Tag Archives: community management

Devin Maeztri 9:44 am on December 12, 2024
Tags: community management, community-event-supporters, community-program-supporters,   

Refreshing Commitments: Supporting Community Team in 2025

Hello Community Team Supporters,

As we approach 2025, we want to express our gratitude for your dedication and contributions to this wonderful team. Your work in supporting organizers and events worldwide, prioritizing flexibility and inclusivity, is invaluable.

Recently, we’ve been reflecting on how to support better our whole team, especially supporters who may need to take a temporary step back. We’re implementing a thoughtful off-boarding process to support team members transitioning out of active roles, understanding that personal circumstances and commitments change over time.

Our goal is to maintain a healthy and engaged team, welcoming active contributors while respecting the needs of those who may need to adjust their involvement.

To ensure we remain welcoming, flexible, and inclusive, we’re introducing a more structured approach for supporters who may have to step back:

  • Inactive: Temporarily step back (e.g., for vacation, sick leave, sabbatical, parental leave, etc.).
  • Stepping Back: Pause your involvement and transition your focus to other teams or priorities.

We’re asking anyone planning to step away for more than 3-4 weeks to shift to inactive status. You can stay up to 12 months on the team with inactive status. After 12 months, we’ll consider you stepping back and will offboard you from the team.

This approach allows us to manage responsibilities more effectively, temporarily revoke tool access for inactive members (increasing our security), and welcome new contributors without significantly increasing the team’s size. It also avoids sending unnecessary notifications or creating more pressure for contributions. We’re always happy to restore access and welcome you back when you’re ready.

Your contributions, past and future, are always valued.

Thank you, @foosantos, @nukaga and @kcristiano, for your collaboration on this post!

#community-management, #community-event-supporters, #community-program-supporters, #community-team

Leo Gopal 5:41 pm on November 25, 2024
Tags: community management, , , team-updates, vote   

Vote for our WP Community Team Reps for 2025

Voting is now closed. New Team Reps for 2025 will be announced January 2025

Thank you to everyone who participated in the nominations process for the 2025 team reps! It’s now time to cast your vote to decide who will take on this important role next year. (view @nukaga‘s nomination post here).

What do Team Reps do?

Team reps act as facilitators. They serve as communicators, helping the team stay organized and connected with other parts of the WordPress project. They guide discussions, support contributors, and make sure the team is aligned with overall project goals.

How to vote?

Voting is anonymous. Please use the form below to send your choice:

In 2025, @leogopal and I (@nukaga) will leave the Reps, and @peiraisotta and @st810amaze will remain.

When voting, you vote for up to 2 of the nominees.

Your Nominees:

Vote for our 2025 Community Team Reps →

Voting period:

Voting Begins:

Voting Ends:

Results

We will announce our new team reps before the end of 2024! 

Voting is now closed. New Team Reps for 2025 will be announced January 2025

#community-management, #community-team, #team-reps, #team-updates, #vote

Lidia Arroyo Vargas 3:02 pm on November 6, 2024
Tags: , 2024, community management, , Latam, , , , WPLatam   

Impact and Growth: First Year of the Community Reactivation Project in Latin America

Context

The WordPress Latam Community Reactivation Project was launched nine months ago to revive and strengthen WordPress communities across Latin America. With a vision to foster collaboration, mutual learning, and active member participation, this initiative aims to empower individuals, build strategic alliances, and create consistent monthly events that engage, connect the community, and activate local leaders and communities in the region.

Key Achievements

The WP Latam team has driven the growth and reactivation of WordPress communities across Latin America, creating spaces for mentorship, teaching, and collaboration. Today, more people of all ages are connected and have access to technology in their language and time zone, strengthening this supportive regional network.

Key Results

  1. Community Reactivation: We reactivated communities in:
  2. Community Expansion: Additionally, new communities were formed in:
  3. Support at WordCamps: WP Latam provided support at events like WordCamp Bogotá and WordCamp Guatemala, managing social media, registration, and volunteers. It also led contributor tables in marketing, support, and community.
  4. Regional Communication Channels: With Telegram (+150 members), social media, and email, we facilitated connection and learning throughout the region.
  5. Regional Latin American Meetup: This monthly space connects communities, showcasing local achievements and specialized topics in WordPress, development, and marketing.

