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ account or learn how to use GitHub to be able to comment or contribute ideas. We talked though several options before arriving on the solution I’m sharing with you today.

The Resolved Posts pluginPlugin A 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 has been installed on this site. The plugin adds a button at the bottom of each published post (when viewing on the front of the site) which toggles through three states: no value, to do (unresolved), and done (resolved). Unresolved posts have a red stripe on the left down the length of the post. Once resolved, the stripe will be green.

The 5 oldest unresolved posts will appear in a new Unresolved widgetWidget A 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 the sidebarSidebar A 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 this site. I’ve gone through all of the posts on this site and cleared the unresolved flag from posts that were informational or very old. I’ve commented on the four remaining posts that were unresolved asking for feedback to see if they should remain unresolved.

For the Learn WordPress roadmap items, each items should be created as a post on this site and include the #learn-roadmap tag. After publishing the post, mark it as a To Do. When viewing the #learn-roadmap tag page, a widget can be seen in the sidebar showing unresolved #learn-roadmap posts. This widget will also appear when viewing any post with this the #learn-roadmap tag. Going forward, I suggest we adopt the following:

  • if consensus to proceed with the idea is reached, an issue should be opened on the GitHub repository and a top comment be added with a link to the issue
  • once the GitHub issue is complete, the roadmap post can be marked resolved.

Please comment below if there is a better way to transition from roadmap post to GitHub issue for the developers to work on. I’ll leave this open for input until October 2, 2020.

Mary Job 8:46 am on September 17, 2020
Tags: , ,   

Community Team Chat Agenda | September 17 2020

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 17 September 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly: Thursday, September 17, 2020, 11:00 UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, September 17, 2020, 20:00 UTC

Deputy/Mentor check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going?

P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. posts needing review/feedback

  • Diverse Speaker Workshops Report, August 2020 – Jillbinder – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/03/diverse-speaker-workshops-report-august-2020/
  • Meetup organizer newsletter suggestions for September 2020 – Hari Shanker R – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/03/meetup-organizer-newsletter-suggestions-for-september-2020/
  • Learn WordPress Working Group Kick-off Meeting Agenda | Friday, 4 September 2020 – Hugh Lashbrooke – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/03/learn-wordpress-working-group-kick-off-meeting-agenda-friday-4-september-2020/
  • Learn WordPress working group kick-off meeting recap – Hugh Lashbrooke – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/04/learn-wordpress-working-group-kick-off-meeting-recap/
  • Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on September 9, 2020 – Jillbinder – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/09/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-on-september-9-2020/
  • Email newsletter service selection: Announcement and Next steps – Hari Shanker R – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/10/email-newsletter-service-selection-announcement-and-next-steps/
  • Meetup Organizer Newsletter: September 2020 – Hari Shanker R – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/14/meetup-organizer-newsletter-september-2020/
  • Contributor Working Group: Call for Volunteers – Christina Workman – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/09/14/contributor-working-group-call-for-volunteers/

Highlighted P2 posts

  • Learn WordPress is Live – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/08/12/learn-wordpress-is-live/

Please add any additional items to this agenda by commenting on this post as needed.

#community-team, #deputy-chat, #team-chat

Christina Workman 7:12 pm on September 14, 2020  

Contributor Working Group: Call for Volunteers

The continued growth and sustainability of WordPress relies on a diverse, continuously growing and evolving community of Contributors. Experienced, long-time contributors; new, eager to learn contributors; and everyone in between, are all key to our community and essential for sparking new ideas, considering different perspectives, preventing burnout, and maintaining a healthy community

At this moment, there is a lot of information already on how to get involved for each Make Team. However it’s not always easy for new Contributors to figure out how they can participate and get started. While there is information available on running a standalone Contributor Event, it can be a challenge for organizers to connect with all the different teams that make WordPress. 

It would serve us well to have a Community-based working group of volunteers dedicated to creating a comprehensive, centralized location for all Contributor information that will help encourage all Contributors and Contributor Event Planners. This group would also partner with other Teams already implementing contribution-related efforts, like Marketing and Training.

The responsibilities of the Working Group would be:

Compiling onboarding resources

Providing guidance with contributor events

  • Mentoring organizers planning a Contributor Event

Enhancing new contributor experience

  • Discovering ways to improve New Contributor onboarding experiences
  • Being a point of contact for community members who have questions about contributing or need help taking their first step

Coordinating with Make Teams

  • Collaborating with Make Teams to update and expand Contributor information
  • Coordinate with similar efforts from other Teams

The Contributor Working group will hold regular meetings in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. to update on progress and participate in real-time discussions around the work being done.

