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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.
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The WordPress community’s commitment to creating welcoming, inclusive, and accessible events is unwavering. By periodically revisiting our policies and adapting to the evolving needs of our community, we can ensure the continued vibrancy and success of the WordPress events program. In this spirit, I propose we revisit our venue selection policy, specifically regarding the use of venues with religious affiliations.
Currently, our policy restricts the use of venues with any religious affiliation, a guideline initially set with the best intentions to ensure WordPress events are inclusive and welcoming for all attendees — a principle of unequivocal importance. However, this policy inadvertently limits event organizers’ access to various affordable and accessible venues. This challenge is particularly pronounced in regions where the costs associated with venue rentals have surged in recent years. Notably, many universities that could serve as ideal venues are off-limits due to their religious affiliations, despite being open and welcoming to all individuals, events, and groups.
Proposed Policy Update
I propose that we refine our venue selection policy to permit the use of venues owned by institutions with religious affiliations, provided these venues are not used for religious worship and maintain a policy of openness to hosting events for all, without discrimination. This adjustment aims to broaden the pool of potential venues available to organizers, thereby strengthening our community by ensuring our events remain accessible and inclusive, without compromising our coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. values.
What Do You Think?
Your feedback is invaluable. Please share your thoughts in the comments below, considering the following questions:
Based on your experience, how do you perceive this change will impact the WordPress events program?
Are there additional considerations we should be mindful of?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below by Monday, 3 June.
Next Steps
After 3 June, the Community Team will carefully review and synthesize your collective feedback to guide us in making an informed decision about the proposed policy update.
It is time to host the next Monthly chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting on the Next Thursday (May 23rd) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress and to continue our work on mentorship programs. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
Note: The Contributor Working Group typically meets on the Third Thursday of the Month, but for this month alone (May), we are moving our chat to the Fourth Thursday of the month.
Meeting times
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Brainstorming/Planning Cohort #3 of the Mentorship Program and Call for Interest Now that Cohort #2 is over, and since we received a lot of interest and excitement from community members on hosting Cohort #3, let us start making an initial plan on how Cohort 3 is going to look like. We are also going to use this opportunity to bring in new facilitators for the group for Cohort 3, so this will be a chance to do so.
3. On-demand Mentorship In our last chat, @tobifjellner shared an excellent idea around “on-demand mentorship”, where we create a pool of mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. who are available to support new contributors, so that new contributors coming in can get mentorship whenever they want. We will briefly explore this idea and think of a framework to build such a program.
4. Five for the Future Documentation Updates In our last chat, we mentioned that in addition to our work on mentorship, this group will additionally start focusing on bolstering the broader contributor experience of WordPress. As part of that work, we started focusing a bit on creating documentation for self-sponsored and sponsored contributors for Five for the Future. We have already received excellent feedback on the same from community members on work done so far, and we will use this opportunity to discuss this.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!
The WordPress events program is back in full force and the community is eagerly awaiting what the rest of 2024 has in store. As of May 14th, a total of 21 events have been organized by the passionate community at large, and there are already a total of 21 events on the schedule for the remainder of the year, with many more in pre-planning.
The 2023 audit is almost complete, and although it is best to wait until that process concludes before sharing exact totals, there are certain figures that can be shared to assist with planning as 2024 rolls on.
In 2023, the total amount of Global Sponsorship funds collected to support all local events (excluding flagships) was $665,000 USD. Of this total, $307,595 were approved as grants for events, and actual grants expensed on local events for the year totaled approximately $342,484.
Overhead expenses of WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation, 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. (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. fees, Meetup venue reimbursements, insurance, bank fees, audit services, dues & subscriptions for things like Zoom, etc.) totaled $404,691. Taking into account community grants, overhead expenses, and funds needed to cover gaps in funding for flagship events and the Community Summit, WPCSWordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation, 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. closed the year at a loss of approximately ($148,718). The organization does have surplus funds from prior years to cover this loss, but continued losses of this magnitude are not sustainable year after year.
These figures were discussed when planning for the 2024 Global Sponsorship program, and ultimately, the total Global Sponsorship Funds to be received for the year is $725,000. So far this year, a total of $208,201 in community grants have been approved. It is anticipated that WPCS overhead expenses will again be approximately $400,000, which leaves an estimated $116,799 to be used for community grants throughout the remainder of 2024. Community grants for local events are not limited to that amount, but it is a figure that will be monitored throughout the year. This is something to consider as discussions begin around the 2025 Global Sponsorship program.