Impact on Communities in 2024

  • Continuous Mentorship: Local 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. support leaders in organizing events and developing strategies.
  • Regional Collaboration Network: Active exchange of best practices and resources between communities.
  • Structured Training: Monthly 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. sessions with high-value educational content.
  • Empowerment of New Leaders: New leaders have emerged, expanding communities and motivating others.

Key Contributors

Next Steps in 2025

  • Expanding WordPress events in San José (Costa Rica), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Nicaragua, and other cities.
  • Podcast featuring inspiring stories from the community.
  • Virtual Contributor Latam event.
  • Series of events for training new WordPress Event and 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. organizers.

The WP Latam mentorship team has significantly shifted collaboration and visibility for WordPress in Latin America. We’ve joined forces in a strong network that grows our community and fosters technology access for all!

Thanks to @peiraisotta and @_dorsvenabili for inspiring, mentoring, and supporting this initiative!

The following people contributed to this post: @lidarroy, @alexcu21, @sion99, @josvelasco, @arburola, @_dorsvenabili

#community-team, #community-management, #meetups, #wordcamps, #latam

#2024, #reactivation, #recap, #wplatam

Patricia BT 7:43 am on September 5, 2024
Tags: , community management, , , , ,   

Update about the GatherPress project

We were invited to give regular updates about GatherPress.

Here are the significant advancements made by GatherPress since our initial proposal. GatherPress continues to evolve, thanks to the active participation and feedback from community members. Here’s a detailed overview of our progress.

Call for Feedback and status of the Proposal

We are actively seeking feedback from current 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. Your insights are invaluable in helping us refine GatherPress to better meet the needs of the WordPress community.

There are several ways to help:

  • You can test GatherPress right now using this Playground demo in your browser or test it on your own site installing the 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 available in the plugin repository and provide your feedback in the comments below or in our main GatherPress GitHub repository.
  • If you are a Meetup organizer, you can start testing GatherPress by publishing your Meetup events in our Demo site joining the current WordPress Meetup groups that are already using this platform, helping us to test real cases. Read the home page here, fill the form to join the tests and provide your feedback on the same site or on our 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/ repositories: For the plugin features on our main GatherPress repository, and for the Community integration, on the Gatherpress-WP-org-integration repository.
    We would like to know if it was easy or not for you to add a venue, an event, and your general feeling about the use of GatherPress. ideally we would like to have feedback from attendees as well, so feel free to share the form with your attendees.
  • If you are a member of the Community or 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. teams, please add feature requests and reply to questions for what is needed to create the integration between GatherPress and the 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/ network (user accounts, user activity in profiles, email sending, group creation and management, etc) here on the Gatherpress-WP-org-integration GitHub repository.
  • You can spread the word about the tool, invite event organizers to join the tests, invite people to test the tool and send feedback, etc.

It’s only after GatherPress has proven its viability through your feedback that the Meta team can implement it on the .org network for the pilot program, as we proposed in January. Therefore, your input is crucial to ensure a successful integration. Please test and provide feedback before the end of September 2024.

Improvements

Since introducing GatherPress, we have focused on integrating features that enhance event management within WordPress. Our initial release has been well-received, and community feedback has been instrumental in guiding our development process. Based on user feedback, we have implemented several improvements:

  • We added OpenStreetMap to load the maps by default, Google Maps is still available as an option,
  • Customizable post type and taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. slugs with localized defaults,
  • Improvements to accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (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),
  • Import and export events, venues and topics using WordPress’ native tools,
  • Now using WordPress Playground to:
    • Enable the “Live Preview” on .org/plugins
    • Instantly preview changes from a commented Playground-link on each PR
    • Automatically generate multilingual screenshots for .org/plugins
    • Run end-to-end tests
    • Curate and maintain a set of demo-data, that is re-used in all of those Playgrounds,
  • And more, all our released features can be seen in our main GitHub project.

GatherPress on the WordPress Plugin Repository

GatherPress is now available on the official WordPress Plugin Repository since the end of June. This makes it easier for users to discover, install, and update GatherPress directly from their WordPress dashboards. Additionally, you can test GatherPress using the Playground. We encourage you to try the plugin, and as always, your feedback is invaluable.

Translation Availability

GatherPress is now available for translation. We invite community members to contribute translations, making GatherPress accessible to a broader audience. Please share it with your Polyglots teams to organize translation sprints and to get it translated to as many languages as possible!

Thanks to all the polyglots around the world, who have already translated GatherPress into 8 languages!