Does this sound like something you would like to be involved in? Please comment below, or send me (@amethystanswers) a direct message on Slack to volunteer. You can also indicate if there is a particular area you would like to focus on. Our goal is to build a well-rounded team.

This initial call for volunteers will remain open until 13:00 UTC on Monday, September 28, 2020.

Hari Shanker R 4:44 pm on September 14, 2020
Tags: ,   

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: September 2020

Hello friends,

Welcome to the September edition of our meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizer newsletter!  We have a lot of exciting news and updates from the WordPress community and resources for your local meetup group.

Newsletter contents:

Organize Learn WordPress discussion groups for your local meetup

As we had shared in the last edition of the meetup newsletter, we have launched the Learn WordPress initiative. The platform offers a learning repository on learn.wordpress.org, where WordPress learning content videos will be made available. The first iteration has launched with a few workshops, with more workshops in the pipeline. In addition to these workshops, we will also be hosting supplementary discussion groups based on the workshop content – facilitated by discussion group leaders. You can learn more about the platform in the following blog post.

How Meetup groups can benefit from the Learn WordPress platform

Meetup organizers can use the Learn WordPress content for their meetup events – simply ask your meetup group to watch one of the workshops in the weeks leading up to your scheduled event, and then host a discussion group content event.

If you are interested, you can start right away by organizing a discussion group based on one of the available workshops for your meetup group. You don’t need to sign up as a discussion group leader to organize a workshop for your local meetup. Here’s how you can get started:

  1. Take a look at the available workshops in Learn WordPress and select one for your meetup group. If you want, you can seek help from other group members in finalizing a workshop for the discussion group. 
  2. Once you have identified a workshop for your local meetup group, schedule a discussion event in your Meetup.com group. Specify in the Meetup description that this is a discussion group connected to a workshop, and ask meetup group members to watch the workshop video before attending the workshop. Make sure that you plan the event at least a week ahead from the current date, so that your meetup members have enough time to view the workshop before participating in the discussion group. 
  3. Send a message to your Meetup group members announcing the meetup. Encourage them to see the Learn WordPress workshop video, and request them to participate in the discussion group.
  4. Organize the discussion group at the date and time. Start the discussion group by asking members about how many of them saw the workshop. You can start by providing a very brief (5-10 minute long) summary of the content. Then, ask questions to members, and try to start a discussion. You can consider innovating – some tips include organizing a quiz towards the end of the session or containing exercises as part of the meetup event.

If you would like some guidance on using the Learn WordPress platform, check out our Tuesday Training post on the topic: How to be an excellent discussion group leader.

Online Event Updates

Upcoming Online events

WordPress Meetup groups worldwide are currently organizing online events instead of in-person events due to COVID-19, which is something the team recommends as well, to ensure the safety and well being of our community members. Since meetup events are online, you can now attend meetups and WordCamps across the world from the comfort of your own home! You can find out about all upcoming online events here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/events/online/.

It would be great if organizers that host meetups with a topic focus to put it also in the event title. A format like: [Event format] Title:Brief Description of what’s happening (City Name), would be ideal. As an example, here’s a sample meetup format that organizers can use: [Online] WordPress 5.5: New Features, New Glitches, New Fixes (Portland)

International WordPress Translation Day

The Polyglots teamPolyglots Team Polyglots 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 the Marketing team are organizing an International WordPress translation day event to coincide with the International translation day on September 30, 2020. Meetup groups can use this as an opportunity to organize their own translation day event on September 30, or on any day of that week (September 28 – October 4). It will be a great opportunity to help WordPress speak your language! Several local WordPress communities have already planned their events, but if you are looking for ideas, here are a few event formats that you can consider: 

  1. A short contributor event (even if just a few hours), day or evening time
  2. A half-day event on the weekend before or after the International Translation Day itself
  3. Celebrating it throughout the week by inviting people to one of the channels on your local SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
  4. Holding a video discussion meeting to talk out concerns, questions, or ideas around translation projects in your locale
  5. Picking a project to finish together and working on it
  6. Or, any other format! Be creative 

Please complete the form to help the marketing team promote the events!

International AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (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 “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Day

Starting at 18:00 UTC on October 2nd, 2020, the WordPress Accessibility Team will sponsor a 24-hour online event focused on WordPress and Accessibility. If you want to learn about the future of accessibility in WordPress, join us for 24 hours of mind-expanding online learning!

Follow along at the WP Accessibility Day website, to catch up with all the updates. The team has already announced the first round of speakers for the event, and the call for sponsors and volunteers is still open. 

