Reminder: 2023 Annual Meetup Survey

Hello WordPress 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. members and organizers,

This is a reminder about the annual meetup survey. This year, we propose a unified survey for all Meetup members and organizers.

Please take a moment to respond to the Annual Meetup Survey . This survey is an important opportunity to share your feedback on WordPress 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. in 2023 and how we can improve the program in the future. Even if you did not attend meetup events in 2023, your input is valuable! The survey takes less than 5 minutes to fill out, and the results will help strengthen WordPress meetups in the years to come.

The survey will close on January 14, 2024.

To open the survey in a new tab, please use the following link: https://wordpressdotorg.survey.fm/2023-meetup-annual-survey

Then comment here to let us know. Thank you for your precious feedback!

#meetups, #community-team, #meetup

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: December 2023

Whew! What a year it has been, as was highlighted in the kick-off to the 2023 State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/.. 77 WordCamps were held in 33 countries, a small part of the 3,300 WordPress gatherings worldwide. Our events have more than doubled since the pandemic, and as we all know, our 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 at the heart of that.

It wouldn’t happen without organizers like you; thank you!

Speaking of incredible organizer accomplishments, read on to see how the community embraced this year’s State of the Word watch parties and get an update on a new communication tool the Make Teams are experimenting with.

State of the Word Watch Parties: A Look at the Numbers and Beyond

This year, over 475 community members RSVPed to attend one of the 47 State of the Word Watch Parties (27 online, 20 in person) held in 18 different countries. Imagine the fun they had celebrating together.

While both WordPress’s anniversary and the State of the Word celebration are ideal times to gather as a community, watch parties can be organized anytime! 

Many of the resources available for hosting those events can be applied to others as well. Plan now to watch the live streams for WC Asia, WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event., and WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. together. Additionally, WordPress.tv has a library of presentations you could watch together and discuss.

Whatever it is, consider making watch parties a part of your meetups regular routine!

More From the WP Community

  • WCEU needs you: Help to spread the word that both the Call for Speakers and Call for Sponsors are now open.
  • Contribute to WordPress in 2024: No matter your skill set, there is a place for you on one of the more than 20 Make WordPress teams. To make things even easier, you can now use the new contributor tool at make.wordpress.org/contribute to find the perfect WordPress Contributor Team to join. Whether you contribute as 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 individually, there’s never been a better time to start than now!

The Move to Matrix is On Hold

It was recently announced that starting in 2024 Community Team meetings would be held in Matrix. Due to usability concerns and a change in Matrix’s licensing, this move has been paused.

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/. will remain the primary chat platform for the WordPress community, but this does not mean that Matrix is going away. 

As Alex Kirk states in his post, “The Slack-Matrix bridge and integrations, such as Chatrix, are still valuable for contributors and will keep working. This allows for flexibility and the continued use of the achievements made so far, especially to help onboard new contributors. We encourage Make teams to further explore and take advantage of all the opportunities that Make team chat pages have to offer.”

So, if you’re interested in trying something new for 2024, check out Matrix and be a part of its feedback and testing.


A special thank you to our Global Sponsors: GoDaddy, Bluehost, Automattic, SiteGround, Weglot, and WooCommerce!


If you have any questions, Community Team Program Supporters are here to help. Please email us at support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow and support the WordPress community — let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions!

See you online soon!The following people contributed to this edition of the Meetup newsletter: @mysweetcate, @peiraaisotta, @juliarosia, @bjmcsherry, @devinmaeztri @eidolonnight

#community-team, #meetup-organizer-newsletter, #newsletter

Reminder: Annual Meetup Survey

Hello, 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. members and organizers.

This is a reminder that the Annual Meetup Survey closes in January!

If you are a meetup organizer or a meetup member (even if you haven’t attended in the past few years), please take a couple minutes to complete the survey and encourage others to do the same. This year we have one unified survey for Meetup members and organizers.

This survey is an important opportunity to share your feedback on WordPress 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. in 2023 and how we can improve the program in the future. Even if you did not attend meetup events in 2023, your input is valuable! The survey takes less than 5 minutes to fill out, and the results will help strengthen WordPress meetups in the years to come. It will remain open until January 14, 2024.

Thank you all so much!

Link to the announcement post: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/11/17/announcing-the-2023-annual-meetup-survey/

Link to the survey: https://wordpressdotorg.survey.fm/2023-meetup-annual-survey

#meetup, #meetup-organizers

Community Team Meeting Agenda for 7 December, 2023

The Community Team chat takes place the first Thursday of every month. 

