Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda |January 18th 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this Thursday (January 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.

Note that this is our first chat of 2024, and today’s chat is exciting because we just published the call for mentees of the Mentorship Program’s second cohort!

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!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@adityakane, @alexcu21, @angelasjin, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @devmuhib, @foosantos, @gusa, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @josepmoran, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @matteoenna, @meher, @kirasong, @milana_cap, @mrfoxtalbot, @mysweetcate, @nao, @ninianepress, @nomadskateboarding, @oglekler, @onealtr, @onemaggie, @patricia70, @ratneshsonar, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @tobifjellner, @topher1kenobe, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, and @yoga1103

Agenda

In the last mentorship chat, we finalized plans for our next cohort. Last week, thanks to y’all’s timely feedback, we published the call for mentors and mentees for the next cohort!

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

Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Mentorship Cohort #2 planning

2-1: Program Schedule and status

  1. Call for 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 mentees – Published 🎉
  2. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 8 – Feb 15) – Ongoing
  3. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
  4. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  5. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

2-2. More Mentorship Projects Wanted
We are moving ahead with the Team Projects idea for this cohort. We have three active ideas right now: 

Are there any other projects that should be included?

More info about Mentorship Projects: https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/discussions/7

3. Call for Volunteers and Request for Process Feedback

We need volunteers to help with program tasks. Requesting group members to express their interest to help out with various available tasks:

  • Criteria for selecting mentors/mentees as well as selecting mentors and mentees. 
  • Amplifying our mentor and mentee calls for maximum impact
    • Follow up on the Marketing Team request
    • Sharing the announcement in various communities & 1on1 outreach
    • Emailing past applicants
  • Documentation Tasks
    • Revise & establish a Mentor guide (handbook, resource guide)
    • Revise & establish a Mentee guide
    • Show running document
    • Status checklist template for each mentee
      • Check-in templates (30-day, 60-day, 90-day)
  • Scheduling sessions and managing shared calendar
  • [Low Priority] Follow-up on the Mentorship Program participant spotlight articles
  • Any additional ideas on making our program more effective

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/.

  • Please make use of the Slack #contributor-mentorship channel for open discussion.
  • Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.

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/

4. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

The following folks contributed to this post: @nao @patricia70 @adityakane

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #mentorship-chat

Call for ideas: new features for our NextGen WP events central page

As the WordPress.org new design is taking shape, I’d like to open a call for ideas with this post to find the most useful and desirable features for a future homepage that would host a list of all Next Gen WordPress events, have a centralized place to find the next WP events, all open calls for speakers, sponsors, volunteers, ticket sales,… and to be able to filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. them by continent, country, language, type of event, etc.

I’d like to share The Linux Foundation Events page for reference as it contains many elements that we’re missing in the WordCamp Central Schedule page and that it would be very useful for attendees, sponsors, etc.

I’d like to highlight:

  • You can search events by name, topic, categories, country…
  • Every event in the list has a direct link to its registration page, schedule, call for speakers (if currently open), call for sponsors (if currently open), etc.
  • The top submenu includes links to the pages where someone can see all the calls for speakers currently open, all calls for sponsors currently open, etc.
  • I visualize this new homepage as a place where people can find any kind of WP event: 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., WordCamps, NexGen events, WP workshops,…

Ideas are welcome!

It’s our opportunity to create something that improves our current “Upcoming Events” and WordCamp Central Schedule pages and to create a more modern and usable site that can be useful to newcomers, attendees, sponsors, etc., and to promote it publicly more.

Please comment with your feedback and please add any more features that you’d like to see in this new site, thanks!

#call-for-ideas, #design, #events-2, #features, #highlight, #homepage, #new-design, #next-gen, #next-gen-events

Community Team Reps for 2024

We are excited to announce the Community Team Reps for 2024. 

In 2024, we will work with 4 Reps after discussion of overriding Reps from 2023.

New Reps in 2024

Isotta Peira (@peiraisotta)

Isotta is a passionate community manager who loves travelling, cooking, and meeting people from different countries and cultures. Years ago she started to work with international teams on remote projects and decided to pursue a fully remote career along side with her wife and travel as much as possible.

Since January 2022, Automattic sponsors Isotta to contribute full-time to the WordPress Global Community TeamGlobal Community Team A group of community organizers and contributors who collaborate on local events about WordPress — monthly WordPress meetups and/or annual conferences called WordCamps.. As a community team member, she has been supporting WordPress event organizers and new contributors by reviewing applications, hosting orientations and budget reviews, and mentoring. Isotta has been and currently is on the organizing team of local and flagship events, and is contributing to the Incident Response team and the Global Sponsorship working group.