Global Funds in Relation to Approved Grants and Overhead
Total Global Funds
Approved Community Grants
Actual Community Grants
Overhead
Variance
2023
$665,000
$307,595
$342,484
$404,691
-$148,718**
2024 (as of Q2)
$725,000
$208,201
$400,000(projected)
$117,000
**Losses generated in 2023 include flagship gap funding and were following a year where several events contributed to a surplus that covered this loss.
As many who have organized events can confirm, ticket sales, sponsorships, and sometimes expenses are not exactly the amounts budgeted, so on occasion, events can end with a surplus. These surpluses go back into the bucket for application to future events. The opposite holds true for events who experience losses. Those losses, in most cases, are covered by WPCS.
All of this information is being shared to provide insight into the financial health of the organization, how the Global Sponsorship funds are utilized, and how important it is that the community consider the impact of every dollar spent when organizing events.
Some highly successful recent events, particularly in attracting first-time attendees and achieving high satisfaction rates, have been conducted on a modest budget. I hope this post inspires organizers to be creative and plan strategically to make the most of the financial resources entrusted to us by our Global Sponsors.
Notes: This recap is a summary of the Community Team monthly meeting. It will cover the discussion points, ideas, and decisions that came up during the meeting. The aim of this recap is to provide a quick overview for those who were unable to attend as well as an overview for everyone. These meetings were based on the Agenda for May and are held in our #community-teamSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel on Make WordPress.
Please leave your comments if you have any feedback.
Additionally, each agenda item discussed may have its own Make post related to its topic with more information and you can add to the discussion directly to that post.
Chat Summary
Check-ins: Program and Event Supporters / Contributors
@st810amaze updates on his recent involvement, having completed tasks for 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. Asia 2024 in March and assisting with local MeetupsMeetupMeetup 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.. He shares his excitement for WordCamp Europe scheduled for the following month.
@bobdunn-trainer reports engaging discussions on WordPress Event Talk, including a recent session featuring the Portugal Community discussing WordPress and community events in Portuguese.
@peiraisotta a sponsor team member for WordCamp Europe, is busy preparing for the event while mentoring WordCamp Krakow and do_actiondo_actiondo_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org. Port Harcourt. She’s also actively handling emails and administrative tasks for the 5ftF initiative.
@matteoenna translates Five for the Future for his workplace, excitedly organizes for WordCamp Europe, and offers to assist with open projects, considering himself a junior.
@nukaga contributed to the closing activities of WordCamp Asia 2024 and conducted vetting for Meetups and WordCamps, showcasing her active involvement in the WordPress community.
@hellosatya is working on visa documentation for WordCamp Europe, graduated from the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program, and seeks sponsorship assistance through the 5ftF initiative.
@patricia70 is focused on her role in the WCEUWCEUWordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. Volunteer team and reflects on her experience as a mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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. in the mentorship program. She mentions the completion of the “Switzerland Community Day” in March and her mentoring involvement in two upcoming WordCamp events in France.
@devmuhib participated in a Dhaka 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. Chapter online session, and he’s been chosen as a Volunteer for WordCamp Sylhet, serving as a Training Team Lead. He reports no blockers.
@courtneypk is focused on reviving local meetups in Australia and New Zealand, mentoring WCMSP and WP Youth Day in Managua, and managing support tasks.
For those organizing/attending WordPress Meetups and have feedback for the platform, Meetup.com is welcoming feedback from users to improve their service. There is a dedicated form on the post and the form is open indefinitely.
Contributor Mentorship of 2024 Q1 has finished and had 52 mentees and 28 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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.. The recap notes from the program and chat are available. Congratulations to all mentees and mentors for finishing the Cohort!
Moving forward, here are some highlighted announcements from WCEU and WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event..
Updates from WordCamp Europe 2024
WordCamp Europe 2024 is coming up next month and has released its schedule. If you are planning to attend WCEU 2024, check the schedule to see which sessions you would like to attend.
In case you missed them, here are the latest announcements and newsletters. Take your time to read them now, or save it for later. Make sure you catch up whenever you can!
We have started to ask for notetakers of our monthly team meeting. If you have missed the last month recap, you can take a look here. Thank you @devmuhib for taking notes!
