WordPress Meetups Roadmap

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It’s been a few weeks since I first posted a call for volunteers about meetups. I wanted to give an update and also layout what the roadmap is going forward.

Currently there are 23 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. under 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. meetup.com account.

Over the next week I’ll be contacting a group of about seven individuals out of the pool of volunteers in order to form a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. group to work on the 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. guidelines. The goal is to have a diverse group that includes meetup organizers from around the world and includes organizers of small & large meetups, meetups that are currently under the WordPress Foundation umbrella, and those that are not. If I don’t contact you, please don’t feel slighted. You are still going to have a chance to participate.

At the first meeting (which will take place in the #wordpress-events IRC channel), we will outline and identify the guidelines that we want. We won’t work on specific language yet, though.

The next step will be for me to write a draft of the specific language. This draft will probably contain spelling and grammar errors. Then during the second meeting, the core group will discuss the language and tweak it as necessary.

Following that, we will post the proposed guidelines on this blog for a period of public comment.

Following the public comment period (which I envision being about one week), the group will gather again to review the guidelines and tweak them as needed. If we feel it is necessary, we will then do another public comment period.

The group will then make a formal proposal that will go to all the team reps and Matt. Assuming everything looks good at that point, we will have meetup organizer guidelines.

Once we have meetup organizer guidelines in place, I’ll set up a timeline to get more groups under the WordPress Foundation umbrella.�If you’re looking to add your meetup group to the WordPress Foundation account, this process will probably start around late March or early April

In addition to all of this, I’m going to continue to post the best practices posts. If you have other ideas for how we, as a community of meetup organizers, can help each other, please let me know.

#meetups-2

Thanks Aaron. Your statements steer the ship in the general direction of answering my questions. I would think having many great 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. would be an obvious goal for the Foundation. And I’m familiar with and fully support the philosophy mentioned.

In the hope of clarification, i’ll play a little Devil’s advocate. The philosophy mentioned refers to (at least in part) to the 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.. You can already see where this is going. With recent discussions on 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 GPL (ignoring for the moment that those guidelines are being reviewed) one could start drawing conclusions that part of the endgame could be that WordPress meetups will not be able to be organized, sponsored, or allow speakers that violate the GPL. Or at least WordPress meetups that the Foundation (or as you said, WordPress) “pays for” and “supports”. That’s a leap of logic i’ll grant you but leaps like that are what eventually lead to the endgames (or what i later refer to as “guidance and control boundaries”) i’m mentioning (and please this is a GPL debate zone people – i just picked the lowest hanging example fruit).

You may or may not be able to address the above at the needed level detail at this time, and that’s understandable. Just making it clear that this was where I was and will be focusing my eyeballs and where i’ll continue to show interest in how this develops. No doubt WordPress meetups as a whole in many ways will benefit – including the meetups in my own area. Hoping you’ll be thanked many times as you take great personal effort to help steer the ship there. Kudos.

I just looked up and realized I wrote 3 big paragraphs. That’s insane. I’m going to hug my kids and hit the sack early. 🙂

David Bisset 7:01 pm on February 11, 2013

Sounds great Aaron. Looking forward to being involved or hearing about the progress.

I just want to ensure we are clear on what the endgame is. Obviously there’s a measure of organization and security that the Foundation wants to have in regards to 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., which is understandable. But there’s a also a subtile and noticeable control factor as well. Since this parallels in principles guidelines for WordCamps, I just wanted to ensure that at some point we had a clear idea where the guidance and control boundaries were. Thus avoiding some communication and interpretation issues that seem to have appeared on 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. side (granted, there are differences but there are similarities). If that was difficult to understand let me know and i can attempt to translate with my trusty Babel Fish.
- Aaron Jorbin 7:47 pm on February 11, 2013
  
  It’s much less a control factor and much more about having clear expectations. We don’t want 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. that WordPress is paying for and supporting to be going against WordPress and its philosophy. https://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/ lays out what this philosophy is.
  
  The endgame is having great WordPress 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. for everyone in as many places as is possible. These guidelines will be one of the tools we use to get there.
  
  Does this answer your questions?
  - David Bisset 3:09 am on February 12, 2013
    
    Thanks Aaron. Your statements steer the ship in the general direction of answering my questions. I would think having many great 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. would be an obvious goal for the Foundation. And I’m familiar with and fully support the philosophy mentioned.
    
    In the hope of clarification, i’ll play a little Devil’s advocate. The philosophy mentioned refers to (at least in part) to the 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.. You can already see where this is going. With recent discussions on 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 GPL (ignoring for the moment that those guidelines are being reviewed) one could start drawing conclusions that part of the endgame could be that WordPress meetups will not be able to be organized, sponsored, or allow speakers that violate the GPL. Or at least WordPress meetups that the Foundation (or as you said, WordPress) “pays for” and “supports”. That’s a leap of logic i’ll grant you but leaps like that are what eventually lead to the endgames (or what i later refer to as “guidance and control boundaries”) i’m mentioning (and please this is a GPL debate zone people – i just picked the lowest hanging example fruit).
    
    You may or may not be able to address the above at the needed level detail at this time, and that’s understandable. Just making it clear that this was where I was and will be focusing my eyeballs and where i’ll continue to show interest in how this develops. No doubt WordPress meetups as a whole in many ways will benefit – including the meetups in my own area. Hoping you’ll be thanked many times as you take great personal effort to help steer the ship there. Kudos.
    
    I just looked up and realized I wrote 3 big paragraphs. That’s insane. I’m going to hug my kids and hit the sack early. 🙂
    - Aaron Jorbin 4:22 am on February 12, 2013
      
      I can’t answer any specifics about what will be in the guidelines until they have been written, which is what it seems you’re asking. Also, while I will do the first draft of the words, ultimately the goal if for these to be the communities guidelines (hence the process that I laid out).
Anonymous User 9:30 pm on February 11, 2013

Sounds like much thought and balancing gone into it. Bravo from over here!
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WordPress Meetups Roadmap

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