Community Expectations

Anyone who’s paid attention to other open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. projects over the past year or two has seen the development of codes of conduct for almost every project/conference series that didn’t already have one. We’re behind here, for several reasons.

  • Our project tends to mostly be filled with respectful, kind people, so many people don’t feel we need a code of conductCode of Conduct “A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia.
  • Some people feel a code of conduct sets up the notion that we expect people to be inappropriate jerks, and that will make people not want to join us.
  • We have lots of libertarians that don’t like centralized rules and policies. 🙂

For these reasons we have tended toward generalities rather than stating behavioral rules in specific detail.

We’re outgrowing this.

WordCamps, 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., forums, irc, tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets, blog comments, and more all have the potential to be home to conduct unbecoming a WordPress community member. But how is anyone supposed to know what we expect without having been around?

And even if they have been around, the people who’ve been around longer have inside jokes and know each other well enough that they might say things tongue-in-cheek that newcomers think are being said seriously and take in a way other than intended. Without any evil intentions, people who’ve never thought about what it’s like to be a member of a minority or anything other than able-bodied/financially-stable/caucasian/American/male/heterosexual/bearded/whatever-the-majority-is might not realize how unwelcoming some language or imagery may be to those who are different.

To that end, I want us to have a page on 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/ that lays out our Community Expectations. A little less harsh-sounding than Code of Conduct, the Community Expectations should lay out what kinds of behavior are welcome/encouraged/expected in the project/at events, and provide a way for people to let us know if we fail to live up to these expectations so that we can continually improve our ability to welcome new contributors.

This is part of the diversity initiative. I’d like to assemble a small team of folks to work together on creating a draft of this document that we can then share with the broader contributor community for comment. To ensure that we are sensitive to language affecting multiple groups of people, I’d like this small team to itself be diverse. If you’re interested in helping draft this document, please leave a comment on this post and I’ll be in touch next week.

If you don’t want to be on the team that works on the document but you’d like to make sure we take something or other into account while we draft it, feel free to leave suggestions in the comments as well.

#diversity, #documentation, #policy

No IRC meetings this week or next because…

No IRC meetings this week or next because Jen and Andrea are both tied up with the Automattic 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.. So we’re shifting updates to async mode — if you’ve got anything for tomorrow’s post, add it in comments!

#meetings

Resurrecting the http make wordpress org training site…

Resurrecting the https://make.wordpress.org/training/ site so there’s a place for the active working group to collaborate now that there is starting to be one. Yay! @courtneydawn is heading this up.

#training

Subtitles awaiting moderation I’ve never noticed that…

“Subtitles awaiting moderation”
I’ve never noticed that before, is this something we need to do?

#wordpress-tv

FYI There are some WordCamp videos in French…

FYI: There are some 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 in French from Montreal that need to be moderated.

#wordpress-tv

Anything for tomorrow’s update?

Looks like we’ve already got a lot of great content happening here on the 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/. (yay!), but if there’s anything else for tomorrow’s team update post, add it here.

Theme School Curriculum

Below I have set out the topics and layout for the theme school training modules.Please take a look and get back to me if you are interested! For those who were at Contribute Day at WCSF, please contact me if you have any materials already created (outside of the videos that were recorded) so we can use the awesome content you all worked on already.
The basic layout for each section module would be:
  • a short intro in what you will learn (written or video)
  • voice over screencast walk through (user could follow along if they wanted to)
  • 2-3 practice examples
  • self quiz for each topic
Here are first thoughts on sections of the theme school. There are probably too many in some sections and not enough in others.  I am sure I missing some of the topics we covered at Contribute Day – please remind me what topic you worked on so i can include it. I look forward to seeing everyone’s ideas 🙂
  • What is a Theme
    • How does a theme interact with WP
    • What is a framework (definition)
    • What is a child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. (definition)
    • What is CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. or Role of CSS in WP theme
  • Theme Basics
    • Setting up Local InstallLocal Install A local install of WordPress is a way to create a staging environment by installing a LAMP or LEMP stack on your local computer. of WP
    • Theme Standards & Best Practices
    • Basic Files &  Structure: Anatomy of a Theme
      • see: http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/
    • Template Hierarchy
    • Template Tags
    • Post Formats
    • Files & Structure 2: Deconstructing twentytwelve (or other) file structure
      • perhaps broken down into HeaderHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes., Sidebars, Navigation, Stylesheet, etc.
    • Page Templates
    • Images (best practices)
    • CSS troubleshooting
  • Altering a Theme: Child Themes
    • Child theme basics (unless covered in basics)
    • Picking a parent theme
    • Creating child theme
      • functions.php
      • style.css
      • adding / overwriting other files
    • Common requests
    • Adding Additional Widgeted Spaces
  • Turning HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. design/website into WordPress theme
    • Breaking design into modules via WordPress file structure
    • The LoopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. & your site
    • Common Issues
  • Creating a theme from scratch
    • Using a starter theme
      • _s (underscores)
      • toolbox
  • Advanced/Other
    • Theme CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. integration
    • Custom Post TypeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. Templates
    • Print Friendly stylesheet
    • Responsive Themes
    • Internationalization
    • Theming Admin Dashboard
    • BuddyPress / MS
    • 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)
    • Testing your theme / Debugging
    • Theme Review aka Submitting Theme to WP