Meetup Organizer Newsletter for April was released. If you have missed the newsletter, you can read it in this link.
Last but not least, it’s time to open the floor!
@bobdunn-trainer, from the Community Voices show, reaches out to local WordPress communities, encouraging them to share their experiences and projects in their native languages on the show. @peiraisotta follows up by tagging several individuals who are active in their communities, inviting them to connect with @bobdunn-trainer for potential features on the show. @matteoenna offers himself as a host for the show, showing eagerness to contribute.
Meanwhile, @patricia70 suggests drafting a proposal on the Polyglots P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org channel regarding the handling of local channels in the WordPress global Slack. @peiraisotta supports the idea and asks Patricia to draft the proposal for the team’s input before publishing it. Shusei Toda raises a query about hosting an additional session for the AMER-friendly time slot and asks for volunteers.
Later on, @peiraisotta reminds the team to create GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ issues for specific tasks, proposing a streamlined process for task allocation and completion. Julia Golomb offers to host an AMER session, expressing her readiness to facilitate discussions whenever needed. @peiraisotta expresses gratitude for @juliarosia‘s willingness to step in and confirms that the necessary materials have been shared with her.
Call for Meeting Facilitators
The Community Team Monthly Meetings happen on the first Thursday’s of every month. These meetings can be facilitated and run by any member of the community team, and is a great opportunity to engage with the rest of the community and team.
If you are interested in facilitating any of these meetings in the future, please feel free to comment or get in touch with any of the Community Team Reps.
The Community Team chat takes place the first Thursday of every month in the #community-team channel on SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
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!
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: @peiraisotta, @Shusei, @leo, or @nukaga. 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.
Call for meeting host If anyone is available to host the second sessions of the Community Team monthly meeting at 9pm UTC, please reach out to one of the team reps, who are all based in APAC and EMEA countries: @peiraisotta, @Shusei, @leo, or @nukaga.
Check-ins: Program and Event Supporters / 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.
Notes of the suggestions fro event.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/ sites are open.
Contributor Mentorship of 2024 Q1 has finished and had 52 mentees and 28 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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.. The recap notes from the program and chat is available.
Updates from 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. Europe 2024
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!
Welcome to the April 2024 edition of your WordPress 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. Organizer Newsletter! The newsletter aims to inspire and empower WordPress meetup organizers worldwide to host engaging, impactful meetup events. Do you have ideas for topics to feature in a future edition of the newsletter? Please email your suggestions to support@wordcamp.org.
Elevate Your MeetupsMeetupMeetup 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. With WordPress Playground!
Hosting or planning your next WordPress meetup? Make it unforgettable with WordPress Playground! This innovative tool transforms learning and interaction by allowing you and your attendees to run WordPress directly in your browser. Playground is the ultimate learning, teaching, and testing tool – perfect for demonstrations, hands-on learning, and exploring new WordPress features without the hassle of installations. Dive into WordPress Playground and bring your meetups to life: https://wordpress.org/playground/
Explore WordPress 6.5 Highlights
WordPress 6.5 “Regina” was recently released! This major releaseMajor ReleaseA set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality. brings exciting features like the new Font Library, enhanced drag-and-drop functionality, and over 110 performance updates, making the Post Editor and Site Editor 2x faster than before. Notable improvements include AVIF image support, 65 accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) enhancements, and developer-friendly features like the Interactivity APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.. With contributions from 700 individuals across 57 countries, including 150 first-time contributors, WordPress 6.5 reflects a global effort to empower users with a smoother, more efficient experience. Following closely, the maintenance and security release of WordPress 6.5.2 addresses crucial bug fixes and security enhancements, ensuring the WordPress experience remains top-notch.
How Your Meetup Can Explore WordPress 6.5 Together
Interactive Workshops: Host workshops focused on 6.5’s innovations, like creating custom fonts with the new Font Library.
Show and Tell: Inspire your community by showcasing real-world applications of 6.5 features. Encourage members to share their projects and learn from each other.
Share Your Feedback with Meetup.com
Earlier this year, Meetup.com was acquired by Bending Spoons, an Italian-based tech company with an ambitious vision for Meetup’s future. Bending Spoons acquired Meetup because they believe in the mission to foster human connections. Over the next few years, this new parent company intends to invest nearly $50 million to improve the product and grow membership. In particular, the team plans to improve event discoverability and reduce the friction for organizers to create events and engage with their communities.
Harness 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. Europe 2024 for your Meetup Group!
WordCamp Europe 2024 has unveiled its schedule and speaker lineup! From talks on WordPress’s future to hands-on workshops, there’s something for everyone. WordCamp Europe talks are live-streamed and recorded, so you can bring together your meetup group to watch and discuss the sessions. It’s the next best thing to being there!
Celebrating Success: WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program
The WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program’s second cohort has just wrapped up, boasting 52 mentees guided by 28 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. A heartfelt congratulations to all mentees – including six recipients of the LGBTQ+Press Empowerment Grant – for their outstanding contributions to WordPress.
Introducing our newest WordPress Meetup groups
Let’s welcome the new Meetup groups recently added to our chapter! Do support them in organizing both local (in-person) and global (online) meetup events, and let’s learn from their experiences and experiments along the way.
This month, we celebrate the WordPress Meetup groups of Cebu (Philippines), Managua (Nicaragua), Sofia (Bulgaria), and Malappuram (India)!
Meetup Organizers, we want to feature you!
We’d love to publish pictures from Meetups all around the world in each newsletter. Do you want your Meetup to be featured? Share 1 picture with the Community team! Rename your picture as “Meetup-name_event-date” and upload it to this folder. The formats supported are jpg and png. Please remember, always ask for permission from your group members before taking the picture and sharing it with us!
If you have any questions, Community Team Supporters are here to help. Please email us at support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-eventsSlack 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!
10 of our 28 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. contributed to WordPress 6.5 with one of them being a noteworthy contributor 🧰
We had eight new core contributorsCore ContributorsCore contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac.
https://core.trac.wordpress.org from the mentorship program 🧑💻
14 mentees have committed to join the WordPress 6.6 release squad! ⚡
Pre and Post-Event Mentee Survey Results
Contribution familiarity went up from 53.65% to 80.24% 📈
Contribution confidence went up from 57.72% to 82.62% 📈
88.62% of mentees were satisfied by the program! 🤩
80.68% mentees achieved their personal goals as part of the program! 😱
62.1% mentees created contribution plans! 🗺️
Participants shared the following feedback about the program later:
@patricia70: “Special mention to @lumiblog, mentee in the 2nd cohort and listed in the “Noteworthy Contributors” list of the 6.5 release credits! “
Thoughts about the program
@patricia70: “the program was very good and needs to continue into a 3rd cohort, with refinements based on the feedback”
@josepmoran: “I have firsthand experienced the benefits that this program achieves with people who have a strong commitment to contributing to WordPress and striving to keep its community alive and active. As a result of my experiences, I’ve also appreciated how much this recently concluded edition has grown and improved in terms of focus and goal attainment.”
@matteoenna: “Every now and then I get help from translate, so I respond slowly xD I loved it, it helped me better contextualize each team and created strong teamwork. Plus organizing a 30-60-90 helps. Maybe I would have included more “practice sessions” to the whole thing”
@devmuhibul: “I believe this is the best program to start contribution journey in WordPress. With the help of experienced mentors, here people at least can learn how to start walking. From where to start and all the guidance provided helps new contributors to keep contributing. “
From a facilitator standpoint, I think we should try project- or goal-based mentee recruitment next time, based on mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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. availability. So there is no ambiguity or mismatch between mentee’s interest and mentor’s capacity.
Using GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ was something we tried based on the feedback from last cohort but I don’t think it was successful enough. Some other form of better communication tool (Calendar of course, but adding something else – Make P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org page? post?) might be helpful. Or even using GitHub docs (like this)?
@kirasong mentioned that the Contributor Mentorship Program successfully demonstrated that participants can contribute effectively to a release, even if they join later in the process. She emphasizes the importance of mentees feeling connected and integral to the creation of WordPress, which she believes is a powerful and crucial experience.
@rcreators: “I think it was great. It gives lot of great knowledge to start contribution to the WP in interesting way. Initially i thought contribution is only connected to programming but i really understand that its programming is just one small part of the larger contribution.”
@gusaus: “I wasn’t able to participate in the cohort (and kinda lost track of it after collab moved into a different channel ) but I thought mentoring projects was a great idea (hence several suggestions in this discussion) and would love to help enable more of that in moving forward. Also stipends and other incentives for mentees, mentors, and other participants. Was glad there was a bit of a test run in this cohort”
What could be improved?
@patricia70: “have the calendar of all sessions (onboarding, workshops, meetings, etc) more easily reachable/published, and all dates set in advance (not saying: tomorrow there is this) but at the start of the program, for all 6 weeks so we can plan our agendas accordingly + emphasize that all sessions are open to everyone (not only in the selected team/project we participate in). reach out in local communities, for example in France, @jdy68 said almost no one heard about the program before it was too late”
@josepmoran mentioned that the Contributor Mentorship Program has significantly matured in its recent edition, showing noticeable improvements in focus and achieving its goals. He mentions that the selection process of mentees needs minor adjustments to ensure alignment with the program’s objectives, emphasizing the importance of identifying genuine commitment. @josepmoran also underscores the value of using platforms like 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. to enhance program visibility and engage more effectively with the WordPress community.
@kirasong suggests starting the next cohort earlier, during the alpha stage, to enhance contributions to features, while maintaining some overlap with release parties which are popular and boost mentees’ comfort and understanding of the development process.
@ninianepress: “Both my mentees went AWOL (I couldn’t get in touch with one of them at all) this cohort so… “
@peiraisotta: “I wasn’t directly involved in the cohort until almost the end, but I loved meeting everyone and hearing about each one’s experience. It was very illuminating to me see how different contribution areas needed different approach from mentors. I learn a lot from everyone’s challenges and wins. It seemed very cool to me see how mentees worked on their contribution plans, and how they connected to their new contribution teams. Another highlight, watching @matteoenna preparing a pitch for his company and convince them to join the 5ftF program”
Feedback on the cohort
@patricia70 “I felt a bit bad about my mentorship, and we didn’t accomplish much. some limited time during the 6 weeks for me for 2 weeks, and for my mentees only available some short time in their evenings or week-ends. + my choice of team was not that good as there was no practical, easy to do for first time contributors, tasks”
It would be great to do the mentor orientation before the program starts
If possible, as a mentor, I’d like to better understand what workshops are planned so that I know better what things to plan or go over with mentees individually.
@sancastiza: “The Mentorship program has been a wonderful journey for me, with some surprising things. However, it somehow helped me better navigate what I wanted to contribute the most. Soon I will have the opportunity to do my first Meetup.”
@peiraisotta: “I think that learning more about how he did it could help many people doing the same, if they want to. In general, I love that the cohorts support folks also in achieving other goals related to their career or development.”
What’s next for the mentorship program?
Since we have wrapped-up two cohorts, we discussed what the next steps of the program would look like. We also discussed an idea shared by @tobifjellner – which is a low-key always-on mentorship program where there are mentors available to provide 1:1 help to new contributors. :
Thoughts on Cohort-based Mentorship
@rcreators: “I liked the cohort based mentorship a lot. In this people can pick up what they like and learn from the group.”
@kirasong: “I am not sure what the future of mentorship looks like in WordPress, ideally. But I would love cohort based mentorship to continue to be a part of it!”
What should we do differently about the next cohort?
@nilovelez: “I would love the option to have mentees in multiple teams at the same time, like one main team and onboarding in others. Also short (1 min) videos explaining what each team does to help mentees choose would be really helpful.”
@kirasong supported @nilovelez‘s comment saying how contributing to multiple teams happened organically, and how she was surprised seeing how folks contributed to more than one team.
@rcreators: “In last few weeks I found, Forum team need more volunteer. So if there is some focus to push more mentee towards forums will be good.”
@devmuhibul: “We can make some premade short videos for each teams and share at the start of cohort program that will reduce the hard work of mentors and help mentees to start at least.” @patricia70 responded that all the recorded videos from this cohort could be shared in one space.
@kirasong: “I agree that this, along with the cohort model, could be helpful and is worth trying out.” Kira has also offered to be a mentor if such a program happens.
@josepmoran: “I think Tobi is on the right track. It could be mentoring sessions where the mentee and mentor join forces to be productive without deadlines in between. In fact, I still have a strong bond with my mentor, and he remains committed to the program from a slightly greater distance, as he appreciates the evolution of his mentee and the work he has done as a mentor.”
@patricia70 suggested an interesting idea of hosting an ongoing program (as @tobifjellner mentioned) with possibility to join the “bigger” cohort-based twice a year.
@coachbirgit: “I think, having some form of low-key always-on mentorship program in place would be helpful in addition to “bigger” cohorts. This might be suitable for certain teams to have some (interested) team members appointed as the “go-to” mentor for this team or working-group.”
@jdy68: “It’s easier to talk to one person than to a whole team where you don’t know anyone, so designer mentors are a good idea.but this requires a place where the mentors of each team (general or local) can be identified, and where they can be contacted.”
@coachbirgit also suggested that these thoughts could well be added to the Contributor Handbook.She shared that the repository for the next iteration of the contributor handbook was moved to the WordPress GitHub org. The #deib-working-group has taken over the responsibility to work on that in cross-collaboration with all teams. https://github.com/WordPress/contributor-handbook
Next Steps for our Working Group
The original purpose of the working group was to bolster the contributor experience of WordPress, and we identified mentorship as a kick-it off. Now that we have run two cohorts and have good clarity on mentorship, we explored working on other projects such as Five for the Future and also asked our group members to share if they have any thoughts on additional projects to work on.
@coachbirgit: “As mentioned in the proposal, I published last year, the idea of establishing a formal DEIB team as an umbrella group to enhance the contributor experience and act as a shared resource. From my understanding, the 5ftF, diversity speaker training and mentorship program would fit under that umbrella.”
@rcreators: ” There are many small companies or medium size company like to start contribute but the issue is contribution is connected to user profiles. Apart from that if they don’t have any contributor in the team, they have no clue. So it will great to put both items in to one umbrella. So new companies register to 5ftF and add more new contributors to the table.”
@kirasong asked for clarity on how 5ftF connects to contributions, and @harishanker clarified that it could be a way to work on Five for the Future in the open, and also have a chance to improve the contributor experience in WordPress through sponsored contributions.
@gusaus suggested a couple of ideas such as creating an entry point for various community programs, as well as an idea on extending do_action. We also briefly discussed and brainstormed some ideas on mentorship too.
@gusaus also clarified that Contributing to Five for the Future is indeed on the Sustainability roadmap #16. He also pointed us to some good discussion on collaboration in the #sustainability channel for us to pick up later.
In short, group members shared broad consensus on working on other impactful community projects.
With that discussion, we concluded the meeting. The open floor in both chats were empty, and we soon wrapped-up the conversation.
Please comment on the post below if you have any questions.
It is time to host the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group after a brief gap. We’re meeting on Thursday (April 18th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Mentorship Cohort #2 Recap The second edition of our WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program has concluded! The event was a huge success with 44 out of 52 mentees formally graduating from the program! Let’s take a moment to look back at the program, and celebrate our wins and learnings from the program, as well as the survey results.
3. What’s next for the mentorship program? Now that we have completed two cohorts of the mentorship program, how should we go ahead with the next edition of the mentorship program? What is the future of the program and how does it look like?
4. Next Steps for our Working Group The original purpose of the working group was to bolster the contributor experience of WordPress, and we identified mentorship as a kick-it off. As we have some clarity on mentorship for our program, it is time to explore other ways to improve the WordPress contributor experience, such as working on Five for the Future and to take other steps to address other obvious gaps in the WordPress contributor experience. Let’s brainstorm on what the next steps of our group will look like.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!
The cohort, which had 52 mentees supported by 28 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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., kicked off on February 19, 2024, and went on for six weeks to formally wrap up on March 29. Out of this group, 44 mentees leveled up their WordPress contribution knowledge and made impactful contributions to the WordPress project.
Please join me in congratulating all our mentees who have graduated from the program!
Our mentorship program took place in a dedicated slackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel in the Make/WordPress Slack for six weeks. For the first two weeks, our mentees were oriented to the program through kick-off session, got to know their mentors, set contribution goals, and learned about the WordPress project through learn-up sessions. On Weeks 3 and 4, our mentees started contributing to the teams of their choice, which continued through Weeks 5 and 6, when they wrapped-up by setting a 30-60-90 day goal and graduated from the program! Many mentees took part in projects where they worked in small groups to make collective contributions. Throughout the process, our mentees also got an inside view of the WordPress 6.5 release process and the WordPress project itself, as many mentees contributed to WordPress CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. by joining the release parties.
Achievements from our Program
In six weeks, many of our mentees went out of the way to contribute to WordPress. Compared to our last cohort, we had many more contributions to WordPress, as our mentees not only onboarded to the project, but also spent a bulk of their time contributing. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of achievements from our cohort members:
👩💻Scores of Core Contributions (issues and patches)
🌎 WordPress 6.5 BetaBetaA 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 CandidateA 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.
