Licking the WordCamp Cookie

For about a year now, WordCamps have been asked to start planning no more than six months in advance. Based on feedback from 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. organizers, it’s time to re-examine that practice and discuss what we could do differently.

The Problem(s):

In 2011, nearly every time a WordCamp was approved for pre-planning more than about 6 months before their target event date — with some exceptions outside the US — the WordCamp organizing team failed to organize a WordCamp.

Worse, by the time the organizing team was willing to admit they weren’t getting anywhere and maybe weren’t really focused on WordCamp organizing, other people in the community who had been interested in organizing a WordCamp had moved on to other projects.

This was particularly harmful for communities that had never had a WordCamp before – I can think of 9-10 cities that are still WordCamp-less, years after an organizing team “licked the cookie” and then abandoned WordCamp planning.

The Challenge:

Keeping volunteers engaged is hard. No one gets paid to organize a WordCamp, and when life gets busy and/or major transitions come our way, it’s easy to lose volunteers. Since WordCamps are volunteer-organized, maintaining momentum among members of the organizing team is key… and few things are as motivating as watching a deadline hurtling toward you.

That being said, there are indeed stable WordCamp organizing teams with large communities and/or complex events who want to have more than 6 months to get all their ducks in a row, or who need to book a great, cheap venue a year in advance. It’s important to accommodate communities that need more than six months for one reason or another, but still maintain planning momentum across all organizing teams.

Proposal:

  • Three months after approval for pre-planning, if a WordCamp organizing team has made zero progress toward finding a venue, that city/region will come off the 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. planning list. The field will then be open for other community members to join and help activate the stalled team, or apply to organize a WordCamp with a new team, with heavy preference given to the former.
  • If a WordCamp organizing team sets a date and books a venue but then fails to update/interact with the community for more than a month during the planning period, then WordCamp Central will contact that team and try to help them get back on track. If the organizing team can’t make progress in the next month, the team will be asked to either add more organizers who can help correct the course or postpone/reschedule their event.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts and suggestions in a comment.

#wordcamps