Monthly Archives: December 2014

Andrea Middleton 6:36 pm on December 22, 2014
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Transparency report Instructions for volunteers at WordCamp Central…

Transparency report! Instructions for volunteers at 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. who are helping to review applications, interview applicants, and review budgets have been posted and added to the site menu under DeputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. Update. I have also recorded a screencast to help train people to review applications.

Looks like there was an issue with the recording I made of 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. Cologne budget review meeting, and I didn’t capture the sound. 🙁 I’ll pull down that video for now and try to get another budget review hangout recorded asap.

#deputies, #wordcamps

Cami Kaos 12:49 am on December 20, 2014
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Community meetings suspended until 2015

A reminder for those of you who were in this week’s community chat, and a note for those of you who weren’t: Community chat is cancelled for the holidays and the rest of the year! I’ll see you all back in slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. in 2015!

Teams feel free to sound off below to let your members know if your meetings will continue as scheduled.

#community-management #meetings

Konstantin Kovshenin 6:46 pm on December 18, 2014
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While working on the new URL structure project…

While working on the new URL structure project for WordCamp.org, we’ve stumbled upon an interesting thing and would love to hear your feedback.

The problem is that the majority of 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. sites use the /year/month/day/post-slug/ permalinks structure, so when converting year.city.wordcamp.org to city.wordcamp.org/year we essentially end up with a /year/year/ as part of the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org, which looks like something’s broken. Here’s an example:

http://russia.wordcamp.org/2014/2014/08/04/one-week-out/

We thought of three different solutions to this problem.

1. The simplest solution is to leave it like that.

2. Change the permalinks structure to /month/day/post-slug/ so the above URL would look like this:

http://russia.wordcamp.org/2014/08/04/one-week-out/

Fairly simple, and coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. gives us redirects for free, however, there’s a gotcha. The year in the URL is part of the site URL and not the post permalink, so when we announce the next WordCamp in Russia on the 2014 event site in January 2015 (for example), the URL will still say 2014:

http://russia.wordcamp.org/2014/01/15/wordcamp-2015-announcement/

So by looking at the URL one may think the post was published in January 2014. This affects all WordCamps that published announcement posts for new events on older sites. And even more it affects WordCamps happening early in the year, because they will likely have quite a few posts in November and December.

Also worth noting that links to the old subdomain-based sites may end up with a double redirect.

3. Change the permalinks structure to /post-slug/ so our URL would look like this:

http://russia.wordcamp.org/2014/one-week-out/

This solution requires more work, since core will not automatically handle redirects for us. Just like solution #2 it will likely introduce double redirects for old subdomain-based URLs.

All of this affects only existing WordCamp sites. Going forward, we’d like to switch all new WordCamps to use the /post-name/ permalink structure by default.

Thoughts? Comments? Any other ideas?

#wordcamp-org, #wordcamps

Michael Wiginton 6:08 pm on December 18, 2014
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WordPress.tv Moderator Squad Update

“We can only see a short distance ahead but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”
– Alan Turing

We published the first ever videos from 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. Warsaw and the first videos for the Polish speaking community. Congratulations WordCamp Warsaw.

And thanks to @brashrebel we now have a new slides link box which means no more cutting and pasting in the slide link. Hooray!!

Submitted videos continues to be slow this week.
37 WordCamps held from July to November and 21 of those have no videos submitted.

The Last 7 Days

We published 13 videos from 5 WordCamps and 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. around the world.

The Top Three Most Viewed WordCamp Videos This Week

Matt Mullenweg: The State of the Word 2014

Sara Cannon: Smart Design

Siobhan McKeown: WordPress: Bringing Ideas to Life

In Process

Working the kinks out of the buddy system.

#moderator-update, #wordpress-tv

Andrew Nacin 8:35 pm on December 17, 2014
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Community team on Slack

Hello! Now that we’ve been using SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. for nearly two months, I’m reviewing where we can improve. Some other teams have made specific feature requests, and I’m happy to hear those in the #slackhelp channel. (If there’s anything that can be done to make Slack better for you, I’m all ears.)

Now, for this team in particular, there have been a few requests as it pertains to channels. Like most teams, you joined Slack to find an already created #community channel waiting for you. It turns out, #community isn’t a great name, as many think it is either a watercooler of sorts or for general discussion topics. Others think it pertains to local communities (half right). The “community” team is really a super-team composed of a number of wide-ranging initiatives.

There are a lot of users in the channel, and a decent amount of noise, especially if you only care about only one particular initiative or project. There’s lot of cross-talk. Meetings can run into each other or need to be carefully scheduled around each other.

Slack suggests you create channels only as you realize you need them, and we adopted this model. Before 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 was over, a #training channel was created. Here’s my current proposal, based on the projects page and a review of all requests I’ve received:

  • #events — Rename the #community channel to #events. 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., and other events. Includes sponsorships talk. Can have subdivisions for WordCamps and/or meetups at a later point.
  • #outreach — This would cover a number of projects that are mostly dormant or nascent. As things ramp up, this could divide further into channels for academic outreach, #diversity, #mentorship / #gsoc, etc.
  • #training — The training team; this channel already exists.
  • #wptv — WordPress.tv video moderation.

Of course, there will be stuff that takes place that spans multiple teams. I don’t think it’ll be difficult how to make that work, though. As an example: as most stuff focuses on events, community-team-wide housekeeping and updates could be covered during regular #events meetings. I think this is a very good trade-off.

