Welcome to the official blog of the community/outreach team for the WordPress open source 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.
We also have regular Community Team meetings on the first and third Thursdays of every month at 11:00 UTC and 20:00 UTC in #community-team on Slack (same agenda).
@jillbinder I have been working hard on looking back over 2018 and creating our big plans for 2019. 2019 will be a mix of continuing what we are currently doing and improving on it, so there will be something to do for all different kinds of group member participation styles.
Improving and growing. I’ll talk more about this in January, but we’d like to really scale up what we’re doing and reach many more meetup chapters.
@miriamgoldman Been a quiet two weeks again, running a train the trainers this upcoming Sunday.
Christie Witt and I are actually planning to run the workshop in the new year in Ottawa, once we resume WordCamp planning.
@angelasjin Pretty quiet for me too, although I had a few conversations about this group at WCUS, all very positive.
I’m working on the next workshop in Seattle as well!
@jillbinder On that note, one of the things I’d like us to focus on in 2019 is supporting meetups to maintain running it. Seattle was a great example of doing it really well the first year and then with a change in speaker wranglers, some things got lost in translation the second year.
More on that in our January meeting.
@webrite I haven’t been to the Durham Region chapter in the last couple of months. My intention is to meet up in January if they have one. WordCamp Toronto was very successful. While I wasn’t able to attend, I did my best to help before hand.
Year Review
This year we have:
Gotten volunteers for this team
Created a core message that we can send out about our workshop and what our team offers
Created a form that interested Meetups can fill out
Started promoting our message and form (http://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak)
Have been running regular 1-2 times a month training the Meetups who request it on how to run our workshops
Recorded a “train the trainers” video so that it is easy to keep running
Are working on making our training process smoother!
I’ve been encouraging folks in our team as a first step of participation to run the workshop for their local community, if they can.
In 2018, we ran 15 train-the-trainer trainings, gave advice and support to 55 meetup organizers in 26 countries (!!), and diversity outreach speaker workshops were run by 12 WordPress chapter meetups in 6 countries.
And not only chapter meetups ran it. Also companies that work in WordPress, affiliated WordPress organizations, and regions that don’t have meetups.
And the year isn’t over!
Acknowledgments Game
We have spent so much time this year doing. I would like to take a moment to reflect on our individual accomplishments. And you may even feel there is something you’ve done that wasn’t thanked, or you’d like to be thanked again.
The two questions I have for you are:
What would you like to acknowledge a team member(s) for?
What would you like to be acknowledged for?
We acknowledged each other for the next while. 🙂
Other Topics
@jillbinder I would like to start off the first meeting of 2019 as a webcam call (on Zoom).
We will be kicking off 2019 with an in-depth talk about what our big goals are for the year, what we’ve currently thought of to get there*, and get your thoughts on what else we can do and where your talents lie (or something you’d like to learn) to help. (Lurkers also welcome.)
* We meaning our Train The Trainers subgroup have created our goals and outline together recently.
I am wondering if it can be at this time in place of our Slack meeting, or if it really needs to be at another time when folks are not at their offices. (I know Miriam can’t make this time. Checking in with others.)
Please fill out the poll I sent you Monday. Thanks!
@jillbinder I feel like the train the trainers still have a few pieces we need to smooth out. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the best way for us to go about doing that. That may be a question more specific for @angelasjin and @miriamgoldman who are here from that group today. Not the whole re-recording the training. That’s a big piece that will take a few months.
But I’m thinking of things like making sure folks know when trainings are, figuring out processes for our Dormants and for sending out our email questionnaires, etc.
@miriamgoldman I have a few ideas for dealing with Dormants, in terms of when we tag them, etc.
I wish there was more automation that we could employ once we finish a training…
@cguntur I can help with automation if you can guide me through it…
@jillbinder Wonderful! After we have figured out what and how we can automate, I’ll see if it makes sense to loop you in to put it in place.
@angelasjin I think that there is some more automation we can employ for sure, but I haven’t quite solidified what that looks like in my mind. I know @larryswanson and @jillbinder had some thoughts on tools.
@miriamgoldman I’m probably going to do some research in my downtime over the holidays. My office is shut between Christmas and New Year’s, so I’ll have some time!
@angelasjin I also think we should set up a shared Google folder, as there are lots of docs, and I have a hard time remembering what we have and where it is
@jillbinder To solve this, I have created a doc of docs. Let me know if that works or if we should still create a folder.
Thanks in advance for helping to think through our logistics. I can send you the list of what we are still thinking through.
Open Discussions
@bhargavmehta Wish to know more about Diversity Outreach program as it is something I have been following but not able to understand. A brief introduction of diversity outreach program, As I am one of the co-organisers I wish to know more about it. Can I also get trained or contribute?
