WordPress 4.8 adds events to the dashboard news widget

WordPress 4.8 will be released soon, and when that happens, local events will show up in the dashboard! For more background, check out this post.

This is really exciting! It’s going to be even easier for WordPress users to find out about events organized by 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. groups in the chapter program, as well as upcoming WordCamps. I’m really interested to see how this helps our community grow.

Since not all of our community organizers follow CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developments, I think we should send an email to meetup and 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, letting them know they might see some new people at their events and why. 🙂 Those emails will go out today, via meetup.com to meetup organizers and from support@wordcamp.org to WordCamp organizers.

I’ve also created a FAQ about the events widget, to help answer questions that might come up. ***EDIT: here’s the link to that FAQ: https://make.wordpress.org/community/wordpress-events-and-news-widget-faq/ *** I think we should link to it from the Big Blue Box at the top of this blog, but I’m very open to suggestions on that one.  I’m also working on a FAQ for meetup organizers who are curious about joining the chapter program; we’ve answered enough repeat questions on that topic by now that I think we should just convert some of those standard answers into documentation. 🙂 If anyone wants to help me work on that, I’d be really pleased to get more input!

Now, I’d like to collect reports about increased traffic from community organizers, so we can track what effect this widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. is having on our program, and whether we need to make any changes to it. Where should we invite people to report back to us — on this post, or in a special, other place? Recommendations welcome. 🙂

Is there anything we haven’t considered? Please share your thoughts in a comment below!