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. US 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/.

GatherPress will have a dedicated table at the upcoming WordCamp US Contributor Day (September 17, 2024). This is a fantastic opportunity to meet Mike and Mervin, discuss the project, provide feedback, and contribute to the development of GatherPress. We encourage you to join us and get involved. You can even join us remotely via a video call during the Contributor Day if you do not attend the WordCamp.

Involvement can happen in many ways, for example:

  • Contribution with tasks we have identified as important for our next version.
  • Small backlog tasks to help get your feet wet with the project.
  • Testing and identifying issues in the plugin and documenting them in a ticket to be prioritized in a future release of the plugin.
  • Helping test our code by contributing to unit tests (JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. or PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php.) or end-to-end tests (playwright).
  • Work with the Meta team for the integration with the WordPress.org network.

Development Roadmap

Looking ahead, we have an exciting roadmap for GatherPress. Upcoming features include:

  • Recurring event management, 
  • 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. updates and improvements,
  • Email notification when event starts,
  • Event federation using ActivityPub,
  • New calendar block,
  • And more, all our planned features can be seen in our main GitHub project.

Furthermore, we are building addons to easily build integration with other plugins. 

We are also working to integrate GatherPress with the WordPress.org network, and are identifying the requirements with the Meta and Community teams before creating a full roadmap with dates for the integration and the start of the pilot program.

We are committed to continuous improvement and look forward to delivering these new capabilities.

Join the Team

We invite community members to join the GatherPress team. Whether you are a developer, designer, translator, community member or simply passionate about improving event management in WordPress, your contributions are welcome. Together, we can shape the future of GatherPress. You can join the GatherPress Slack or GitHub and participate in our weekly huddles on Fridays at 15:00 UTC (16:00 UTC from November to March). The upcoming huddles are always listed on the homepage of our website.

Get to know GatherPress and the Team

You can visit our blog and watch the interviews we gave, they are packed with information about GatherPress. To know more about who we are, you can have a look at the team page.

We are grateful for the community’s support and look forward to your continued involvement as we refine and expand GatherPress. Together, we are shaping the future of event management within the WordPress ecosystem.

For any queries or to provide direct feedback, please reach out to @mauteri or @patriciabt on 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/..

Thank you for your support!

The GatherPress Team

Written and reviewed by @patricia70, @mauteri, @carstenbach, @malgra from the GatherPress team, and reviewed by @_dorsvenabili, @nao, @peiraisotta.
Many thanks!

+make.wordpress.org/meta/

#meetups, #community-management, #community-events, #community-team, #learn, #meta, #meta-wordcamp

#meetups, #community-management, #community-events, #community-team, #learn, #meta, #meta-wordcamp

Patricia BT 7:56 am on June 28, 2024
Tags: community management, , international-communities,   

Proposal to integrate Slack workspaces from local WP Communities into Slack Enterprise Grid

As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance communication and collaboration among our local WordPress communities, we propose that WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress 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. considers adopting our local communities, currently on free 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/. plans, into a consolidated Enterprise Grid plan. More information: An introduction to Slack Enterprise Grid and Guide to the Enterprise Grid admin dashboard.

In alignment with @Matt Mullenweg’s proposal at the 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/. 2023, where he suggested adopting a few polyglot channels by saying about free Slack spaces for local communities: “you shouldn’t need to do that”, this initiative to transition to an Enterprise Grid could be seen as an extension of that vision. By consolidating our Slack workspaces, we not only enhance our ability to support multilingual communication but also significantly broaden the scope for cross-community interactions. This proactive step would further integrate diverse voices and expertise into our global WordPress community, supporting our collective growth. 

It follows a post in December 2023 by @tobifjellner on the Polyglots P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. How can we best handle local channels in WordPress global Slack? and a comment by @mkismy suggesting the Enterprise Grid. It was also mentioned in a Community Team meeting in May 2024, suggesting this proposal. It also follows the pause in the transition to Matrix, see the related post by @akirk.

It’s important to note that many of our local WordPress communities currently operate on free Slack plans. The list of known communication platforms for local communication can be seen here: Local Slack Teams.