Here is info about what we do:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2017/11/13/call-for-volunteers-diversity-outreach-speaker-training/ (edited)
This is what we’ve done so far:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2018/05/16/diversity-speaker-outreach-training-group-on-boarding-summary/
If you’d like to get involved, a great first step would be to take our training and then if you’d like to, run the workshop in your city.
It just so happens we have one last training of 2018 this coming Sunday.
As the second meeting of December will land during Christmas holidays (Dec 26th), the Wednesday this week (Dec 12) will be our last meeting of the year. ^_^
1. It will be a special one. Like a little holiday party. In addition to covering items for moving us forward, I am also going to ask you, from our team’s first year:
What would you like to acknowledge a team member(s) for?
What would you like to be acknowledged for?
If you can’t make it, please send me your answers in advance.
Participation is optional of course, but we’ve done so much this year and I would really like to commemorate our efforts, looking back over our great Phase 1 2018 work before we move into an exciting Phase 2 in 2019.
2. I would like to have a meeting in early January to kick off Phase 2 by webcam. We’ll talk about the new things we’re doing in the new year and see how people would like to help (big, small, or just lurking… all is welcome).
My question there is is it better for you to join a webcam call at our usual meeting time or on a weekend?
Please let me know here or DM me on Slack (@jillbinder).
New folk are also welcome at this December meeting or in January. Please join us!
Hello to all our Deputies, WordCamp organizers, Meetup 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 Slack and ask for help!
It only took a contributor day to get me to sit down and tackle this issue, sorry it took me so long, folks! But I’m pleased to be able to share our thought processes and email templates from WCEU for managing the new required fields added to attendee registration: deathly allergies and needs for special accommodations.
Allergies
Food requirements are always difficult, and the open field that we used before this new radio button was put in place left a lot of room for ambiguity. Also, people often used it for other than reporting life-threatening allergies. In either approach, this part of the registration form serves two purposes:
Gather information about extreme and life threatening allergies so that we can prepare as organizers to best protect attendees.
Reassure and inform attendees regardless of the specific food allergy or preference so that they know what to expect when attending WCEU and can themselves plan accordingly.
Now when attendees check the radio button, there is no field for additional info, so our first template sought to gather more details.
Email template #1
Subject: WCEU you reported a life threatening allergy
Dear {firstname},
Thank you for purchasing a ticket for WordCamp Europe 2018.
You have indicated that you have a life-threatening allergy. In order for us to help ensure your safety at WordCamp Europe 2018, please tell us a bit more:
What are you allergic to? To what extent are you allergic? (ingestion, contact with the skin, airborne – please specify for each allergy if you have more than one)
If your allergy is non life-threatening, or if you checked the box to report a food preference, there is no need to reply to this email. We will be posting the full lunch menu including ingredients to our website, and on signage at the venue. In this way you can find the foods that are right for you.
Kind regards, {yourfirstname} Attendee Services Team WCEU 2018
We then compiled a list of all the emails that came back to us, in the hopes that some patterns would emerge. For a large event like WCEU, there was a potential for a large volume of emails, and we were looking to create templates rather than need to respond individually. Two themes emerged:
Nut allergies
Non deadly allergies and food preferences
Follow up email #1 (nuts!)
Dear {firstname},
Thank you for getting back to us. Good news! We have worked with our caterers to ensure that none of our dishes contain any type of nuts. The only exception is one little dish at our After Party that contains pine nuts, and this will be clearly labeled.
We just published menus with complete lists of ingredients for each meal that we’re serving. There are lots of choices available and we hope you find options you’ll like!
Regards {yourfirstname} Attendee Services Team WCEU 2018
Follow up email #2 (non deadly + atypical ingredients)
Dear {firstname},
Thank you for getting back to us. Good news! Each meal from Contributor Day through to the After Party will be served buffet-style with plenty of options. All dishes will be clearly marked so that you can make sure and compose a plate of only things you like and free of any foods that can cause you harm.
We’ve also published these menus online for your convenience so that you can plan ahead. We hope you’ll find options you’ll like!
Regards {yourfirstname} Attendee Services Team WCEU 2018
Accessibility needs
We took the same approach with accessibility needs (seek info, analyze results, build around specific needs), although we didn’t have many inquiries, so our template only covers wheelchair accessibility.
Accessibility needs email #1
Subject: WCEU you reported having accessibility needs
Dear {firstname},
Thank you for purchasing a ticket for WordCamp Europe 2018.
You have indicated that you have accessibility needs. In order for us to help make your visit to WordCamp Europe 2018 a good one, please tell us a bit more:
What are your specific needs? Do you need assistance upon arrival to the event?