This meeting is meant for all contributors on the team and everyone who is interested in taking part in some of the things our team does. Feel free to join us, even if you are not currently active in the team!

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly meeting: Thursday, 7 December at 12:00 PM UTC
Americas friendly meeting: Thursday, 7 December at 21:00 PM UTC

You will find a preliminary agenda for the meeting below. 

If you wish to add points to discuss, comment on this post or reach out to one of the team reps: @leo, @nukaga, or @mysweetcate. It does not need to be a blog post yet, the topic can be discussed during the meeting nevertheless. We use the same agenda for both meetings.

Check-ins: Supporters, Managers, and Contributors

  • What have you been doing and how is it going? 
  • What did you accomplish after the last meeting? 
  • Are there any blockers? 
  • Can other team members help you in some way?

Highlights to Note

Here are a few things everyone should be aware of.

  • Events of the Month – October – In a continuing effort to provide some real-time information for event organizers and the community alike, below is a recap of the prior month’s events and how they fared financially, in terms of ticket sales and budget.

  • State of the Word Watch Parties – It’s never too late to organize one, and encourage other communities to do so as well! Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to bring together your local WordPress community and connect with the global WordPress family. Use the tips, tricks, and resources to get started today, and let’s celebrate WordPress together!

  • Embracing Matrix for Enhanced Communication – The move is on to switch all Make WordPress Teams communications from 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 Matrix by the end of this year. While there are some known issues that they will continue to work to improve, it is time to start taking advantage of the benefits this 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. option offers. If you haven’t already switched, visit this page to learn how. Team meetings will be held in Matrix starting January 2023.

Open Posts

Check out these new and ongoing discussions needing review, feedback, thoughts and comments.

  • Should We Allow Sponsor Demo Rooms or Tracks at Events? – 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. proposed the idea of a Sponsor Demo room or track where sponsors would be given the option to present information of their choosing in the Sponsor Demo room or track. The event would be responsible for highlighting to attendees that this is sponsor-driven content that could include sales pitches.

    A lively conversation is happening in the post’s replies and we encourage you to either comment here or add to the conversation in the post thread.

Announcements / Newsletters

Open Floor

This is your chance to discuss things that weren’t on the meeting agenda. 

We invite you to use this opportunity to share anything that you want with the team. If you currently have a topic you’d like to discuss, add it to the comments of this post and we will try to update the agenda accordingly.

Hope to see you on Thursday, either in the Asia-Pacific / EMEA (12:00 UTC) or Americas-friendly version (21:00 UTC) of the meeting!

#meeting-agenda, #team-chat, #team-meeting

Recap of Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on November 16th, 2023

In Attendance: @javiercasares @nao @josepmoran @kafleg @patricia70 @matteoenna @harishanker @oglekler @sumitsingh @webtechpooja @adityakane  @ratneshsonar @jeffpaul @mysweetcate @topher1kenobe @sereedmedia @courane01 @gusa @ninianepress @tobifjellner

Facilitator (EMEA): @adityakane
Facilitator (AMER): @harishanker
Notes: @ratneshsonar 

Agenda: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/11/14/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-november-16th-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting Start: 

EMEA: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1700118080711109
AMER: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1700150402952559

Results of the Mentorship Program Survey and Contributor Story

Thanks to @ninianepress @sereedmedia and @nao, our working group shipped a post event survey which was sent to all mentees from the mentorship program. At the time of writing this recap, seven people answered the survey and the results are as follows:

Benefits from the program

  • Gaining confidence
  • Learning about CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.
  • Understanding release processes
  • Better understanding of WordPress teams and release processes

Suggestions

  • Meeting a Core dev while they solve the ticket in the next program (shadowing contributions)
  • Expand to multiple languages
  • Have mentees “try out” different teams by making good first contributions
  • Clear expectations on mentorship timelines and meeting times
  • Confusion in welcome meetings
  • More social interactions and connections between mentees. 

In terms of achievements, we also celebrated the following wins from our past cohort:

  • One of the mentees – @josepmoran published a post about his journey on Spanish WordPress.org and spoke about it at WordCamp Madrid with his 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. @javiercasares.
  • @prikari went on to become a co-organizer of 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. Mumbai 2023, barely a few months after our cohort concluded.