These communities, which are pivotal in promoting WordPress and offering support at a local level, are indeed especially important for Polyglots but not only: Support, Community event organization and many more conversations happen in those Slack workspaces. Local communities face significant limitations in terms of message history and integration capabilities under the free plan model, with access to the conversations limited to 90 days. As Slack moves towards deleting older than 1 year historical data for free accounts, our community’s valuable discussions and resources risk being lost. Transitioning to an Enterprise Grid plan would safeguard our archives and enhance our operational capacities, ensuring that every local community has the tools they need to thrive.

Key Benefits of Moving to Slack Enterprise Grid:

  1. Data Continuity and Access: By migrating to Enterprise Grid, we can ensure that all historical data — including messages, files, and customizations — is preserved. This is critical as Slack’s upcoming policy change will delete older than 1-year history for free workspaces starting 26 August​ 2024.
  2. Enhanced Security and Compliance: Enterprise Grid offers advanced security features, compliance settings, and administrative capabilities that are not available in free Slack plans. These include SAML-based single sign-on, and comprehensive user and channel management​.
  3. Improved Collaboration Across Workspaces: Enterprise Grid allows for better integration across different workspaces. This is especially beneficial for communities that are segmented by region or interest group, facilitating smoother communication and resource sharing across the entire network​. 

Implementation Considerations:

  • Timeline: The transition should ideally be completed before 25 August 2024 to avoid any disruption caused by the deletion of message history for free plans. However, we understand that this deadline is short and even if it is not feasible in that timeframe, this proposal is still valid, with the workspaces recovery of 1 year of historical conversations.
  • Community Feedback and Support: It is crucial to involve community leaders and members, as well as free local Slack “owners”, in this transition process to ensure their needs and concerns are addressed.
  • User accounts: Address the concern of user accounts as people might already have accounts in several of those Slack workspaces. See with Slack if some sort of consolidation and merging user accounts are possible without losing user history in all the workspaces they belong to.
  • This change would hugely benefit the communication within the community, but it doesn’t solve all problems. For example, Slack refuses users and domains linked to certain locations, like Iran, Russia, etc.
  • Slack being a third-party proprietary application, we need to take into consideration these concerns, and talk with them about data ownership: Slack’s use of traditional machine learning models. If we move to an 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. solution at a later date, with this proposal we will at least have consolidated the existing Slack workspaces.

Call to Action:

Let’s consider this proposal and provide feedback on the feasibility of this transition, and if this is possible before 25 August 2024, in the comments below before July 12, 2024 for collaborative decision-making. 

This proposal has been written by @patricia70 and reviewed by @markhowellsmead, @mazzomaz, @mielbu and @tobifjellner

The draft was submitted for feedback to other community members as well, with participation/OK from:
@estelaris, @francescodicandia, @kcristiano, @mkismy, @nilovelez, @nukaga, @sippis, @zzap

+make.wordpress.org/polyglots/

#community-management, #community-team, #international-communities, #proposal
Lidia Arroyo Vargas 10:30 pm on February 16, 2024
Tags: community management, community-support, ,   

Project: Reactivation of WordPress Latam Communities

Several months ago, I received a very special invitation from @Isotta to embark on an equally extraordinary project: the Revival of WordPress Communities in Latin America. This call resonated deeply with me, awakening an unwavering enthusiasm and commitment to the revitalization of our WordPress ecosystem in the region.

In this post, we are delighted to present to you the progress and details of this significant project. From the initial planning to the concrete actions we have taken, we want to share with you the journey we have undertaken to revive and strengthen the WordPress communities in Latin America.

Main Objective

Reactivate and strengthen WordPress communities in Latin America to foster collaboration, mutual learning and active participation of members.

Specific Objectives

● Increase active participation
● Create monthly interaction events
● Create strategic and collaborative alliances

Propose activities

  • Form collaborative team to lead the project
  • Translate important handbook material into Spanish
  • Prepare material: Course to become an organizer
  • Organize monthly 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. in LATAM time to teach the course and encourage other communities.
  • Offer individual or group mentoring to the different meetup groups.
  • Have a support channel for organizers.

Project Stages

Stage 1

  • Months: February and March 2024
    • Activities to be carried out
    • Formation of the team
    • Material preparation

Stage 2

  • Months: April – June 2024
    • Activities to be carried out:
      • Course Calendar
      • Communication with the organizers and volunteers of the meetup groups.

We are convinced that together we can achieve great things and build a vibrant and thriving WordPress ecosystem throughout Latin America.

