Francesca Marano 8:00 am on April 30, 2018
Tags: #deputies ( 70 ), training ( 37 )

Discussion: should Community Self-Training be mandatory?

Hello team!

In the past three years I have been part of different community events and lately I have found that some people involved aren’t very aware of the guidelines we set in our program.

This could happen in a number of cases

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. organisers who are not the lead, so they don’t go through the handbook, because they expect the lead to read it and provide answers
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. organisers that joined after the initial orientation, held only with the main organiser from a group
In general, people that are doing awesome work in their local community (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., Contributor Days, Hackatons, etc…) without being aware of the Community team resources
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. that were inactive for a while

In the Meetup case (2) I think it might be enough for the team member that went through orientation to give the orientation to the new members every time someone else comes on board.

I wonder if the self-training should be made mandatory for the othe cases.

Pros

Everyone is on the same page

Cons

We don’t have many people grading the quizzes

What do you think?

Deadline to comment is May 18 so we can discuss this during the next two Community chats.

#deputies, #training

Timi Wahalahti 12:06 pm on April 30, 2018

Self-training courses are very well done and the content is super! I think it is a very good idea to make those mandatory, or at least take much more advantage out of those.

The biggest concern in my mind is, does mandatory self-training set too big threshold for participation for some people => less activity in chapter program.

In the 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. case (2) I think it might be enough for the team member that went through orientation to give the orientation to the new members every time someone else comes on board.

This would take a lot of work off from community team, which is good. But how would we tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. that who has gone through orientation and the quality of orientations given?

I wonder if the self-training should be made mandatory for the othe cases.

Would self-training be mandatory every time you are attending to something new or in a new role? How often should the training be done if you have been inactive for some time? How to trac this all?

We don’t have many people grading the quizzes

Could the grading be more automated by changing some of the questions from free text answers to other formats?
David Bisset 8:09 pm on April 30, 2018

“mandatory” could mean a few different things to me… nevertheless, the short answer: I think an official volunteer/organizer for a 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. or 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. should be asked to READ something and provide some sort of feedback. Not sure on a quiz (that requires answers to be checked) but I think providing a link for new ones outlining resources, etc. would be a good idea. Less work for the organizer(s) in charge, who can refer new ones to the materials (and then answer questions in depth if a further discussion is needed).
bridgetwillard 11:55 pm on April 30, 2018

I’m not sure if it should be formally mandatory, but I’m thinking two things.

1. Maybe 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. should talk about what the WordPress Community means and what we believe on a regular basis (annually?).
2. The team org can have an orientation with their staff.
3. Have the other org staff listed on the WC documentation.
Alexander Gounder 9:11 am on May 2, 2018

I like the self-training modules, it’s excellent and will help a lot of people understand the community project better.

A lot of people in India are interested in organising 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. are just another mandatory requirement that is fulfilled to get to organising 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.. When Meetups are just for the sake of WordCamps, it shows that the end goal is a WordCamp, so somewhere the essence of what the community project is lost.

The self-training will definitely help new organisers get aligned with the aim of the community project. It should be “recommended” for 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. Organizers and Mandatory of WordCamp Organizers not just the Lead Organizer but at least two or three of the other organisers.

To make grading more straightforward, we can move from Subjective answers to Objective ones. This is feedback I shared before as well, not everyone is very articulate in English, and they might not be able to frame the answers correctly and while the argument that “we want users to think about their answers” may sound right, but not everyone from all over that world is as comfortable as in writing long format answers in English, E.g. my answers were mostly short and sometimes even copy paste of the lines from the lesson because I didn’t know how to frame them in sentences in my own words. Also, 10 or more objective questions will do a better job of summarising the lessons than the 3-4 subjective questions which doesn’t cover the entire lesson.
- Timi Wahalahti 11:46 am on May 3, 2018
  
  To make grading more straightforward, we can move from Subjective answers to Objective ones.
  
  +1
Rocio Valdivia 11:35 am on May 3, 2018
Thanks Francesca for bringing up this discussion 🙂

In the last months, we have been requesting the self-training course more and more when the applicant was not very familiar with the WP Community, normally we see this need during the vetting process.

But I’m not sure about having it mandatory for everyone.

It would be a lot of extra work for the 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. to grade the quizzes and we receive a lot of applications from people very involved with the community, and in those cases, there is no need, IMO.

I think we could do this, proposal:
- When the applicant is not familiar with the WP Community: request them to take the self-traning course as we’re doing now, before moving forward with the orientation
- When we think, it’s not needed, send them the link of the couse and encourage them to take it before the orientation
What do you think? 🙂
- Timi Wahalahti 11:57 am on May 3, 2018
  
  we receive a lot of applications from people very involved with the community, and in those cases, there is no need
  
  IMO we could and should have some rough guidelines about this, just so that decision making about requesting self-training don’t differ too much. That might be an issue right now(?) tho, but something to keep in mind.
- Andrew 8:48 pm on May 17, 2018
  
  I like this variation of the suggestion a lot, @_dorsvenabili .
remediosgraphic 8:56 pm on May 3, 2018

I think a mandatory quizz for new members is a good onboard process. Most user want to help but they don’t have any idea how. With this tool they will be familiar with the workflow and the glosary and the ideas of the project.
Andrea Middleton 9:44 pm on May 17, 2018
This community usually really struggles with anything mandatory. 🙂

It rarely seems like a barrier people who are already “inside” the group, but when we talk about adding potential roadblocks to the new-organizer onboarding process, I worry that we’ll lose people or that people will think they’re caught up in a cold, heartless bureaucratic nightmare.

I think the overall goal is to provide a broader set of resources for our organizers, to offer them help in achieving their own goals. I’m not sure a required test is the way to best achieve that.

Some other ideas might include:
- put a “level up your skills” section in every 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. organizer newsletter with resources, references, etc
- build out a useful drip campaign of emails that are customized for different roles on 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. organizing team. We have a tool that will send automated “reminder” messages/emails to our folks — why not use it for continuing education?
- more roundtable discussions like @bph organized in March, to provide fresh content full of ideas and knowledge sharing

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Discussion: should Community Self-Training be mandatory?

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