Ian Dunn 7:43 pm on March 2, 2017
Tags: feedback ( 10 ), WordCamps ( 239 )

Requiring WordCamp Speakers to have a WordPress.org account

A team of contributors is working on building a new tool for handling 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. speaker submissions. As part of that project, we’ve run into a question that we’d like help from the rest of the Community team to decide.

Should potential WordCamp speakers be required to have a 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/ account in order to submit their proposal?

Currently, potential speakers are required to log in before submitting a proposal. Some people feel like that doesn’t offer a substantial benefit, and that it creates a barrier for speakers, especially those outside the WordPress community who can offer valuable perspective. Others feel like having the data is beneficial, and an unwillingness to fulfill a minor requirement might be a red flag that they wouldn’t be a good representative of our community.

Our discussion from September 2015 has more details on the pros and cons. I remember there’ve been more discussion 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/. too, but I couldn’t find them. If you do, please link to them in the comments.

cc @jennybeaumont, @imath, @tomjn, @johnjamesjacoby

#wordcamps #feedback

Ian Dunn 7:47 pm on March 2, 2017

Personally, I agree with JJJ…

At the risk of being overly blunt (please don’t misunderstand) – if you can’t be bothered to obtain an account for the software surrounding the conference you’re hoping to speak at, that is a warning sign. I think every consideration should be made to help that person obtain an account, even as a placeholder, even if they never log in.

…and with Jen:

The login system we have is optimized for community member recognition and to make organizers’ jobs easier. Optimizing for the handful of people who don’t want to create an account seems backwards. If they aren’t willing to to do that easy thing, I wonder about how much they really care about interacting with our community, even if it is for a short time. I have never complained about creating accounts with drupal.org or 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 when we want to engage in cross-project collaboration. If they will be speaking at a 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., they are, in fact, a part of the WordPress community, and I would rather see us massage the language around creating an account to reflect that than take away the sign in requirement.
- Ian Dunn 8:04 pm on March 2, 2017
  
  As Jen also pointed out, there will always be alternate methods for organizers to accept submissions from people (e.g., a standard Jetpack form, email, etc). The tool that requires logging in just the primary/supported solution.
- Mark Root-Wiley 10:30 pm on March 2, 2017
  
  Big +1s for both these points, particularly about profiles recognizing contributions.
imath 7:57 pm on March 2, 2017

Hi Ian,

I remember we talked about it 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. Talk submissions in december 2016:

https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/meta-wordcamp/p1481735067000273

And personally i’m in favour of 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/ accounts too 😉
Tracy Levesque 8:02 pm on March 2, 2017

To cast as wide a net as possible, I vote for not having the requirement. It will definitely be a speedbump to folks outside the WordPress community and some busy folks may then put it off and not get to it.

I don’t want barriers put up getting a more diverse group of applicants.
- Valentine C 8:15 pm on March 2, 2017
  
  I made it a point to mention in my 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.’s Call for Speakers that if they had any trouble, they could send their talk proposals in via email.
  
  Going in a bit of a tangent: there was some feedback from people in my community that they had to create both 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/ and WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ accounts (.org for speakers to submit talks and for organisers to maintain the website, and .com for Gravatars). I wonder if this process could be streamlined.
  - Valentine C 8:17 pm on March 2, 2017
    
    Sorry, I meant to reply to the parent post, but seemed to have clicked on the wrong Reply button. 😅
  - Anonymous User 11:04 pm on March 2, 2017
    
    +1 for streamlining. Having to create two accounts seems kind of silly.
Brett Shumaker 8:13 pm on March 2, 2017

I agree with the perspective that a potential speaker creating a 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/ account is sort of the “first step” in vetting that speaker. But I’m curious to know what the specific benefits are to the camp organizers for requiring the account?

If not having that information really would give camp organizers a lot of extra work, then I don’t know why we would do that to ourselves – seems like inconveniencing the many for the needs of a few.
- Ian Dunn 10:03 pm on March 2, 2017
  
  One scenario that would add extra work for organizers is if a lot of regular, local community members skipped the field because they don’t want to bother looking up their username, or didn’t realize it would be used to assign the Speaker badge on their profile. Some of them would probably then could come back later when they see that other speakers have badges, and ask the organizers to go in and manually assign the badge.
  
  It would also mean the speaker vetting team has to do extra work to find profiles of people who didn’t choose to fill it out.
  - Brett Shumaker 11:36 pm on March 2, 2017
    
    Thanks…that makes a lot of sense.
    
    Camps can hopefully reduce the “support” time for potential speakers who don’t have an account by providing language on the call for speakers page (or separate page) that explains why/how to create an account. 👍
    - Ian Dunn 12:04 am on March 3, 2017
      
      Good point. We could add something like that to the 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. sites by default when we create all the other default content.
Ulrich 10:39 pm on March 2, 2017

Making it a requirement does create an extra barrier to people coming from outside the WordPress community. On the other hand to submit a proposal 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. Europe this year I had to create an account to submit a proposal.