Detailed survey results were also shared privately with working group members for further analysis. Our group members shared the following feedback:

  • To have more shadowing sessions.
  • 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. helping out mentees directly with the contribution process (matching mentors and mentees based on contribution interests)
  • Having a schedule beforehand and balance all activities amongst mentors and mentees.
  • Continue localized mentorships (mentors and mentees matched based on the languages they speak)
  • Offer clear expectations for the mentorship program, with better tracking of the mentorship progress in a public space (e.g. in a GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ project)
  • Implement some suggestions now and big ticket ones (like multilingual mentorship) later, based on availability.
  • Have mentees focus on one team first rather than have them bounce around?
  • Use the Make/Contribute landing page.
  • Getting feedback from experienced mentees on what particular things might make their onboarding more pleasant.

Mentorship Cohort #2 Schedule & Plans

Based on members’ feedback from past chats, we have put together a draft plan for the next mentorship program. Here’s a link to the draft plan document – updated to factor in the 6.5 release date (March 26, 2024).

Plan Summary

  • We are following a similar structure from the last program, but will be expanding it to include more mentors and mentees.
  • There will be a call for mentors and mentees this time, with the hope of prioritizing mentors who match the contribution interest/experience of mentees.
  • Lesser time on general project introduction and more time for specific team introduction and release shadowing.
  • Deeper integration into WordPress release process for 6.5
  • More actionable pre and post-event feedback loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. and check-in
  • Follow-up contribution plan for mentees after graduation

Tentative schedule of Mentorship Cohort

  1. Planning: 2 months (We’re currently in this phase, November – December 2023)
  2. Publish Call for mentees/mentors (late November; close at the end of the year)
  3. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 16 – Feb 9)
  4. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Early Feb; give enough time for the cohort to prepare)
  5. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  6. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

We asked members to share their feedback on the program plan, and they shared the following with us:

Thoughts about the plan

  • There was general feedback that this program is a good next step from our past cohort.
  • @oglekler: “Highlight in a call for mentees and mentors the areas they can participate in. I want to make a point that it is fine not to be a developer to be an active and successful contributor.”
  • @jeffpaul asked any of the feedback items from the survey incorporated in the next cohort plans. @harishanker shared some of the key results that are incorporated into the new plan:
    • More hands-on sessions
    • Setting clear expectations on mentorship timelines
    • Being very clear on welcome meetings
    • Facilitating more connections with mentees
    • To have more mentors and mentees
  • @sereedmedia: “i wonder if the application dates being in the downtime holiday season will be a benefit or dampen interest? just hard to get people to pay attention during the holidays.”. Sé also suggested that the application period launch in January along the lines of “new year, new skills”. @mysweetcate suggested that if the program opens in December, we could keep the applications open until January 2024.
  • @patricia70 asked: “How do we mentor in areas we are not ourselves experienced in? would there be a short “mentor training” first? For example, I know a lot about community, DEIB, some of other areas, but not about Core or GitHub, bug scrubs, commits, etc”. Proposed answers include:
    • To have mentor training for this cohort.
    • @nao: “we should try to find a good match with top interest/expertise, but additional training & support from other mentors can also help mentors learn something new about the project.”
    • @harishanker: ” We could bring in mentees with some experience and train everyone on these basics, the ones that  – Core or GitHub, bug scrubs, commits, etc and also other program related areas.”
    • @adityakane: “in general a good overview of Core and Github usage as a learn course would be very helpful. For core specifically, I mean”
    • @javiercasares: “I think the Team Reps has a moment here… they know everything about their teams, the documentation and where to find material (and how to create it) so they should also be involved in some active way, supporting not only mentees, but mentors”
    • @josepmoran: “I totally agree and I join this interesting initiative, since since my presentation in Madrid, here in Spain a small movement has been created that I try to manage based on Javier’s teachings and explain my own experience.”
    • @adityakane: “About a learn course – I did suggest a Topic Idea: Getting Started with Github and Overview for WordPress Core Contributors — (it is still awaiting triage)
    • @glycymeris: “We are creating in Spain a Github handbook for non-experienced people that could be useful. It will be finished in a couple of weeks. If you want we could share it.”
  • @josepmoran: “Now not only am I and will be mentored, I am taking actions so that other collaborators are aware of these mentorships and I inform you of my learning and process of great progress as a more effective and continuous collaborator.”