Shusei Toda (@st810amaze)

Shusei is a WordPress enthusiast with over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. His journey with WordPress has led him to actively engage and contribute to the community since 2018. Alongside the contributions, Shusei works as a Business Development Specialist at Kinsta and also pursues freelance projects in business strategy, photography, and videography. Having a passion for solving problems and experimenting with new paths has led to many opportunities over the years including getting involved with numerous WordCamps, including organizer, speaker, volunteer, sponsor, and photographer, currently focusing on 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. Asia. He currently is based in Tokyo, Japan but loves traveling around the world to meet new people and learn.

@leogopal and @nukaga remain from the 2023 Reps.

@mysweetcate will continue to support us!

Leo Gopal

Leo Gopal is a writer of Code and Poetry, to him, sometimes they are the same thing.

Leo Gopal has been part of the WordPress Community since he was a teenager (over a decade). Former Founder of WPHugs, he is now part of the BigOrangeHeart team as a Mental Health Advisor. Having been a Codeable Happiness Engineer, his ability to help the developer community led to his transition to the Codeable Expert Community Advocate role in 2023.

Other contributions to the WordPress Community have been as a CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Contributor, PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Developer, Translation Contributor, Multiple WordCamp Organiser and Speaker, as well as a local 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. Organiser.

Junko Nukaga

Junko lives on a small island in Japan with a population of 150. She is a freelance web designer and the director of a small library.

She has been contributing to the WordPress community since 2012, serving as lead organizer for WordCamps, 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. and do_actiondo_action do_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., and as a program supporterProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. for the community.

She is interested in diversifying and revitalizing the WordPress community. She has been leading diversity speaker training in Japan since 2018.

We will try this new structure for a year (based on the Proposal for Reps Structure), and since two years is a long time, we decided on a four-person structure to allow for departures along the way.

In the next year, I and Leo will leave and we will welcome new reps.

Join us in bringing the 2024 Community Team to life!

Announcing the 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,

The annual meetup survey is here! This year, we propose a unified survey for all Meetup members and organizers.

Please complete the Annual Meetup Survey – even if you haven’t participated in a meetup recently!

Help spread the word! If you are a Meetup Organizer, please share the Annual Meetup Survey with your group via discussion boards, email, social media, and announce it at your next Meetup event.

Please take a moment to respond to the 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.

We hope to achieve a 100% response rate among Meetup organizers and members around the world, and get actionable insights about two challenges that the WordPress ecosystem is facing right now:

  • How can we increase the number of WordPress events?
  • How can we increase the number of WordPress users worldwide?

What’s Next?

Take the survey, you have until 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!

Kudos to @mysweetcate @juliarosia @michelleames for the help in creating this survey.

#annual-survey, #meetup, #meetup-organizers, #survey

Announcing the New WordPress Events Page 

Howdy, WordPress community! We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the brand new WordPress Events page, which was previewed during State of the Word. This dynamic platform is designed to be the central hub for WordPress events. Check it out at events.wordpress.org!

What’s in Store for You?

Discover and Organize Local Events 

Whether you’re a seasoned developer, a content creator, or a WordPress beginner, there are WordPress events for everyone! Through the new Events page, you can find upcoming events in your community, or apply to organize one.

Insightful Statistics

Stay in the 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. with insightful statistics showcasing the global impact of WordPress events. Discover the number of events hosted, the total number of participants, and the diversity of countries involved. It’s a testament to the incredible worldwide reach of the WordPress community.

Smart Search Functionality

Find events tailored to your preferences with the page’s advanced search functionality. FilterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. events by format, type, month, and country to ensure you discover the most relevant and exciting WordPress gatherings.

Organize an Event FAQs

Thinking about organizing your own WordPress event? The Organize an Event page is filled with frequently asked questions to guide you through the process. Whether you’re a seasoned organizer or a first-timer, you’ll find valuable insights to make your event a success.

We Want Your Feedback!

We value your opinions and experiences with the new WordPress Event page. Comment below to share your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback. Let us know how the page enhances your WordPress community experience!

If you’re feeling tech-savvy, contribute directly to the development process on 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/. Visit WordPress/wordcamp.org to add your insights, report issues, and contribute to the ongoing improvement of this fantastic resource.

Let’s make the WordPress community stronger, more vibrant, and more connected than ever before! 

Happy Exploring!

Thank you, @juliarosia and @peiraisotta, for contributing to this announcement! 