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards, {yourfirstname} Attendee Services Team WCEU 2018
The main venue is on multiple floors and can be navigated by elevator. All bathrooms have at least one wheelchair-accessible stall. Please note that the Milky Way track is staggered, and so access is limited to the back – where reserved space is available – or the front of the room, which can be accessed via a clearly indicated door in the hall. For more information on accessibility at our event, please visit: https://2018.europe.wordcamp.org/info/accessibility-information-for-conference-venue/
And if you have any questions or require any assistance upon arrival, please visit our Info Booth at the center of the venue, or ask any of our volunteers wearing clearly marked red t-shirts.
We look forward to seeing you in Belgrade!
Regards {yourfirstname} Attendee Services Team WCEU 2018
I hope this is useful for some organizers out there! And I look forward to hearing how others are addressing these community needs and creating streamlined and effective communications.
Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 15 November 2018. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.
Howdy folks, we’re going to start drafting the December edition of the meetup organizers newsletter — if there are any topics you’d recommend we include, or any interesting meetup event formats you think are worth highlighting, could you please comment leave your ideas/suggestions in the comments on this post?
I will leave the comments open for one week until the 12th of December 2018.
The newsletter typically spotlights:
an interesting event format that organizers might want to try out
run a real-time deputy training discussion group for anyone who’s interested in becoming a deputy and has finished the deputy training quizzes. @courtneypk is available to move forward this task. See:
search through meetup.com event titles and list suggestions for interesting/unusual meetup event formats/topics that could be recommended in future meetup organiser newsletters
adding email templates for responding to life-threatening allergy and a11y needs notifications to the handbooks. See comments in this post for reference. @wolfpaw can help with this as well!
Team Facilitators
@francina, @miss_jwo and @kcristiano will be there, plus a number of experienced contributors who will be available to help you and answer to your questions about getting involved with the Community Team.
Hello to all our Deputies, WordCamp organizers, Meetup 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 Slack and ask for help!
@miriamgoldman It’s been a quiet two weeks for me. Prepping to run the training on December 16th.
@angelasjin Also quiet here. Prepping for WCUS, and getting ready for our meeting on Phase 1 & Phase 2
@jillbinder I am mostly working on year-end items. Gathering stats for our year-end report, looking back at this year and forward to next year, and putting in a lot of work at school to do all the little steps before asking for funding for this project, and next week starting to ask for funding directly from sponsors at WCUS.
Other folks are working on things as well. I do feel that as we’re wrapping up Phase 1, we are mostly on maintenance mode rather than creating new things mode, although there are some things we are still cleaning up, like the little details that will make the Train the Trainers process before, after, and during trainings smoother.
And I hope to be working on new items in the new year to scale up our efforts. More of that in our weekend meeting.
@sheilagomes So, the good news: the brazilian community has been talking about diversity and just today we opened a new slack channel to share content and tips on how to get more women to participate in meetups and other events.
I’m writing an article about it that will be shared in our blog, and I also told everyone we’re working on online training as well. People are excited about all this and I hope it helps bring more women and other minorities to our events
@jillbinder @sheilagomes I have a document to share with you that will be helpful. It’s almost ready to be published in the Community Handbook but there are a few details left for me to incorporate, and that got bumped to lower priority. But sometime in December. I can show you the draft in the meantime. It will help this new endeavour.
It’s on Buiding A Speaker Roster and it covers not only speakers but creating good environments for diverse folks in general at events as well.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about it from you. I expect there will be some help back and forth between our groups.
Next Training, Dec 16
The next Train the Trainers will be run by @miriamgoldman on Sunday, Dec. 16.
@sheilagomes will be attending as the first step of training to become one of our trainers. She has already run Lesson 1 many times, and it will be great to be exposed to the rest.
I would like to invite other members of our team to join as well. It is still a good first step in our team to run the training in your local community if you can, or online. You can do this without attending a training, but many find it does help.
The training will be primarily for meetups to learn, but anyone running WordPress events who might want to run it for their own group are welcome.
Email Questionnaires
@dianewallace is busy sending out our first email questionnaire follow-ups. This is something we will start doing regularly some time after people have taken the training, after we think they have run the training.
We have also been checking in why people may not have run trainings after being trained.
I hope to have results to report by our next meeting or two.
Who We’ve Talked To
Last time we started talking about which cities/regions we’ve been talking to about our work. They may or may not have gone and used our work, but we’ve discovered that just knowing about it sometimes is all it takes to start making a difference. We have some who went ahead and got speaker diversity without the training but because of the awareness that they got from us. And this is a stat we want to report on.
I added all the ones that you told me in the last meeting. Please go in and fill in the rest of the details.
And those who haven’t let me know, please fill those in as well.