Areas in the mentorship program that will help the program succeed

  • @oglekler: “I can cover several topics in online Zoom sessions and provide support via in-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/. meetings. I think we can have a brief overview of the whole ecosystem (I can do it, but I believe that there are people who can do it much better), second session is about how to start Core contribution (I already did this intro, but hopefully the second time it can be better), and some session with live example about how to create a patch and also another one about testing. I am just suggesting, and will be happy not to do everything I am proposing by myself.”
  • @ninianepress: “I think shadowing mentors is a fabulous and highly valuable idea and would help mentees a lot, I think. I think a graduation Zoom call is a wonderful idea and I think we should invite past graduates since we didn’t do so last time”
  • @harishanker: “I would pick release shadowing and finding ways for mentees to participate in any release related things. Testing comes to mind!”

Something to be included in the next cohort

  • @oglekler: “More feedback and visibility about mentees self learning. This part was sort of obscured for me. Making it more publicly organized and discussed will provide this visibility and give great feedback and insides.”
  • @harishanker: “We don’t have it covered, but I would like a sub-cohort of mentees (optionally) working on a group project. Perhaps something like a community 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. theme or a mini feature in core etc (which was suggested by @oglekler)
  • @ninanepress: “I would really love to see junior and senior mentees and mentors, and to have a mentorship chain”
  • @sereedmedia “love the mentorship chain. i think that is key to a sustainable program.”
  • @gusa asked questions on the mentorship program and highlighted the need for a broader culture of mentorship in WordPress. @ninanepress highlighted how the Docs Team has an onboarding guide. @gusus shared of his experience in the Drupal community and shared many excellent points which may be incorporated in WordPress. Some Community Summit sessions were also highlighted in the conversation:
  • @gusa also shared this task from the Sustainability team which highlights resource needs as well.

Contributing in the next session
Many working group members expressed interest in participating in the next cohort in different roles.

Contributor Mentorship Program Badge

One pending task from the past cohort is assigning badges to participants in the program. We had created a formal request for badges, but we recently received feedback from the metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team that the program completion badge may not align with the other badges given to mark contribution achievement, leaving us in a bit of a conundrum:

  • Should we work on a broader change in the badging system?
  • OR would it be better to display/celebrate the completion differently?

The following ideas were shared in our chats:

  • @javiercasares: “yes, this is something that has been talked about… we should have two types of badges, the team ones, and “goals one”… but that’s something from Meta… Maybe the option is:
    • mentors: Community badge
    • Mentees: the badges from the team they participate (as they gain the badges for their participation)
    • this is something “for now”, but having in mind having “goals badges””
  • @harishanker: “Personally, I think our badging system needs an overhaul. But we do need to celebrate the achievements of our mentees. I’m not 100% sure how best we can do that before badging is overhauled””
  • @josepmoran: “I believe that the mentored badge, without downplaying its importance, can be relative. What really matters are the badges you get through the contributions you make thanks to the emntorias course. and I think those are the ones that are really relevant.”
  • @tobifjellner changed the ticket type from bug to enhancement.
  • @courane01: “Noting in the gaming world, badges are called achievements.  Sometimes in the edu space. I think we should explore other 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. projects and how they do likewise. Ex: Linux Foundation does give badges for course completions. https://openprofile.dev/profile/courtneyr. I haven’t seen badging for other uses, yet. Nor have I looked though. I think continuing to differentiate team contribution from other areas is the central point, and terminology is the nuance to sort out first”
  • @tobifjellner: “I’d love for some badges to still remain as tokens of past contributions, even if we for safety remove some accesses when someone moves on (or even passes away…)”
  • @gusa: “I referenced some other projects with good badging/crediting systems in one of the #sustainability roadmap items/ideas”
  • @ninianepress: “What if we had team badges AND achievements? The latter being stuff like this mentorship completion and the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign badges”
  • @jeffpaul: “it seems like the response in that meta ticket is based on not understanding the mentorship program, perhaps restating how the program works will make it clear that the badges apply similarly as other team contribution badges do?”. To which @harishanker asked if we could still do the proposed badges without having to overhaul badging, to which, @jeffpaul agreed as there’s no limit to the number of badges, also the mentorship badge could be created for the community team. Jeff also went on to clarify: “yeah, my reading of the comment on that ticket was more confusion about the request than anything, so perhaps restating and giving some context/links out to make it more clear will hopefully help?”
  • @harishanker also clarified that as per this post, all working group members are eligible for the community contributor badge.

Group members were asked to share the feedback directly in TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7196

Feedback Request from Marketing Team: Contributor Onboarding

The Make/Marketing Team continues their work to improve contributor onboarding experience and would like feedback on:

Group members were asked to share their feedback directly on GitHub.

