Proposal: Dedicated communication place for WordCamp mentors

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. mentorsEvent 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. are community team members who have experience organizing WordCamps and want to help other organizers have a great time planning a WordCamp.

At the point 5 of the 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. handbook, Turn to the Community Team when you need help, we ask mentors to reach out to the community team in the #community-events channel of Slack, or email support@wordcamp.org. I understand the importance of keeping a transparent and open communication, and asking questions in the #community-events of 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/. allows other people to learn from the questions answered. I don’t want this to disappear. However, in the past year working as a mentor and 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. I found out that there are at least 3 common occasions where mentors need to discuss, and a public channel or an email to support@wordcamp.org are not the ideal solution.

1. It often happens that a mentor needs to help WordCamp organizers who are facing delicate situations. The mentor might need the support of the other mentors, and a public conversation may be uncomfortable for them and indelicate for the organizers themselves. When this happens, some mentors might decide to not ask for help, others might reach out to one trusted peer or email support@wordcamp.org, but all the other mentors are then excluded from the conversation. By doing that, we’re losing a great chance of a group learning moment between mentors and consolidate a trusting relationship. 
2. Some mentors are also 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., and we have a dedicated private place for deputies to discuss sensitive topics. This could lead deputies to ask mentorship questions in that channel, cutting off the conversation of all mentors who are not deputies.
3. Deputies who work on creating the websites for WordCamps need to assign a mentor to each one. Until now, we’ve been checking lists and spreadsheets of available mentors, and reached out individually to everyone. This often leads to misunderstanding or we spend too much time pinging mentors individually. 

The third point could be easily solved by creating a dedicated handle for pinging all mentors at once, but it wouldn’t solve point 1 and 2.

At the moment, there are 40 active mentors, and probably the number will increase in the future.

The reasons why I’m proposing to create a new channel for active mentors are the following:

• Give mentors a safe place to share delicate challenges with a trusted group of peers
• Give the chance to all mentors to participate into the conversation
• Build trusting relationships among all mentors: the more we connect and collaborate, the better we work together and the more we enjoy contributing to the community
• Encourage mentors to ask help when they need it during their work.

As @sippis mentioned in his proposal Dedicated communication place for deputies in 2020: “The private channel is somewhat against the transparency we as a team and as a project in general cherish. At the same time, it should be remembered that some discussions that could involve all deputies happen in smaller DM groups. Creating a private channel for all deputies would hopefully reduce the need for that kind of DM groups and add transparency amongst deputies.”  I strongly believe that this applies to mentors as well.

Also, echoing @sippis: “We are already good in directing discussion from Slack to P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. when needed, so why we wouldn’t be good on moving some discussion from a private channel to public if the topic is something that can be discussed publicly.”

What do mentors and the whole community think about this proposal?

Please leave your feedback on the topic and particularly in the following questions:

1. Should mentors have another place than the #community-events channel to discuss among themselves if needed?
2. If mentors should have a dedicated channel, should it be private or public?

Please, leave your feedback before Wednesday, February 1st, 2023.

A big thank to everyone who will join the discussion, @sippis and @angelasjin for sharing historical context and insights, @patricia70 for remembering me about the importance of this proposal (It took me a few weeks to publish it, but here we are!), and @leogopal for inspiring me to share the ideas I have in mind.