The “has been trained or has run a training” column is important because it’s the “no”s that we are adding to our stat. We’ve already got the rest covered in our Workshop Tracker.
On that note, if you hear of someone who has run a workshop and didn’t let us know, please do add it to the workshop tracker.
If possible, it would be great to have that by Nov 30 so that we can add it to our stats for potential possible reporting at WCUS.
Meeting This Weekend
We decided that in order to have a proper discussion about Phase 1 vs Phase 2, it’ll be on Zoom and it’ll be this weekend so that those in offices can participate.
Sunday, December 2, 2018 at:
7:00 pm UTC
11:00 am (Vancouver/Seattle)
2:00 pm (Ottawa/Toronto
5:00 pm (Brazil)
on Zoom (webcam) https://zoom.us/j/9103925289
to talk about:
How did we do this year?
What could we have done better this year? Were there any barriers?
What could we accomplish next year?
What should we focus on in order to accomplish it?
To help me in planning us scaling up to make a bigger impact in 2019.
You are invited!
Please bring headphones and if you also have one, a microphone.
Doc of all docs / Where Everything Lives
Even with paring down our goals and to do list, our team still has a lot of moving pieces!
I finally collected them all into a document that links to them, as they live in different places and different people’s google drives:
Please take a look and let me know if there is anything to add.
And if you recommend any different kind of formatting. I’m playing with formatting to make it less unwieldy, such as I made the titles into the links so that cleaned up all the long links that were making it hard to skim.
As always, you can reply to items here, on the Recap I will post, or to me or our group on Slack.
Thanks all! Talk to you the second week of December, and see some of you in our webcam meeting this Sunday.
Any of us who haven’t taken a training yet are invited to join our Training on Sunday, Dec 16th
@dianewallace is sending out email followup questionnaires to folks who have run our workshop
@jillbinder report on findings from that and from asking folks why they may not have run trainings after being trained, in one of the December meetings
One goal of WordCamps around the world is to publish recordings of sessions to WordPress.tv, to make WordCamps even more accessible to all. To do this, so far WordCamp organizers have either:
relied on camera kits provided by the WordPress Foundation.
raised the funds to pay for professional videography services.
arranged local in-kind or volunteer videography services.
The Community Team pulled together the following data to compare the expense of shipping camera kits, the expense of outsourcing videography services, and the success rate of getting videos uploaded to WordPress.tv.
Summary of Results, data from January 2016 – October 2018
In the US & Canada, professional videography costs totaled almost $88k per year, while total costs in the EU came to just over $34k per year.
While we do not have shipping expenses fully documented for the EU, in the US, camera shipping costs added up to almost $4,000 per year in 2016-18. (Each camera kit cost the WordPress Foundation about $1500 to assemble. There are 8 kits in the US — 4 kits with 2 cameras each and 4 kits with one camera each — 3 in Canada, and 3 in the EU.)
The cost of shipping the kits around the US and Canada is vastly cheaper than the expense for A/V and Videography for 2016, 2017, and 2018, and the same can be assumed for the EU.
However, the number of WordCamps that paid for professional videography had a higher success rate of publishing on WPTV, as compared to the WordCamps who relied on Foundation camera kits alone. This is particularly noticeable in 2017, where:
In the US/Canada:
18 WordCamps paid for professional video services and published their sessions to WPTV
10 WordCamps paid for professional video services and did not publish their sessions to WPTV
10 WordCamps relied on the Foundation camera kits and volunteers, and successfully published their sessions to WPTV
16 WordCamps relied on the Foundation camera kits and volunteers, and did not publish their sessions to WPTV
In the EU:
19 WordCamps paid for professional video services and published their sessions to WPTV
5 WordCamps paid for professional video services and did not publish their sessions to WPTV
6 WordCamps relied on the Foundation camera kits and volunteers, and successfully published their sessions to WPTV
0 WordCamps relied on the Foundation camera kits and volunteers, and did not publish their sessions to WPTV
Other Considerations
While outsourcing A/V support is far more expensive than shipping camera kits, there are other factors we should consider. These include:
It takes a lot of time to wrangle these kits. Cemal, for instance, has been responsible for all camera kits within the US. Maintaining and sending these kits to all the WordCamps that request them (35 WordCamps in 2017, and 41 in 2018) can sometimes require more than 30 hours of work per week.
Both Cemal and Mikey will be stepping down from this duty next year. Additionally, Jerry is going on sabbatical at the end of this month (hooray!) and he is stepping down as team representative. We need someone to manage the shipping and maintenance of the kits ASAP, at least for US/Canada.
Because the equipment is often in the hands of WordCamp organizers who are not familiar with the equipment, there is a perceived steep learning curve and, all too often, equipment is broken or lost.