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #meeting-notes

#mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-recap

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: November 2023

November is an exciting month! New event formats continue to spring to life, WordCamps are in process, and new 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. applications are coming in from across the globe. 

As if that weren’t enough, three great opportunities are available this month:

  • Apply to speak at WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event..
  • Schedule your local State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/. watch party.
  • Complete the 2023 Meetup Survey.

Read on to learn more and please encourage your community members to take part.

WCEU Call for Speakers is Open

Connect, be inspired, and share our knowledge and stories with the global WordPress community by applying to speak at WCEU 2024. Be a part of the friendly, welcoming, and diverse flagship event that highlights what brings us together around the world’s most used CMS.

Schedule your State of the Word Watch Party Today

The State of the Word is an annual event during which WordPress Co-Founder Matt Mullenweg shares the latest updates and vision for our beloved platform. 

This year’s State of the Word 2023 will be held in Madrid, Spain on December 11, 2023 at 15:00 UTC and will be live-streamed via 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/ social media platforms for those who choose to watch from elsewhere.

Whether you watch the live stream or the recording at a time that is convenient for your community, State of the Word watch parties are a fantastic opportunity to come together with your local WordPress enthusiasts to connect, learn, and celebrate the future of our favorite content management system.

Want help getting started?

Check out the information in the Meetup Organizer handbook. It has all you need to organize a State of the Word watch party in person or online. All the tips, tricks, and resources you need in one place.

If you have questions or need additional help, you’re always welcome to ask questions in the Community Team channels on Making WordPress 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/. or email the team at support@wordcamp.org.

The 2023 Meetup Survey is Out

It’s annual survey time, an opportunity to work together to get a pulse on the local WordPress 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..

By taking 15 minutes to fill out the annual survey, you contribute to a more complete view of your community as well as adding your own unique perspective to the global program, both of which are invaluable. 

The more responses we have, the more data we have to work with and the greater the impact is for WordPress meetups around the world.

This year’s survey has been simplified into one survey for both organizers and attendees, with a focus on your experience and how to best support growing communities. About two thirds of the questions are true/false or multiple choice, with the remaining questions providing opportunities for you to share your thoughts and ideas.

Submissions will be accepted through 14 January, 2024.


A special thank you to our Global Sponsors: GoDaddy, Bluehost, Automattic, SiteGround, Weglot, and WooCommerce!


If you have any questions, Community Team 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. are here to help. Please email us at support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow and support the WordPress community—let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions!

See you online soon!

The following people contributed to this edition of the Meetup newsletter: @mysweetcate, @peiraisotta, @bjmcsherry, @devinmaeztri

#community-team, #meetup-organizer-newsletter, #newsletter

Events of the Month – October

In a continuing effort to provide some real-time information for event organizers and the community alike, below is a month-in-review post with recaps of the prior month’s events and how they fared financially, in terms of ticket sales and budget.

As we roll into the final quarter of 2023, the month of October was quite active. The month closed out with a total of 13 events.