#annoucement #events #community-team

Community Team Meeting Agenda for 4 January 2024

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, 4 January 2024 at 12:00 PM UTC
Americas friendly meeting: Thursday, 4 January 2024 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:@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.

Check-ins: 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. / 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. / 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.

Open Posts

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

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!

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | December 21st 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this Thursday (December 21st) 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.

Meeting times

We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many time zones 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!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@adityakane, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @foosantos, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @meher, @milana_cap, @kirasong, @mrfoxtalbot, @mysweetcate, @nao, @nomadskateboarding, @onealtr, @oglekler, @patricia70, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @topher1kenobe, @tobifjellner, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103, @josepmoran, @ratneshsonar, @gusa, @matteoenna, @onemaggie

Agenda

In the last Mentorship Chat, we established a schedule for the next cohort of the Contributor Mentorship program. It’s time to open for the cohort 2 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. & mentee calls!

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

Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Call for Volunteers for Mentorship Cohort #2
We are a bit behind schedule but still have enough time to run the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. program on the planned dates.

2-1: Review Adjusted Schedule

  1. Planning phase (now/ending)
  2. Publish Call for mentees/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. (late November; close at the end of the year) Week of January 8, 2024
  3. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 16 – Feb 9) (Jan 8 – Feb 15)
  4. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
  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)

2-2: Review the cohort announcement

https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/issues/6

3. Team Project Wanted
Reflecting on the feedback from the previous cohort and related discussions, it appears we need to identify some well-defined projects for our mentees. @onemaggie brought up the Community Theme Project, which could fit well as one of them. 

Do you have any other project suggestions?

4. Clarification for the Working Group

  • 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/.
    • Please make use of the Slack #contributor-mentorship channel for open discussion.
    • Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.
  • Contributor WG 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/
  • Five for the Future GitHub
    • If anyone wants to work on documentation for the 5ftF contributors, please add it to the GH repository

5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #mentorship-chat

Upcoming #WPDiversity Events: October 2022

Here are the October 2022 #WPDiversity workshops. Please join us and help us spread the word!

Diversity and Inclusion Workshop

October 13, 2022 @ 5pm–7:30pm UTC: Organizing Diverse & Inclusive WordPress Events

Want to see WordPress events be more welcoming, diverse, and inclusive?

Join our 2.5-hour interactive watch party online to learn how to create welcoming and diverse 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. and WordCamps.

This is not just for organizers, but for anyone in WordPress.

This watch party workshop will NOT be recorded to support a comfortable space for open dialogue.

Register now

Speaker Workshop

October 29, 2022 @ 10am–6pm CST: WordPress #WPDiversity Speaker Workshop for Women Voices in Latin America – this is an in-person event for women in Costa Rica that is sold out with a waitlist. 

#wpdiversityworkshops

WordCamp Mentors’ December check-in!

Hello 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.!
If you are currently mentoring 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., please share how the organizing team is doing and any other insights, interesting ideas, or innovations that they’re planning.

Comment on this post to share your update. You are welcome to share updates here throughout the month. Thanks! 😁

#mentors, #wordcamp

Vote for Community Team Rep 2024

The nomination for WordPress Community Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. has been closed on 13th November 2023. 

We got some great names nominated to be the next Community Team Reps. Once nominations closed, we contacted all nominees and listed those who responded positively.

Nominees

A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, makes sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. 

The following new community team Reps are nominated for 2024.

Voting

Community team members are requested to vote to select 2 new community team reps by online poll using the following link: https://forms.gle/h43XbR4JtqEuHfbb6

The voting is open until 15th December 2023.

Results

Once voting is concluded, we will announce the results before the end of 2023.

How Team Reps will be Structured in 2024

To recap: in the post receiving this candidate, we had made a suggestion as to the duration and number of community Reps. Based on the input there, we are planning to operate with 4 people next year with 2 remaining from the 2023 Reps and 2 new Reps.

This is with the understanding that it will be okay if someone gets stuck for a period of time.

And the two new reps in 2024 will overlap into 2025 if possible. 

This can be reconsidered after a year of activity.


The two Team Reps who will remain from 2023 and be active in 2024 will be decided by discussion among the current three Reps ( @mysweetcate , @nukaga , @leogopal ) . The reason it is not a vote is that who remains will be determined based on an internal discussion of activity, history, and personal circumstances.

Request to Candidates

If you are a new Team Reps nominee, please share some information about yourself including why you would like to represent the Community Team in the comments. It will be helpful for the 2024 community team members to make their selection!

#community-management, #community-team, #team-reps