karenalma 11:14 pm on January 30, 2013
Tags: review wordcamp guidelines ( 8 )

Review WordCamp Guidelines Committee Update #2 We are…

Review 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. Guidelines Committee Update #2

We are in the final stages of compiling a list of pain points that will be sent out to WordCamp organizers.

We were originally going to send out a small list and dig deeper from there, but decided to send out a list of things we know are issues and ask the WC Organizer community to tell us which ones are more contentious for them.

We will include space for additional pain points that we didn’t think of.

The list will be reviewed by the whole team by Friday, January 31st and ready for distribution on Monday, February 4th.

We’ll also poll non-WordCamp organizers about possible barriers to entry for them in the guidelines.

#review-wordcamp-guidelines

Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 8:31 pm on January 31, 2013

Do you have this online somewhere that you can link to? I’m a mod at wordpress.tv and we publish 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. videos. I bet we have a few pain points to add to your doc, based on what we hear about how painful the process of converting and uploading WC videos can be. 🙂
- andreamiddleton 3:53 am on February 1, 2013
  
  I wouldn’t actually characterize video conversion & uploading issues as pain points with the 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. guidelines per se. I see that as more of a pain point in organizing (event wrap-up, really) that we can try to ease through better tutorials and support from the Events community. What do you think?
  - Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 7:03 pm on February 1, 2013
    
    I think that’s a fair point. Perhaps what I’m trying to head off at the pass is what happens during actually filming the talk, something that happens before wrap-up, uploading, etc., but can lead to some pain down the road, when it’s “too late” to film it again.
    
    This may not be the place for either of those things, however. 🙂
    - andreamiddleton 4:58 am on February 2, 2013
      
      I totally agree – when it comes to video, there’s only so much you can do once it’s been recorded! 🙂
      
      I think Event Planning Training Materials group might need to touch base with the Event Video Management group and help make a hyper-amazing Best Practices document for 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. (and other) organizers so they can record the best quality video possible. Winning!
Tony Scott 7:10 pm on February 10, 2013
The WPUK http://wpuk.org/ team has received the survey emailed to organisers.

In relation to the question “please identify which (if any) of the following were �pain points for you in the course of organizing your 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 theyâve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more.” are we to take that all the points below that question are currently part of http://plan.wordcamp.org/ ?

For example:
- Having to limit the ticket price to $20 USD (or equivalent) per person, per day
- Getting our sponsorship packages approved by WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.
- Not allowing logos on shirts
- Having to return lanyards
- Having Central vet sponsors
If the examples are part of the current guidelines, can you point out where?

Many thanks

(edited per Tony’s request by Andrea) https://make.wordpress.org/events/2013/01/30/review-wordcamp-guidelines-committee-update-2-we-are/#comment-13003
- andreamiddleton 6:05 pm on February 11, 2013
  
  Hi Tony – good question!
  
  The guidelines ask organizers to limit ticket prices to $20 per person, per day, here: http://plan.wordcamp.org/planning-details/selling-tickets/
  
  Logos on shirts is touched on here: http://plan.wordcamp.org/planning-details/fundraising/ (under Philosophy)
  
  Returning lanyards is only applicable to the WordCamps that have lanyards provided to them by the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org.. Our goal is for all WordCamps to collect lanyards from attendees at the end of the event and then ship them to another event so they can be re-used, and reduce the amount of waste produced by WordCamps. This program is only active in the US and Canada right now.
  
  The other two – (a) sponsorship packages approved by Central & (b) having Central vet sponsors – are more of a mentorship-style practice than a guideline.
  
  (a) After some organizing teams got themselves in a pickle with the sponsorship packages they offered – a couple were really vague & resulted in misunderstandings, and one or two others promised a speaking opportunity in return for sponsorship, which of course is completely outside the 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. model – I started asking teams to walk me through their sponsorship packages before they published, so that no one got themselves in that awkward situation of having to “take back” something they offered in a package.
  (b) Realizing that not all organizing teams include someone confident in their ability to distinguish between 100% GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. and otherwise, I started offering myself as a “last line of defense” for teams that weren’t confident about their vetting abilities. An organizer who has a question about a company’s license can ask me to look it over and give my opinion – and even reach out to the sponsor on their behalf to help explain the guidelines.
  - Tony Scott 2:24 pm on February 13, 2013
    
    Hi Andrea – Many thanks for the helpful clarification.
    
    What sparked my comment was the question �please identify which (if any) of the following were pain points for you in the course of organizing your 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 theyâve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. seemed to imply the points beneath the question were referring to points explicit in the current guidelines.
    
    From what you’ve said, I suppose the question more accurately should be “please identify which (if any) of the following were/would be pain points for you in the course of organizing your WordCamp, since not all the points have not been applicable to all WordCamps.
    
    Additionally, could I suggest that, at some point, a further email is issued with a deadline for responses, because in my experience in similar exercises, without such a deadline, responses will be appearing for months into the future 😉
    - andreamiddleton 10:20 pm on February 13, 2013
      
      All excellent points/suggestions. 🙂 thanks!!
Tony Scott 7:41 pm on February 10, 2013

Can’t seem to be able to go back and edit comments – in the my last comment ‘letter’ in para 2 should read ‘question’ and in the penultimate para ‘if they examples’ should read ‘if the examples’.

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Review WordCamp Guidelines Committee Update #2 We are…

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