#meta, #slack

Andrea Middleton 4:45 pm on December 16, 2014
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Last week Morgan Kay an experienced WordCamp organizer…

Last week Morgan Kay, an experienced 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. organizer whom I vetted and approved to be lead organizer of WordCamp Seattle 2015, notified 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. that she planned to start distributing a WordPress pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party that would not be released under 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..

Morgan agreed that this action would mean that she no longer met the WordCamp organizer expectations, so she should remove herself from the WordCamp Seattle organizing team. Brooke Dukes, another member of the Seattle organizing team, was willing to take on the lead organizer role, so the transition was smooth. Planning of WordCamp Seattle continues, and WordCamp Central will make an extra effort to support the Seattle organizing team as their planning cycle continues.

#gpl, #wordcamp, #wordcamps

Jenny Wong 10:38 am on December 16, 2014
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Community Hub Meeting

Based on the Doodle Results, the community hub meeting will be at 20:00 UTC on Mondays.

The first one will be on the 22nd December on #community.

I want to take the opportunity to listen to peoples concepts, issues, ideas with community hub. If anyone has something in particular they want to discuss regarding the community hub, please comment with the agenda / question.

#commhub

Cami Kaos 10:09 pm on December 15, 2014
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WordCamp Deputies Update 12/15/14

Howdy DeputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook.!

Give me your weekly update here please!

#deputies, #wordcamps

Konstantin Kovshenin 4:54 pm on December 12, 2014
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We wanted to let you know that the…

We wanted to let you know that the recently reported login redirect 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. on WordCamp.org has been fixed. However, you will have to login again to access your event sites admin area. Sorry for the trouble and let us know if you experience any issues!

#wordcamp-org, #wordcamps

Andrea Middleton 11:01 pm on December 11, 2014
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WordCamp Deputies program update

We’ve been recruiting and training volunteers who can help with some of 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. organizer vetting and oversight work that I’ve been responsible for over the past 3 years. The following people have agreed to help review incoming WordCamp organizer applications, interview new applicants, and review WordCamp budgets:

US volunteers:

Josepha Haden
Brandon Dove
Karen Arnold
Kevin Cristiano
Brian Richards

Europe/Africa volunteers:

Scott Basgaard
Mario Peshev

Asia/Pacifica volunteers:

Dee Teal
Mayuko Moriyama
Aditya Kane

Reviewing applications:

Every deputyProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. chooses a day in which he/she will review applications for 30-60 minutes. If there are no applications in that deputy’s default region, they are welcome to review applications in other regions. Applications that merit an interview will be responded to with an interview request. DeputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. with possible conflicts of interest will recuse themselves in a note on the SP ticket, and another deputy will review/reply instead.

Currently, that schedule is:

Deputy days:
Sun: Dee Teal
Mon: Aditya Kane
Tues: Mario Peshev, Brandon Dove
Wed: Karen Arnold
Thurs: Scott Basgaard
Fri: Kevin Cristiano, Josepha Haden

Interviewing applicants:

Two standing group interview slots per week have been scheduled for would-be WordCamp organizers. These can be hangouts or text chats on Skype, depending on English fluency. If an application looks good, then deputies will invite the applicant to that interview. We prefer to have two interviewers in each hangout if possible, for support and deputy feedback. We’ll limit the group interviews to three would-be organizers per session, and drop interview notes on the applicant into a comment on their application thread on SupportPress. Deputies won’t approve anyone IN the interview — they’ll send them a response via SupportPress afterwards. In the approval email, it’s preferred to introduce them to their mentor as well. Guidelines for interviewing applicants: https://make.wordpress.org/community/interviewing-wordcamp-organizer-applicants/

Budget review:

Since these take an hour each, my suggestion is to have one person in each region (Americas, Asia/Pacifica, Europe/Africa) assigned to budget reviews for an entire month, and that person checks in once or twice a week to see if any budget review requests come in, or the deputy checking for applications that day will “notify” the budget reviewer in SupportPress of a budget review request.  The budget reviewer rotates every month. Guidelines for budget review: https://make.wordpress.org/community/reviewing-a-proposed-wordcamp-budget/

Once the budget is approved, then the reviewer notifies Cami will publish the WordCamp to the official schedule, and hey look, it’s a WordCamp!

Tracking/transparency:

Once a week, Cami will post to make/community with a WordCamp updates thread, and you’ll each reply with what you did that week as a deputy, even if it’s “no applications this week.” That way we’ll have transparency and the community will know if things are really quiet or really hopping. I’d think it would look something like this:

  • replied to application from Dhaka asking for more info on the local 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.
  • replied to application from Pune, asking them to start a meetup
  • replied to application from Tehran, asking them to start a meetup
  • replied to application from Auckland, invited to interview for next Wednesday

or

  • interviewed applicants from North Canton, Lousiville, and Pittsburgh.
  • approved North Canton for pre-planning, assigned John Hawkins as mentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues.
  • approved Louisville for pre-planning, assigned Erick Hitter as mentor
  • recommended Pittsburgh work on developing the local meetup further, so they’d have an easier time recruiting local speakers and sponsors, and re-apply in 6 months

I’ll add the relevant schedules to the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. later today! Please let us know in a comment if you have a suggestion or question.

#community-management, #wordcamps