I expect people outside the community get invited to speak and so as organiser we could also receive the information informally via email etc.
- Ian Dunn 11:55 pm on March 2, 2017
  
  Ah, that’s because they used OpenCFP rather than WordCamp.org. The tool we’re building will hopefully provide more of the features of OpenCFP natively in WordPress (although nowhere near all of them).
Anonymous User 11:09 pm on March 2, 2017

Should potential 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. speakers be required to have a 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/ account in order to submit their proposal?

Would “required” mean candidates without a w.org account could not be accepted as speakers, under no circumstances, ever?
Or would organizers still have a technical fallback to add someone as a speaker manually, even if that person would not have a w.org account?
- Ian Dunn 12:02 am on March 3, 2017
  
  There’s no policy blocking them from speaking, so organizers could definitely accept their proposal via email, a contact form, etc.
  
  The only requirement here would be to fill out the primary form that we automatically create for 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. sites. Organizers can also always choose not to use it if they don’t want to. If they do use it then it hopefully makes their lives easier by automating a lot of the things that are currently done manually.
Manny (emanweb) 11:14 pm on March 2, 2017

I organized a 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. last year in a city that never had a WC before. About 30% of the speakers did not had wp.org credentials and I had to teach/explain them how to. One of the main advantages I told them was because that would show officially on theirs profiles activity that they spoke at a WordCamp. I 100% agree with the points made above. Everyone should have an account to speak at WCs.

One thing that I wish we could have was a centralized database of speakers. That would help speakers see what camps they have submitted/spoken and how often people speak at the same camps. Also, help WC organizers better approach/select speakers for theirs events. I would volunteer to create such site/database. Perhaps at “pressenters.org” 🙂
Mikel King 11:41 pm on March 2, 2017

So for my $0.02 it is difficult as I am all for eliminating barriers, however; it takes less than 5 minutes to signup for an account. In an ideal world if the submitter does not already have an account then the system should offer to register them for one during the submission process.
- Ian Dunn 12:06 am on March 3, 2017
  
  We have something like that already, although it’s not very polished. You can see if it you open this URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org while not logged-in:
  
  https://2016.testing.wordcamp.org/call-for-speakers/
  
  Future iterations of it could maybe even let them create the account without leaving the page, etc.
Jenny 1:41 am on March 3, 2017

No. I am against this being a required field.

As an organiser – to have to accept submissions through one method for wp.org account holders and another ( email or another form ) for non wp.org account holders seems redundant. Why are we creating a 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 to make it easier for session submissions & selection, if we can’t do it all in one place for all the submissions?

As an outside speaker – it’s annoying. Yes, I have created accounts for events I have been submitted to speak at including FOSDEM And DrupalCon. Places it’s easy and some places it’s so annoyingly hard to the point I quit and gave up.

We need to make it simpler, not harder for people to want to submit to our events that are from outside our network. And this should not be solely relying on our current connections to other communities.

Ideally, we would like people to create an account, but this does not need to be a requirement to force people to. We can do this using persuasive text and promoting the benefits of creating an account.

If I was a non WP person submitting – Imagine for a section you have written in your submission – you are not logged in – you press the submit button to say you want to submit your session. A prompter asks if you would like to log in and save your submissions against your WP.org account and explains that it means you can reuse your bio if you are submitting multiple sessions and that you can edit your sessions at a later date till the submissions closes.

Personally, I would just create an account then and there and link it. The sell to create an account is useful and so you do it.

Paypal does this in a sense, where it recommends you create an account once you have put in your details and upsells the benefits. With Paypal though, you get to use the services and say no. That choice is important for users. Just because every technology service out there demands accounts to be created storing people’s personal data against it, does not mean we automatically should do it.
Dee Teal 7:05 am on March 3, 2017

I recently submitted an application to speak at an event outside the WordPress space. I had to create an account at the site I was applying to speak at and fill out a bunch of details about myself, and of course submit my talk. So this isn’t a new scenario.

The benefit I have received in giving over this information is that I can log in, see my submission, receive feedback on my talk, edit and adjust my talk in response to that feedback, peruse other submissions, and vote on submissions.

That’s a pretty big pay off for me in giving up that information. I am happy enough to have done it.

So what does a speaker get in return for logging in with a .org account? A visible public profile, a badge on that profile indicating that they’ve been a speaker.

But without a log in to the site we’ve submitted to we can’t see the talk we’ve submitted, can’t revise or review.

I think where it gets sticky as that this information becomes publicly visible with a .org personal profile and is a log in for a much bigger organisation than just a single 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..

To my mind, both the need for it (on the wordcamp’s part), and the benefit to the applicant needs to be clearly communicated and the option not to have a public profile display should be considered.
Marcel Bootsman 9:24 am on March 3, 2017

Do not make this required.

We as a community should be welcoming to ‘outsiders’. By requiring a wp.org account, it feels like we force speakers to join wp.org, while it would be better to tell them about the advantages of a wp.org account and let them make the decision themselves.

Totally agree with this paragraph from @miss_jwo

We need to make it simpler, not harder for people to want to submit to our events that are from outside our network. And this should not be solely relying on our current connections to other communities.

Welcome!

Get Involved

Let’s Talk

Learn More

Requiring WordCamp Speakers to have a WordPress.org account

Welcome!

Get Involved

Let’s Talk

Learn More

Share this: