Isotta 10:29 am on March 8, 2022
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Community Team Meeting Recap – March 3, 2022

On March 3 the Community Team met on 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/. to share wins and struggles, updates from contributors, and discuss team members’ latest highlights.

As usual, two sessions were held on the same day to enable participation across time zones.

Below is a synopsis of the two discussions.

Diversity and Inclusion

Challenges

  • The WordPress community should strive for age diversity and inclusion for both older and younger people.
  • Additionally, we must consider financial diversity. Cost is a significant barrier to 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. attendance.
  • The pandemic has caused us to quickly backtrack around diversity and community engagement. It’s harder to find organizers, volunteers, and speakers at this time. This challenge adds an extra level of stress for teams, who may in turn overlook and deprioritize diversity efforts. As community contributors, we must continue working hard and remain committed to diversity and inclusion.

Suggestions

  1. Update the Community Inclusion Initiatives page

Consider updating the Community Inclusion Initiatives WordCamp Handbook page to include “commercial” diversity initiatives (such as the Yoast Diversity Fund, which aims to increase the diversity of speaker lineups at tech conferences; and Underrepresented in Tech, which highlights speakers from underrepresented groups). In so doing, clearly indicate which are Make Community Team initiatives and which are external diversity initiatives. For any external initiatives, 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. could conduct light vetting to ensure that they align with our community programs and expectations. It would be beneficial to establish a clear process to add resources in the future.

This discussion concluded with the following proposal:

  • Organize the Community Inclusion Initiatives page for greater clarity and to be more user friendly;
  • Create a very light form to submit commercial diversity initiatives for inclusion on the page (link, point of contact, purpose of the initiative, description of how it’s operated). Only list free resources or things that people can apply to (like the Yoast Diversity Fund).
  1. Make #WPDiversity training mandatory for WordPress event organizers

There is significant opportunity to increase new and returning WordPress event organizers’ awareness of and engagement with #WPDiversity offerings (Allyship training, Diverse Speaker training, and Diverse Speaker Support Program). Some meeting participants suggested that diversity training should be mandatory for event organizers.

Participants raised the following considerations:

  • When it was created in 2017, the #WPDiversity program’s original aim was to raise awareness and provide training to those who seek it. But the WordPress community has changed and matured in the five years since then, and there is value in providing diversity and inclusion training for event organizers who wouldn’t actively seek it.
  • If the WordPress community decides to make #WPDiversity training mandatory for organizers, this will require logistical thinking to accommodate increased training frequency and audience-sizes.
  • This could be done in partnership with the Learn team.
  • There is great opportunity to harness the momentum of the community’s current diversity discussions. Start with what we can do now, and then work towards a full vision at a later stage: “Something now is better than perfect later.”
  • During onboarding, Community 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. read through sections of the community handbook and then take short tests. We could similarly integrate #WPDiversity into event organizer training, with high-level subject matter that directs organizers to additional resources to learn more.
  • A quick starting point could be to add to this course: https://wordpress.org/contributor-training/course/wordcamp-organizer-training/
  • Next steps: @JuliaRosia will share a proposal on this topic in the coming weeks and post it to the Make Community blog for feedback.

Proposal: Refurbishing Camera Kits

We all appreciate and support the idea, and here below are a few thoughts about it:

  • Audiovisual professionals in the community could help us to understand what’s needed and which kit could best serve our scope.
  • It would be useful to have a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the kit so organizers feel more comfortable.
  • We could add the above-mentioned tutorial to the 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. and 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. training so they feel comfortable in assisting event organizers.

Global Sponsorship

  • Many 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 don’t know that they can reach out to global sponsors and ask for in-kind donations. We should find a way to better communicate this.
  • Community members often have a hard time understanding the distinction between 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/ and 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/. Having WordPress.com as a 2022 Global Sponsor could further add to this confusion.

This recap has been written thanks to @juliarosia

Thank you to all the attendees: @peiraisotta, @sippis, @no249a002, @unintended8, @kdrewien, @jillbinder, @juliarosia, @mysweetcate, @tacoverdo, @angelasjin


Want to participate in the next Community Team Meeting? Join us in the #community-team channel on Slack!