This is the home of the Make Community team for the WordPress open sourceOpen SourceOpen 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!
Here is where we have policy debates, project announcements, and assist community members in organizing events.
Everyone is welcome to comment on posts and participate in the discussions regardless of skill level or experience.
Get Involved
If you love WordPress and want to help us do these things, join in!
WordCamp CentralWordCamp CentralWebsite for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. has a system that can be set to send automated emails to organizers and/or sponsors at certain steps of the WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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.’s progression. This is a list documenting all the emails that are currently active.
Sent to: the lead organizer
Triggered by: when the lead organizer is added to Central as an Author
What it says:
Howdy! Your application for [wordcamp_name] has been accepted, and we’ve granted your WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ account ([lead_organizer_username]) access to central.wordcamp.org. Most of the information that we’ll need to collect from you is stored in a custom ‘WordCamp’ post located at the address below.
Please log in and fill out all those empty fields. We can’t add you to the official schedule until all of the fields are completed and your budget and venue have been approved.
[edit_wordcamp_url]
Please let us know if you have any questions by emailing support@wordcamp.org
From everyone here at WordCamp Central, have a great day!
Keep up to date on the latest Community Team happenings by subscribing to https://make.wordpress.org/community/
Sent to: WordCamp global sponsors in the relevant region
Triggered by: WordCamp published to the final schedule
What it says:
Howdy, oh stupendous Community Sponsor! This email is to tell you that [wordcamp_name] has been added to the schedule and has accepted your sponsorship offer.
Their site is: [wordcamp_url]
Their date is: [wordcamp_start_date], and they expect about [wordcamp_anticipated_attendees] attendees.
Their organizer is:
[organizer_name]
Their phone number is:
[lead_organizer_telephone]
Their venue address is:
[venue_address]
Their shipping address is:
[organizer_address]
Their Twitter handle is [wordcamp_twitter] and their hashtag is [wordcamp_hashtag]
They anticipate having [wordcamp_anticipated_attendees] attendees.
You can reach them by emailing: [sponsor_wrangler_email] or [wordcamp_email]
Your company information and logo will be displayed on the WordCamp’s site shortly.
Thanks for your support of [wordcamp_name] and best wishes from everyone here at WordCamp Central!
Keep up to date on the latest Community Team happenings by subscribing to https://make.wordpress.org/community/
Sent to: the organizing team
Triggered by: WordCamp website being created
What it says:
Hi [organizer_name],
Congratulations! You’re now an administrator on [wordcamp_url]. Log on using the same username and password you use to log on to wordpress.org support forums: https://wordpress.org/support/
Feel free to choose the theme you prefer from the list of available themes and customize it with CSSCSSCSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site.. For security and maintainability, we can’t allow custom PHPPHPPHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. or JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. code, but if you have a pressing need for something, please feel free to contact us and we’ll try to accommodate your request.
Here’s some great documentation on working on your WordCamp website and the custom tools we’ve developed for organizers:
Sent to: sponsor wranglerWranglerSomeone, usually a person part of event organizing team, who looks after certain things like budget or sponsors.
Triggered by: When the WordCamp is added to the final schedule
What it says:
Howdy [sponsor_wrangler_name]!
Now that [wordcamp_name] has been moved to the schedule it’s time for you to reach out to the Community Sponsors to communicate your details to them and gather all of the information you might need to include them in your WordCamp. The Community Sponsors for [multi_event_sponsor_region] are:
[multi_event_sponsor_info]
If you have any questions about their involvement please feel to reach out to them directly or email us at support@wordcamp.org.
Sent to: the lead organizer
Triggered by: 7 days after the site is added to the Pending/In-Planning schedule
What it says:
Howdy, [organizer_name]!
Now that your event is on the planning schedule, choosing your venue is the very first task. Your choice of venue will determine your event date, your budget, how many people can attend, and how many concurrent tracks you can run. The importance of this choice cannot be overstated, and NO other plans should be made before venue selection. Getting a donated venue (via a venue sponsorship or event hosting arrangement) is the best possible outcome; renting venues quickly raises the budget, especially when there are catering requirements attached to the space. Hold out for a donated venue whenever possible.
For suggestions on how to get an appropriate venue — including a great checklist of venue considerations — check out: http://plan.wordcamp.org/first-steps/venue-and-date/
Please let us know if we can help.
From all of us here at WordCamp Central, we hope you have a great day!
Sent to: the lead organizer
Triggered by: 14 days after the site is added to the Pending/In-Planning schedule
What it says:
Hope you’re having a great week, [organizer_name]! As you’re getting WordCamp planning ramped up, keep in mind that WordCamps are easier to organize when you have an awesome group of community members all pitching in.
By involving more of the people from your local WordPress community, you
create a deep bench, in case volunteers have to step away in the middle of planning
reduce the amount of work you have to do — this can easily become a full time job, yikes!
include lots of different skill sets and experiences
help unite your local community by working on a project together
Most teams regret giving anyone more than one of these jobs (especially the lead organizer): sponsors, speakers, budget, or venue logistics. Reach out to your entire meetupMeetupMeetup 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. group and local WordPress community to recruit members of the organizing team. There are frequently lurkers who might not write code but have amazing spreadsheet or fundraising skills, and you might not find them if you don’t cast a wide, public net.
Giving estimates for how many hours a week a certain job typically takes is a good way to help volunteers figure out if they can really commit to the event. It’s always good to know up front if someone’s going to have to bow out at some point, so encourage people to be realistic with the amount of time they promise to invest.