🌎 Thousands of strings translated to several languages
🎓 Translated Learn WordPress lessons
🇫🇷🇮🇹Translating WordPress documentation to local languages (Italian and French)
✍️ Extensive contributions to the WordPress User and Developer Documentation
💬 Running Team chats for multiple teams (Community, Training, Test)
📜 Writing summaries for multiple team chats (Community, Training, Test)
🎉 Active participation in WordPress 6.5 Beta, RC, dry-run, and main release parties.
♻️ Contribution to the Sustainability Team documentation
📺 Becoming a WordPress.tv moderator
📝 Leading contributor dayContributor DayContributor 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/ tables at a 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.
⛺️ Organizing a WordCamp
📸 Contribute photos to the WordPress Photo Directory
👔🤝 Individually advocating and helping their company join Five for the Future!
🖥 Set up a local environment for WordCamp.org and started working on open issues for the WordCamp network.
🎟 Contributed to the MetaMetaMeta 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 by submitting Meta tickets.
🧑🎨 Several contributions to the Community Theme project (both existing and new themes).
🛝 Contributions to the WordPress Playground Documentation
📚 Updates to the CLICLICommand Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. handbook
🖨 Several contributions to GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/
💪 Active participation in team processes such as publishing blog posts in Make/Test
⚡️Supporting WordPress event reactivation
Another highlight of this cohort was that six of our graduating mentees were supported by an LGBTQ+ empowerment grant.
Contributions to WordPress 6.5
The biggest win of the program remains to be its impact on WordPress 6.5. To summarize:
🌟 Among our mentors and mentees, our program offered eight (8) first-time core contributorsCore ContributorsCore contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac.
https://core.trac.wordpress.org to the project!
Big congratulations and many thanks to all contributors!
Learning Materials from the Mentorship Program
For folks who are curious about the Mentorship Program, we are sharing some of the learning materials that our mentees used and were created during the program.
This program was a true community effort, with WordPress Contributor Working Group members working hand-in-hand to make this pilot program a reality. We faced many challenges, but we all worked together to ensure a smooth contributor experience for our mentees.
Mentors
As a heavily mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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.-driven program, our mentors are the cornerstone behind the success of this cohort. Mentors went out of their way to support their paired mentees by helping them step up their contributions. I can safely attribute the success of our program to the exceptional support and commitment offered by our vibrant group of mentors.
Our mentors and mentees did not miss any chance to connect with each other. We hung out with each other informal group calls and had a lot of fun! Some of us also met in-person a few times at WordCamp Asia and WordCamp Torrelodones!
What next?
Even though the mentorship program has formally concluded, our mentees’ WordPress contributor journey has only started. Many of our mentees have prepared 30-60-90 day plans and plan to active contribute to WordPress. Quite a few of our mentees have also expressed interest in participating in the WordPress 6.6 release process. We have a total of 19 participants from our program who would like to join the 6.6 release team so far, with 14 applications coming from mentees! Many mentees have formally ensconced their commitment to WordPress contributions by pledging to contribute through part of Five for the Future, with at least one mentee securing sponsorship from their employer to do so during the program!
Going forward the success of our program depends on how engaged our mentees are. We are working on a post-event survey for our mentees and mentors, and the survey results will shed more light into 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 offer any support that they need.
Even as we celebrate the success of the contributor mentorship program, the Contributor Working Group still has miles to go. We will continue our monthly chats, and start working on the next iteration of the mentorship program alongside WordPress 6.7, in November.The working group also aims to start working on other tasks to improve the overall WordPress contributor experience, focusing on improving programs such as Five for the Future.
Join us for the next mentorship chat on April 18th in #community-team, if you would like to be a part of the working group and support us in making the WordPress contributor experience the best it can be!
Interested in being a part of the next cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program as a mentor or mentee? Leave a comment on this blog post expressing your interest!
Reading about the program so far, what are your thoughts on this mentorship program? Do you have any thoughts, suggestions, feelings, ideas, or feedback for us? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
+make.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//project
Moving forward, here are some highlighted announcements from WCEU and 
In case you missed them, here are the latest announcements and newsletters. Take your time to read them now, or save it for later. Make sure you catch up whenever you can!
Last but not least, it’s time to open the floor!