Updates on WordCamps Held pre-October with Open Budgets
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. Kerala, India (March 25)
Final Tickets Sold: 499
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $19,664 USD/1,638,635 INR and cost per person/day of $39 USD/ 3,284 INR.
Event closed on budget.   
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Nairobi, Kenya (Aug 16-17)
Final Tickets Sold: 160
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Initial review of Transparency Report complete. Awaiting response in regards to small surplus.
Open Items – Finances: Awaiting response in regards to small surplus.
WordCamp Denmark (Aug 26-27)
Final Tickets Sold: 48
Approved Attendee Total: 95
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $11,002 USD/ 73,347 DKK and cost per person/day of $115 USD/ 764 DKK.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $4,190 USD/ 27,937 DKK
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Jinja, Uganda (Sept 4 – 5)
Final Tickets Sold: 186
Approved Attendee Total: 250
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $6,290 USD and cost per person/day of $17 USD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $60 USD to be used towards future 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. expenses
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Kathmandu, Nepal (Sept 8-9)
Final Tickets Sold: 473
Approved Attendee Total: 450
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $18,288 USD/ 2,438,435 NPR and cost per person/day of $19 USD/ 2,577 NPR.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $1,828 USD/ 243,694 NPR to be used towards future WordPress expenses. Surplus held in WP Nepal account.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Finland (Sept 14-15)
Final Tickets Sold: 407
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Several payments still pending (Signage, Audio/Visual, Speaker Event)
WordCamp Pontevedra, Spain (Sept 16-17)
Final Tickets Sold: 245
Approved Attendee Total: 300
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Several payments still pending (Audio/Visual & Swag)
WordCamp Vancouver, Canada (Sept 23)
Final Tickets Sold: 241
Approved Attendee Total: 375
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $16,470 USD/ 21,671 CAD and cost per person/day of $68 USD/ 90 CAD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $550 USD/ 724 CAD.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp and Events Held in October
WordCamp Biarritz, France (Oct 6)
Final Tickets Sold: 304
Approved Attendee Total: 300 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Food & Beverage payments still pending 
WordCamp Masaka, Uganda (Oct 6 – 7)
Final Tickets Sold: 217
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $8,136 USD and cost per person/day of $19 USD.
Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used totaling $1,336 USD. The majority of this relates to customs fees for swag. A potential way to avoid this in the future will be to source the swag locally using templates provided by Central. This is in the works.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Bhopal, India (Oct 7-8)
Final Tickets Sold: 353
Approved Attendee Total: 350 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and team has responded to say they are working on the final numbers
WordCamp Atlanta, USA (Oct 14-15)
Final Tickets Sold: 181
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $39,439 USD and cost per person/day of $109 USD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $5,781 USD after making major budgeting changes due to lower than expected sponsorship and ticket sales.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Skopje, North Macedonia (Oct 14)
Final Tickets Sold: 254
Approved Attendee Total: 250
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $6,548 USD/ 385,188 MKD and cost per person/day of $26 USD/ 1,516 MKD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $1,140 USD/ 67,046 MKD.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Taiwan (Oct 14)
Final Tickets Sold: 321
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Several payments still pending (Food, Speaker Event, Swag, After Party, Signage)
WordCamp Germany (Oct 19-21)
Final Tickets Sold: 276
Approved Attendee Total: 250
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $45,743 USD/ 42,220 EUR and cost per person/day of $28 USD/ 25 EUR.
Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $2,091 USD/ 1,955 EUR.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Sevilla, Spain (Oct 20-22)
Final Tickets Sold: 243
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $28,304 USD/ 26,452 EUR and cost per person/day of $39 USD/ 36 EUR.
Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $5,785 USD/ 5,407 EUR.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Wroclaw, Poland (Oct 21)
Final Tickets Sold: 106
Approved Attendee Total: 100Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $5,337 USD/ 23,205 PLN and cost per person/day of $50 USD/ 219 PLN.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of $2,064 USD/ 8,973 PLN.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Tokyo, Japan (Oct 21)
Final Tickets Sold: 424
Approved Attendee Total: 400 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been emailed to request the report.
WordCamp Tegal, Indonesia (Oct 22)
Final Tickets Sold: 83
Approved Attendee Total: 75
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been emailed to request the report.
WordCamp Managua, Nicaragua (Oct 28)
Final Tickets Sold: 173
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $3,914 USD and cost per person/day of $23 USD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of $821 USD.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Mumbai, India (Oct 28-29)
Final Tickets Sold: 495
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been emailed to request the report.

Budget Notes*: If an event was able to raise more sponsorship income or ticket income, or the expenses were less than amounts listed in the approved budget, the additional funds are contributed back to the Global Sponsorship fund. If, on the other hand, an organizing team raises less sponsorship income or ticket income than planned, or expenses are higher than originally budgeted, the additional amount needed to cover all expenses is covered by the Global Sponsorship fund and will be stated as additional Global Sponsorship funds used.

The goal of WordPress events is to provide a space where community members can come together and share knowledge, build relationships with other members and sponsors, and spread love for WordPress. The goal is never to make money. Because WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. pays taxes on any income at year end, we strive to hold events where income is equal to expenses.

Transparency Report**: WordCamps that run funds through WordPress Community Support (WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook.) – meaning WPCS collects ticket income and sponsorship income, and pays vendors directly – are not required to submit a Transparency Report. 
Alternatively, organizing teams that run money locally collect all or some of the ticket income and sponsorship income directly. The team then uses the collected funds to pay expenses of the event. The organizing team is responsible for completing a transparency report after the event where they submit receipts/documentation for all expenses, support for ticket income collected, and support for sponsorship income collected. More info can be found here

#community-team, #wordcamps, #events-of-the-month

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | November 16th 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next WordPress Contributor Working Group Mentorship chat. We’re meeting this Thursday (November 16, 2024 in UTC) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. Check out our launch post and past chats for more information on the working group and its plans.