All organizers are expected to agree with the same items that you agreed to when you were approved to start pre-planning: http://plan.wordcamp.org/agreement-among-wordcamp-organizers-speakers-sponsors-and-volunteers/
Check out this page for a list of organizer team roles and more tips about building your organizing team:
Sent to: the lead organizer
Triggered by: 28 days after the site is added to the Pending/In-Planning schedule
What it says:
Hey there, [organizer_name]! Hope the venue search is progressing well for you.
It’s good to take advantage of this pre-planning period to start encouraging your local WordPress enthusiasts to think about what they might want to propose a session on, for WordCamp. Organizing a workshop through your local meetup group to teach members of your community how to develop a talk and a successful speaker proposal is a great way to encourage local participation. Planning a meetup that features lightning talks can give you a chance to assess your local speakers’ delivery and help people get over their nerves, if they have any.
It’s also a good idea to keep the lines of communication open with your community, even in this early planning stage. Post to your WordCamp site your list of venue criteria, and invite everyone to help you look for a good place to hold WordCamp. It’s a great idea to post the date and time of your planning meetings so members of your meetup can join in — and it’s great to post the meeting minutes on your WordCamp site so you everyone can see how things are progressing. You’ll be surprised how many people come out of the woodwork with help if you just let them know how they can lend a hand!
Keep in touch, and best wishes from everyone at WordCamp Central!
Keep up to date on the latest Community Team happenings by subscribing to https://make.wordpress.org/community/
WordCamp Debrief Sent to: the organizing team
Triggered by: 2 days after the WordCamp ends
What it says:
Howdy [organizer_name],
Congratulations on surviving [wordcamp_name]! I hope you had a great time, and that you’ll soon get some well-deserved rest. 🙂
We’d love to hear how you feel the event went – what were your proudest moments and your greatest disappointments? If a Community team deputyProgram SupporterCommunity 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. has not already reached out to set a time for a debrief meeting, please reply to this email with some convenient days/times for you to meet with someone and give us the low-down.
Please balance your budget spreadsheet by in the next two weeks – we keep all budgets on file at WordCamp Central. If you ran your money through the WordPress FoundationWordPress FoundationThe WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org., please reach out to Cami (at this address) to schedule a budget close-out meeting so we can be sure to get all your vendors paid and/or organizers reimbursed without delay.
If you haven’t already done so, please review the submission guidelines here before starting to edit your videos (or before your videographers get started editing): http://blog.wordpress.tv/submission-guidelines/
To submit your video for publication to WordPress.tv, just upload them at this page: http://wordpress.tv/submit-video/
Our intrepid team of video moderators will review the videos and schedule them for publication. If your content is in a language other than English, please see if you can recruit someone from your community to join the moderators’ team and review your videos: http://wordpress.tv/apply-to-be-a-wordpress-tv-moderator/
If you haven’t already done so, we do ask all organizers to send attendees a post-event survey. This is the one that most organizers use: http://central.wordcamp.org/wordcamp-attendee-survey/
But you can use your Polldaddy account to create the survey and then email the link to attendees; here are some examples of good questions to ask:
How would you rate your WordCamp experience overall?
What was the best part of this WordCamp? sessions/networking/lunch/party
Please rate the speakers below. (answer matrix with speakers as column and amazing/good/adequate/disappointing/didn’t see them as the row)
If there was a particularly good speaker or session, please tell us about it.
If there was a particularly poor speaker or session, please tell us about it.
How was lunch?
How would you rate the venue?
How would you rate the after party?
Would you attend another WordCamp? If so, what changes would you like to see for next year?
Finally, if you’ve published a recap on your site, please let us know so we can reblog it on the WordCamp Central blog.
Thanks again for all you’ve done to grow the WordPress community in [wordcamp_location]!
Best wishes,
Your friendly neighborhood WordCamp Central crew
So you’ve booked your WordCamp venue… Now what?
Sent to: the organizing team
Triggered by: WordCamp added to the final schedule
What it says:
Hey there [wordcamp_name] organizing team! Hurray, you’ve booked your venue! Now you’re probably about to have your first “serious” planning meeting. What should you talk about?
1) Decide who’s going to handle what jobs. Asking someone handle more than one of the following: speakers, sponsors, venue logistics, budget… well, it generally not a good idea. The lead organizer should have a light job at first, if possible, to allow her/him to pick up things that get dropped later on. Also identify what team members you might need to recruit to work on WordCamp, and plan a call for volunteers that includes job descriptions (so people know what they’re signing up for).
2) Decide how you’ll collaborate. Many teams decide to set a weekly 30-minute hangout so they can check in on everyone’s progress and talk “face-to-face” about thorny issues. Many teams also benefit from using a central planning site, using the P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. theme, to collaborate. Many make it public as well:
3) Make a milestone schedule. You’ll find a few examples here: http://plan.wordcamp.org/helpful-documents-and-templates/
4) Agree on a theme/mission/vision for your WordCamp. All WordCamps should connect WordPress users, inspire people to do more with WordPress, and contribute to the WordPress project. But how do you want to to that in [wordcamp_location]? Getting everyone to agree on a vision or a mission for WordCamp can help avoid a lot of misunderstandings and/or strife, down the road. 🙂
Thanks in advance for all the hard work you’re pouring into this event! We’re so excited for you!