WordPress Contributor Mentorship: 2024 Q4 Cohort Graduates

We’re thrilled to announce that the third cohort of the 2024 Q4 WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program has successfully concluded! 🎉

This cohort, which began on October 16, 2024, and wrapped up on November 26, 2024, brought together over 100 mentees and 25 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.. Over six weeks, participants enhanced their contribution skills and made meaningful impact on the WordPress project. 

Please join us in celebrating the achievements of 63 of these participants who have officially graduated from the program: @shailu25 @up1512001 @noruzzaman @mosne @jagirbahesh @sppramodh @alexcu21 @matteoenna @ikamal @zeelthakkar @josevarghese @mobarak @oscarhugopaz @mkrndmane @beryldlg @rjekic @sion99 @justlevine @zinanga @indirabiswas27 @sirlouen @jcgodinez @angelcabaleiro @rfluethi @d-signed @wajid-ali-tabassum @vishakha07 @gmrafi @webvillalba @anieeedet @engahmeds3ed @sarunraj @mediaformat @galibh @dorzki @calvinrodrigues @eleonoraanzini @rahuldsarker @alanfuller @ginkgowebstudio @shamalisulakhe @writinglearning @ant1Busted @Ali7Ali @staurand @mielbu @rahmatgumilar @carolinaop @heatheracton @valer1e @joesimpsonjr @elsatapia @cedau38 @mat_ @anamarijapapic @nstoukas @mosescursor @andrecpe15 @faguni22 @shiponkarmakar @edithlb @emmanuelbcd and @laeti972

Program Highlights

The WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program, led by the Contributor Working Group, is designed to empower new contributors and streamline their WordPress journey. Building on the success of earlier cohorts, the program ensures participants gain hands-on experience in contributing to the WordPress ecosystem, supported by dedicated mentors. The program kicked off on October 7 and concluded after six weeks on November 15. 

Here’s how the program unfolded:

• Weeks 1–2 (October 7 – October 18): Orientation sessions, 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. introductions, goal-setting, and an overview of WordPress.
• Weeks 3–4 (October 21 – November 1): Active contributions to chosen teams and collaboration on key tasks.
• Weeks 5–6  (November 4 – November 15): Continued contributions, preparation of 30-60-90 day plans, and graduation.

Throughout the program, mentees contributed to different areas of WordPress, participated in the WordPress 6.7 release process, and deepened their understanding of open-source collaboration while collaborating with a diverse, global group of contributors. For this cohort, we also followed a project-based approach, with groups of mentees being assigned to WordPress 6.7 projects with mentors to guide them. We also had over thirty mentees who did not have an assigned mentor but still worked on the cohort by following group activities.

Read more in the Cohort #3 announcement post, as well as the Cohort #3 White Paper.

Program Achievements

A major highlight of the program was its role in supporting contributions to WordPress 6.7:

• 28 mentees contributed to WordPress 6.7.
• 13 mentors supported contributions to the release.
• 14 first-time contributors joined the WordPress project.
• 2 mentees and 2 mentors were noteworthy contributors for the release.

Together, mentors and mentees had 242 props in total, of which 160 props came from mentees alone. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the contributions made by our mentees as part of the program:

• 🌎 WordPress 6.7 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. and RCRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. release posts translated to local languages.
• 🌎Hosted A dedicated WordPress Translation week, which drew 42 contributors, and resulted in the translation of 176156 strings translated and 37920 strings approved in 31 languages. 
• 🎉 Active participation in WordPress 6.7 Beta, RC, dry-run, and main release parties.
• 📜 Writing summaries for multiple team chats
• 💬 Running Team chats for multiple teams
• Translating WordPress documentation to local languages
• 🎓🇫🇷 Translated Learn WordPress lessons
• ⛺️ Organizing WordCamps
• 📸 Contributeing photos to the WordPress Photo Directory
• 🧑‍🎨 Several contributions to the Twenty Twenty Five Theme
• 🖨 Several contributions to GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg//BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor
• ⚡️Organizing local WordPress Events

Say Hello to our All-Star Mentees! ⭐️ 🎖️

Starting this cohort, we are recognizing exceptional contributors in the program, who truly went above and beyond to make a lasting impact on the project. Please join me in congratulating all of them! 