Meeting Times

We will be holding these chats in multiple time zones to make accommodations for as many time zones as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be on the #community-team channel in Make/WordPress Slack. It’s also on the Make/Meetings calendar. Anyone keen on enhancing WordPress contributor experience or developing mentorship programs is welcome!

Pinging some of our active working group members as well as facilitators/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. from our latest mentorship program pilot:

@adityakane, @askdesign @casiepa @cbringmann @coachbirgit @courane01 @desrosj @foosantos @gusa @harishanker @javiercasares @jeffpaul @jominney @juliarosia @kafleg @leogopal @leonnugraha @matteoenna @mayukojpn @meher @milana_cap @mikeschroder @mrfoxtalbot @mysweetcate @nao @ninianepress @nomadskateboarding @oglekler @onealtr @patricia70 @realloc @sereedmedia @st810amaze @sumitsingh @sz786 @thehopemonger @thewebprincess @topher1kenobe @tobifjellner @unintended8 @webtechpooja @yoga1103 @carl-alberto

Agenda

Following up on our last chat, we will focus on planning the next iteration of our mentorship program!

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

2. Mentorship Survey Result & Contributor Story
We will review the feedback from the mentee survey results.

One of the mentees, @josep, published a post about his journey on Spanish 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/ and spoke about it at WordCamp Madrid with @javiercasares

3. Mentorship Cohort #2 Schedule & Plans
The draft plan doc has been updated according to the 6.5 release date (March 26, 2024). Let’s sign off on the schedule and

  1. Planning: 2 months (We’re currently in this phase, November – December 2023)
  2. Publish Call for mentees/mentors (late November; close at the end of the year)
  3. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 16 – Feb 9)
  4. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Early Feb; give enough time for the cohort to prepare)
  5. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  6. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

4. Contributor Mentorship Program Badge
We received feedback from the metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team that the program completion badge may not align with the other badges given to mark contribution achievement. Should we work on a broader change in the badging system, or would it be better to display/celebrate the completion differently? Please share your comment in the TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7196

5. Feedback Request from Marketing Team: Contributor Onboarding
Marketing Team continues their work to improve contributor onboarding experience and would like feedback on:

6. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that excellent discussion, we’ll open up the floor for discussing mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!#wpcontributors#contributor-mentorship#contributor-working-group#mentorship-programs#mentorship-chat#mentorship-chat-agenda

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: October 2023

The year may be winding down, but our talented community continues to find new ways to contribute! 

In this newsletter, we will:

  • Introduce you to one of the newest contributing teams, the Photos team and share their recent milestone.
  • Showcase new events being organized by the community.
  • Update you on the details for this year’s State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/. so you can start planning your watch party early.
  • Share a Meetup.com resource for getting to know other 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.

Ready? Here we go!!!

Celebrating the 10,000 Photo Team Submission

On 11 October, the 10,000th photo was approved! 

Submitted by Sithara Koramprambil and approved by moderator Michelle Frechette, this photo of Sithara’s 10th wedding anniversary celebration cake which was taken on 27 January, 2022 at the Rock Cliff resort, Shillong, Meghalaya, India.

The Photo Team is one of the newest ways to contribute 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. You can submit photos, learn to review photos, and – like many team members – do both!

Whether you want to submit photos, help moderate, or need CC0 photos to use for a project, check out the Photos team’s contribution to WordPress. Want to participate? Consider making your next meetup a photo walk!

New Event Ideas Become a Reality

  • The Italian community gathered in Rome for its first ever WordPress Community Day to train and support new organizers. 
  • The Gdynia community chose to focus its one-day camp around the theme of optimization for both work and WordPress. 
  • 84 local WordPress enthusiasts will gather to learn from four experienced WordPress experts who will serve as 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. and facilitators at the one-day “Scale Up” workshop in Tegal, Indonesia. The focus will be on enhancing participants’ WordPress skills for the enterprise world.

Would a new type of or topic-focused event benefit your community? If so, use this form to share it with the Community Team.

More from the WP Community

Community Team Training #11: Using the Translate Live tool. On Thursday, November 9, 2023 at 12:00 UTC uncover the potential of the “Translate Live” tool. It’s ideal for presenting at your 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. to engage and onboard new translators for your native language. If you’re organizing 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., consider introducing this tool during your Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/..

Learn WordPress: The Training team is creating new material and resources – don’t miss their latest updates.

State of the Word Watch Parties

Save the date for this year’s State of the Word 2023! This year’s event will be streamed live on YouTube from Madrid, Spain, December 11, 2023 at 15:00 UTC.