Upcoming Online WordCamps

Don’t forget to grab your free tickets for these events! Many of these events still have their call for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers open. If you are interested in contributing to these events, please don’t forget to sign up. You will find more information on the camp websites.

Diversity speaker training

The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) holds workshops in July to support diverse voices to share knowledge and stories at online WordPress meetups and WordCamps. They have the following events scheduled for September – October 2020:

Intermediate speaker topics:

  • September 15: Improving Your Pitch
  • September 16: Intermediate Online Stage Presence
  • September 17: Answering Questions Online

For WordPress meetups:

  • September 24: WordPress Meetups: Hold Your Own Diverse Speaker Workshop (APAC/EMEA)
  • October 24: WordPress Meetups: Hold Your Own Diverse Speaker Workshop (AMER/EMEA)

You can find more details in the Make/Community Blog post. To learn more about the workshops that will be announced soon, check: https://make.wordpress.org/community/tag/wpdiversityworkshops/. 

Diversity speaker videos are also available on the Learn WordPress platform. Do check them out! Based on these videos, discussion groups are being planned for the following dates: 

  • October 6: Who am I to be speaking & Finding a topic
  • October 7: Creating a pitch
  • October 8: Online Stage Presence

Check out the Learn WordPress discussion group to catch up with the discussions and when they are posted.

Past online events

Several online WordCamps were held successfully in the past few weeks. WordCamps across the world are going the extra mile to experiment with the online events landscape and are coming up with innovative ways to offer an unmatched experience. Videos of these WordCamps will be available in WordPress.tv soon! Did you miss these events, or would you like to relive the experience of attending the events virtually? Check out their recorded live streams below!

do_action India & Nigeria Online

The maiden edition of do_action India online, which was held online from August 15 to 23, had 94 participants who built fully functional websites for five NGOs from across the country. Following the India event, Nigeria’s WordPress communities organized do_action Nigeria online from August 31 to September 11, where 146 volunteers collaborated online to build websites for 9 NGOs. You can read more about 2020 do_action events on this August blog post on the WordPress Foundation blog.

Featured Online Meetup

The Seattle WordPress Meetup group has been able to pivot their meetup group and their events online successfully. The group, which started in 2010, used to have large in-person meetups with 100+ attendees that pivoted to at least five smaller meetups/month aimed at different audiences: Fundamentals, DIY/Bloggers, Freelancers, Developers, and Help Desk that are spread out geographically for easy access. The team 3-person Leadership Team meets regularly and leads quarterly meetings with the Meetup Hosts to support them. 

With COVID, members of the group are meeting regularly on Zoom. The organizers have decided to go ahead with an online “mega meetup” for the fall (planned initially as an in-person event pre-COVID).  Instead of meeting in person and breaking out into physically separate rooms, the team will have each of their Meetups running virtually. The group uses this opportunity to sample all their Meetups and hopefully build and sustain their sense of community during this difficult time. The Mega Meetup is one of the quarterly events that help keep the community active by organizing Meetups and WordCamps. You can find more information and subscribe to updates on their website.

Want to feature your local meetup group in our newsletter? Send us a brief write-up to support@wordcamp.org, and we’ll feature it in the next edition of our newsletter. 

Inactive WordPress Meetup groups

The community team regularly reviews groups in the WordPress meetup chapter to ensure we’re remaining up to date and relevant. We are in the process of reaching out to those groups in our chapter that haven’t held an event since the end of 2019 (or earlier), to either prompt more activity or remove any groups that are not interested in organizing events. One of the primary motivators here is that, due to COVID-19, the global sponsorship program has been pulled back, so there are less funds available than in previous years.

We contacted inactive groups by sending messages to organizers, allowing two weeks for responses. If there was no response, we emailed all group members that were subscribed to notifications and cross-posted the message in the message boards, leaving it there for another two weeks. After four weeks, if we had not heard back from the organizing team or the members of these inactive groups, and if no meetup events were held in the group, we removed them from our Meetup chapter. Those groups that had followed-up with us by sending at least one response were kept activated. You can read more about this initiative in the Make/Community P2.

If your WordPress meetup group has not been active, you can consider organizing online meetup events to reactivate your group. Please check out our blog post on the Make/Community P2 to get some tips on reactivating your meetup groups by organizing online events.

News and Updates

If you have any questions, Community Team deputies are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community; let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions! 

We’ll see you online soon!