Shail Mehta	@shailu25	70 Props for WordPress 6.7. Contributions to Twenty Twenty Five Theme, and active participant in release parties also.
Utsav Patel	@up1512001	20 props for WordPress 6.7. Active participant in release parties and active contributions to Twenty Twenty Five.
Noruzzaman	@noruzzaman	10 props for WordPress 6.7. Active participant in release parties and active contributions to Twenty Twenty Five.
Paolo Tesei	@mosne	4 Props to WordPress 6.7, Active participant in the program.
Jagir Bahesh	@jagirbahesh	Super active contributor. 6 coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. patches. Actively participated in release parties and contributed to WordPress. Joined 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 teams too.
S P Pramodh	@sppramodh	3 WordPress 6.7 Props. Active participant in onboarding calls and release parties. Signficant efforts in testing WordPress. Also helped with translations.
Alex Cuadra	@alexcu21	Active contributor with 3 core props, contributed to WordPress 6.7 testing, actively contributed to the Community Team activities.
Matteo Enna	@matteoenna	Super active contributor with 3 WordPress 6.7 props. Multiple contributions across several areas, including support for testing WordPress 6.7.
Kamal Hosen	@ikamal	Super active contributor with 6 WordPress 6.7 props. Also contributed to Twenty Twenty Five.
Zeel Thakkar	@zeelthakkar	Active WordPress 6.7 with 5 core props. Also contributed significantly to translations and joined a local WordCamp organizing team
Jose Varghese	@josevarghese	2 WordPress 6.7 Props, and active testing and translation contributor.
Mobarak Ali	@mobarak	4 WordPress 6.7 Props, active participant in release parties.
Oscar Hugo Paz	@oscarhugopaz	4 WordPress 6.7 Core Props and active translation contributor.
Makarand Mane	@mkrndmane	1 Core Prop, active in release party participation and a lot of cohort activity.
Béryl de La Grandière	@beryldlg	2 WordPress 6.7 Core Props. Contributed several translations. Helped translate 1/3rd of Default Theme strings. Participated in several release parties and organized local 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..
Rade Jekić	@rjekic	Active contributor, also helped organize local meetups.
Lua Salazar	@sion99	Active contributor to the community team. Excellent activity in the bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org.-BuddyPress project.
David Levine	@justlevine	2 WordPress 6.7 Core Props. Several Core and Gutenberg contributions.
Angel Zinsel	@zinanga	Active Community Team participant, stepping up to be a Community Team Program SupporterProgram 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..
Indira Biswas	@indirabiswas27	Active participation in translations. Singlehandedly made terrific contributions to Hindi in WordPress.
Manuel Camargo	@sirlouen	Active in the bbPress-BuddyPress 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/. group. Super active as a bbPress and BuddyPress contributor.

Congratulations to everyone involved for their incredible efforts and impactful contributions!

Learning Materials

The program shared a wealth of resources to support mentees’ learning journeys, including:

• Open source basics
• How Decisions Are Made in the WordPress Project
• Community Meeting Etiquette
• Writing in the WordPress Voice
• Basic Principles of Conflict Resolution

All videos from the 2024 WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program are available below in the respective links (we plan to upload everything to Google Drive soon):

• WordPress Test Team Onboarding
• Introduction to the WordPress 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. Project (EMEA/AMER and APAC/EMEA)
• Introduction to WordPress (Spanish)
• BuddyPress/bbPress Project Onboarding

Other videos from past cohorts:

• Introduction to the WordPress Open Source Project
• GitHub Onboarding for WordPress Contributions
• Anne McCarthy: Introduction to the WordPress Release Process
• Make/Sustainability Team: A Quick Overview
• Support Team Onboarding
• Polyglots team Onboarding
• Polyglots Documentation Onboarding
• BuddyPress Overview
• Community Themes Project Onboarding
• Bengali Polyglots Onboarding

Acknowledgments

This program’s success is a true testament to the collaborative spirit of the WordPress community.

Mentors: Thank you to all our active mentors for your guidance and dedication to keep the program going: @adityakane @courane01 @patricia70 @josepmoran @unintended8 @nilovelez @tobifjellner @johnjamesjacoby @kafleg @imath @adamsilverstein @ajitbohra @colorful-tones @jdy68 @krupajnanda @matteoenna @devmuhib @nhrrob @lumiblog @malgra @shivashankerbhatta @ohia @oglekler @webtechpooja 

Facilitators and Supporters: Special thanks to @patricia70 @josepmoran @nilovelez @tobifjellner @kafleg @jdy68 @harishanker @webtechpooja and the Contributor Working Group for their unwavering support in making this cohort a success. 

Glimpses from the Program

‘Cause, pictures, or it didn’t happen! 😉

Looking Ahead

While the program has officially concluded, this is just the beginning for our mentees! Our graduating mentees are encouraged to create 30-60-90 day plans that will help them continue their contributor journey.  We are working on a post-event survey for our mentees and mentors, and the survey results will shed more light on how the program went. Working group members aim to check in with mentees later this year to see how they are doing with their contributor journey, to also find out more about their contribution journey and to offer any support that they need.

The Contributor Working Group is already preparing for the next mentorship cohort in 2025. As organizers, we have learned a lot from hosting this program, and we hope to iterate and offer improved mentorship experiences for our mentees. 

Upcoming Initiatives from the working group:

• Continuing monthly mentorship chats.
• Launching the next mentorship program alongside the next WordPress release: WordPress 6.8.
• Build an on-demand mentorship program and work on improving the overall onboarding experience for WordPress contributors. 

Get Involved!

Right now, the Contributor Working Group has hosted three mentorship cohorts for WordPress, but we are only getting started. To make the onboarding experience in WordPress the best it can be, we need your help, more than ever! Join the WordPress Contributor Working Group to help us make the contributor experience in WordPress the best it can be. Say Hi in the #contributor-mentorship channel of the Make/WordPress Slack if you’re interested. 

Alternatively, are you interested in being a mentor or a mentee?  Leave a comment below to let us know!

And finally, we’d  love to hear your feedback on the program. Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!

Let’s continue building a stronger WordPress community, together.

The following folks contributed to this post: @patricia70 @jdy68 @josepmoran @nhrrob and @kafleg
Big thanks to @jdy68 for helping prepare the posters.

#5ftf #five-for-the-future #contributor-working-group #wpcontributors, #mentorship-program #mentorship-cohort-october-2024