unsure if these would be appropriate / where to put them…

  • Web Fonts
  • How do i create my own theme/what does it mean to create a theme
  • Conditional tags
  • The  Loop explained
  • wp-query best practices
  • Custom fields
  • Custom post types

#themes, #training

Training Curriculums: Theme School

Hey all – I am finally getting around to introducing myself. I am Courtney OCallaghan and as Jen mentioned, I was a TA in the first troubleshooting training in DC (where i currently reside). I LOVE WordPress, LOVE teaching & training, and LOVE that the hideous summer weather in DC is almost over.

At Contribute Day 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. San Francisco a few months ago, Jen put together a group of people to begin creating modules for teaching others how to create/modify/hack/submit/etc. themes and named it Theme School. For those of you who participated, if you are interested in continuing on the module you began (or working on something else related) now is the time!! For those of you who did not participate in the first round of Theme School curriculum creation, there is no time like the present! In other words We Need Volunteers!

I have created a large (and I am sure not entirely thorough) list of the modules I would want to see in the theme school curriculum as a whole. I will be posting the list Wednesday for you all to look at and add to so that it is more complete. More to come!

#themes, #training, #training-workshops

Making Better Speakers

Remember when we made thousands of little potential project teams in the /events site? Some had volunteers, some got started but floundered after a bit, a few stayed dedicated right through today, and some never really kicked off because we were starting so many things at once?

I’ve been hitting a lot of WordCamps this summer, and it’s hit home that we dropped the ball on building resources and processes to help make better speakers. (The original post from last year. A year and a month. Ouch.) Let’s get that in gear! I talked to Terry Collins at WC Buffalo today about helping take point on this (she’s one of the WC Buffalo organizers and is involved with toastmasters etc.), so let’s get a new sound-off on who’d be psyched to work on this. If no one volunteers, I’ll just start emailing people who’ve gotten good feedback as speakers before to ask them to help get us started, but hopefully some of you experienced speakers are interested in sharing your knowledge. Let us know in the comments!

#mentorship, #speaker-training, #wordcamps

How much time does it take to organize a WordCamp?

All of it. Just kidding. Well, maybe not. 🙂

I’d like to be able to tell new 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 how much time they should expect to commit to organizing a WordCamp, so people are less often surprised when they get down to crunch time. Why? Well, because one of the best and most effective ways to recruit and retain great volunteers is to give them a good send of what they’re signing up for. There are some great volunteer “job descriptions” out there, but none of them come with an estimate of hours per week or per event, and that can be the make-or-break for some organizing teams.

So this is an open call: if any organizing teams are willing to try to track their WordCamp hours (maybe on the shared budget spreadsheet?) in any way that makes sense to the team, please comment below – so we’ll know who you are – and start tracking! 🙂 Once we get 5-10 camps who have tracked their organizing hours, we’ll publish the collected data to plan.wordcamp.org.

Also, if you’re an experienced WordCamp organizer who is not in active planning right now, but would like to volunteer to check in with organizing teams that have offered to track their time (and help them remember to do it), then please leave a comment below to that effect. This is a job for one person who can spend 1-2 hours a week, popping in to spreadsheets and sending friendly reminders to teams that promised to track their hours.

#events-2, #time-tracking, #wordcamp