#newsletter

#meetup-organizer-newsletter

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on September 14, 2020
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, 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. organizers, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

Hari Shanker R 7:48 pm on September 10, 2020
Tags: mailchimp, , newsletter-service   

Email newsletter service selection: Announcement and Next steps

The Community team uses email newsletters sent through Meetup.com to connect with meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizers. However, Meetup.com’s newsletter service can be unreliable (with several pain points like non-delivery of emails, lack of formatting options, and other issues). Based on community feedback, we decided to start looking for a newsletter service for these emails. Upon finalizing the features and evaluating service providers, we have chosen Mailchimp as the newsletter service for Meetup newsletters going forward.

Why Mailchimp?

We picked Mailchimp from a list of 15 services that we had shortlisted, for the following reasons:

  • It met almost all of the features in our wishlist, including (and especially) a native Meetup.com integration, which makes it easy to send monthly meetup organizer newsletters and annual surveys.
  • Mailchimp offers Pay as you go pricing, which proved to be one of the cheapest choices from amongst the options. It will cost US$2500 for 2 million emails (valid for 12 months), which is more than sufficient for the needs of the program. We can also purchase credits for smaller amounts (starting at $100) to test things out.

Mailchimp is not without its cons. As @sippis reported after his research, it can also have email deliverability issues (with emails sometimes going to spam and the promotions/social tab in Gmail for people that use those tabs). Its user-interface can be confusing, and as users we will need to create email templates from scratch.

Nevertheless, we decided to go ahead with Mailchimp primarily due to the relatively affordable pricing and features, not to mention the native Meetup.com integration. If Mailchimp does not prove to be a good fit, we are open to trying out other platforms in the future. This will be especially easy considering that we are using the pay as you go pricing and not a recurring subscription.

What does this mean for Community members?

Only existing meetup organizers and community members who subscribed to Meetup.com emails will receive the emails. So for them, things will continue with emails as usual. We will be sending the next edition of the Meetup newsletter and other emails to the community using Mailchimp.

We typically send the following emails to Meetup groups:

  • One meetup organizer newsletter every month (12 emails per year). This email is sent only to meetup organizers (currently at ~2,000 members)
  • One annual survey sent out to all meetup group members (one email per year to all members). This email is sent out to  ~430,000 members of the meetup chapter program.
  • One annual survey sent out to all meetup group organizers (one email per year to all organizers). This email is sent out to  ~2,000 organizers in the meetup chapter program.

Additionally, we reach out to members of a particular meetup group in these exceptional cases:

  • To address a code of conduct violation.
  • In case the group is inactive, or if the existing organizer wants to step down, we reach out to members to see if they are interested in stepping up to organize meetups.  
  • In other circumstances where it is necessary to email a whole meetup group, or selection of groups.

Subscribers can opt-out of these emails at any point in time. If you would like to opt-out of emails (if you are either an organizer or a member), please follow the link in the emails (linked here as well) to do so. 

Addressing potential GDPR concerns

One of the most significant concerns that we heard from community members was about the legality of moving our subscribers over to a different service. We discussed this in detail with the WordPress Foundation’s legal team, and received  feedback that switching the vendor used to deliver newsletters for email services (where the recipients have opted in for emails) is entirely within the GDPR guidelines. 

Meetup organizers and community members have already signed up to receive emails through Meetup.com so there is no issue there. But as noted above, if members no longer wish to receive the emails, they are welcome to opt-out.

Action items

  • If you are a meetup organizer that has already subscribed to Meetup.com emails, you do not need to take any other steps if you want to receive these newsletters. You will continue getting emails as a meetup group member/organizer. 
  • If you would like to sign-up for these emails (or if you would like to check if you are signed-up), you can do so through the following form. 
  • If you would like to opt-out of these emails, or to check if you are already subscribed, you can do so by following this link.

Do you have any questions or concerns about the Meetup newsletter project? Let us know in the comments. If you have any sensitive feedback that you’d like to provide us, feel free to email us at support@wordcamp.org.

#newsletter #newsletter-service #mailchimp

Ryan Marks 12:28 am on September 10, 2020
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X-post: Let’s celebrate International Translation Day together

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/polyglots: Comment on Let’s celebrate International Translation Day together

jillbinder 7:07 pm on September 9, 2020
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Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on September 9, 2020

Summary: Intermediate speaker series next week. We could use volunteers for it (both experienced in speaking and not). We have workshops going up on https://learn.wordpress.org/, posted on Wednesdays. We are going to use these workshops for October: people watch on their own time and join us for a few synchronous discussions. We are looking for more people to lead these discussions in the future.

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#wpdiversity