Not in Madrid? No problem! Organize a Watch Party with your local community to watch live, or use the replay to meet at a time that’s convenient to you. 

As usual, we have resources to help make organizing a Watch Party simple and fun. Head to the Meetup Organizer handbook to find information on requesting a Zoom account for online parties, or a venue support for in-person parties, and event and invitation templates you can use on Meetup.com. 

Meetup Tip of the Month 

Did you know there’s a thriving community of Meetup organizers on Discord? The Meetup Organizer Community allows Meetup Organizers to connect, share, and build a community for Organizer success. There you will find mentors and Meetup employees available to help. Check it out and join, assuming you haven’t already!


A special thank you to our Global Sponsors: GoDaddy, Bluehost, Automattic, SiteGround, Weglot, and WooCommerce!


If you have any questions, Community Team 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. are here to help. Please email us at support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow and support the WordPress community—let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions!

See you online soon!The following people contributed to this edition of the Meetup newsletter: @mysweetcate, @pierraisotta, @juliarosia, @bjmcsherry, @devinmaeztri

#community-team, #meetup-organizer-newsletter, #newsletter

Next-Gen Events: Technical Check-in

In May, @angelasjin shared an exciting update about a new initiative for communities to embrace innovative formats to host WordPress events.

This post highlights some of the technical changes and new features that we’ve added to support this pilot program.

Completed

New URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org Format

Breaking away from the traditional //{city}.wordcamp.org/{year} URL format, we updated 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. network to support the URL structure discussed in “Proposal: Next Generation Event URL“. This allows us to experiment on an isolated network so we can move quickly while limiting side effects to traditional WordCamps. The URL format for Next-Gen events is `events.wordpress.org/city(or country)/year/event-type`.

We opted to not create a new post type and reused the wordcamp post type. We currently differentiate WordCamps and Next-Gen events strictly based on it’s site URL.

  • WordCamps = //{city}.wordcamp.org/{year}
  • Next-Gen events = //events.wordpress.org/city(or country)/year/event-type

Eventually, we want to support recurring events and it still isn’t clear how this URL will support that. Tracking issue for recurring events.

Automated Attendee Surveys

We implemented an automated survey that is sent to attendees 2 days after an event completes. The survey will help the community team adjust the program appropriately.

How does it work?

We dynamically create a survey and a post on every Next-Gen event site. Two days after the event, we publish the page and send out emails to all attendees with the link (events.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//{…}/attendee-survey) to the survey. Two weeks later we close the survey by unpublishing the page.

The survey results are made available to WordCamp/Next-Gen moderators via the central.wordcamp.org dashboard. You can click through on the number under “Total Responses” to view the feedback.

At this moment the event needs to use Camptix because we rely on it for the attendee list. If an event does not use Camptix, we won’t send an automated survey.

We should follow up with an export feature so we can categorize issues to improve the feedback loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop.. See the issue tracking that feature.

Automated Organizer Surveys

We also implemented a similar system to send out a survey to event organizers. Two days after the event is completed, we’ll send an email to whomever is listed as the event’s organizer.

Retrieving form results is done via the JetPack “Feedback” form response page.

We’ve only recently launched both survey features, should the results prove useful, we’ll look to improve ways to access the surveys consistently.

In Progress:

New Events landing page on WordPress.org

@_dorsvenabili posted a call for ideas for a events landing page. We are currently waiting on some design guidance although we have data and filtering already in place. Check it out at https://events.wordpress.org/?preview. If you want to suggest ideas you can add them to the tracking issue or join discussion in the #meta-wordcamp-experiments channel.

What’s next?

We need to complete the landing page. More events are being added as we speak. Having a logical place to market the events and help users find them is really important. @juliarosia created a live program landing page with updates on new events and other important news that will serve as a temporary entry point. The community events page also lists Next-Gen events.

Along with a better event homepage, I am sourcing help to upgrade the base theme for Next-Gen events. Read more.

Questions

Do we want to turn on the attendee/organizer surveys for all WordCamps?

When the surveys were first requested, they were specific to Next-Gen events. Do we want to turn them on for all WordCamps? The question was mentioned by @devinmaeztri in this slack thread.

Looking past the events homepage, what are we thinking for next steps?

We are committed to making deeper improvements to WordCamp infrastructure. Are there particular experiences that we should look to improve first? Feel free to drop ideas/feedback in the thread or open tickets in the GitHub repository.