#community-management, #meetups-2, #wordcamps

Patricia BT 2:48 pm on January 22, 2024
Tags: , community management, , , , ,   

Proposal: Pilot program to test GatherPress on the WordPress.org network as a Meetup alternative

Introduction

We propose a pilot program to test GatherPress, a community-developed 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, within interested and active 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. groups. This initiative stems from our community’s need for an innovative event management tool tailored to the unique demands of WordPress event organizers and participants.

The pilot program would be held in real-world conditions with WordPress Meetup groups.

We have expressed commitments to a trial run from New Jersey and Nashville groups in the USA, French-speaking groups in Switzerland, and potential interest from groups in Spain, Japan as well as from learn.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/.

Overview of GatherPress

GatherPress, led by @mauteri and @hrmervin, is a plugin designed with functionalities akin to Meetup.com, but specifically crafted for the WordPress community by members of the WordPress community. It is the result of the WordPress community’s desire for new event management tools that meet the diverse needs of event organizers and members. 

You can find more information on the website and on GitHub.

Documentation pages, including a demo video, are available on the website.

We welcome everyone to comment here, to test GatherPress (also for accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (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)) or join the GatherPress weekly huddles, 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/. channel or even the team.

Summary of Value Proposition

GatherPress

✅ Members and Attendance data lives on your website and database. Community Organizers define privacy policies, selectively publish attendees lists, gather additional data from attendees, etc.

✅ Democratized access to data and functionality, as WordPress is customizable

✅ 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.: free, and scaled with WordPress

Meetup and Commercial Apps

❌ Data Ownership, Data Integrity, Data Privacy

❌ Control of Roadmap, Enhancements, and Integrations

❌ Cost and Scale

❌ Control UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. and accessibility

Pilot Program Objectives

Real-World Testing

The pilot aims to test GatherPress in a live environment, providing practical insights into its functionality and user experience feedback.

Community engagement

Engage with the participating meetup groups from the international community. 

Feedback & Analysis

Collect feedback from both organizers and participants throughout the course of their use of GatherPress during the trial.

Analyse suggestions, feedback, and bug reports to refine the application into its next version(s).

Reports

Periodic summary posts on how the program is working for the whole community to know about it.

Future Planning

Following the completion of the trial, set the public roadmap of functionality and integrations to be released. Ultimately, the objective of GatherPress is to potentially replace Meetup.com as the centerpoint of the WordPress Community Events and Dashboard WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. source data. 

Benefits of the Proposal

1. Community-centric development

This pilot and this project, empowers the WordPress community by directly leading the development process of a tool designed by and for the community at large.

A major challenge of the community is influence over the roadmap of commercially available tools, to build features and functionality needed by organizers, participants, and users with accessibility needs. 

2. Enhanced Event Management

GatherPress promises to offer a more integrated and seamless event management experience within the WordPress ecosystem. Among our goals are to allow community organizers to gather data from attendees unique to each hosted event as needed. Additional capabilities are present for triggering additional reminders, customized waitlist workflows, and selectively publishing attendees lists. The GatherPress plugin is built to be extendable and configurable. Companion plugins will be able to seamlessly integrate with the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. plugin. GatherPress will also be built to leverage features of other community-based plugins (like BuddyPress).

3. Cost-Effectiveness

This project has the potential to reduce the community’s reliance on external platforms like Meetup.com. The estimated cost savings of leveraging our own application is approx $ 215,000 USD per year, coupled with the full control over event management tools and ownership of our community’s data. WPCSWordPress Community Support WordPress 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. pays Meetup.com $24.50 per group per month (inclusive of a 30% discount). There were 734 groups as of October of 2023.

4. Use-Case Specific Testing

An example of how this testing can grant case-by-case capabilities includes Localization (translated language). By opening the pilot program to groups from various countries, we ensure that the tool is adaptable and functional in a multilingual context, essential for the diverse WordPress community. Furthermore, communities will benefit from the open source nature of the application, enabling customization of RSVP and onboarding workflows.

5. Data Liberation

The WordPress Open Source community is indeed large, and our data is valuable, as is the privacy. GatherPress hosted by WordPress community proper, will enable organizers and leadership to 1) own the community’s data, and 2) make it selectively available for analysis. Insights learned from our community at large, will inform growth opportunities and strategic initiatives into the future. Today, WordPress operates the Data Liberation project, enabling users of commercial tools to migrate into a WordPress experience. You can learn more about the Data Liberation project at: https://wordpress.org/data-liberation/.

6. Meetup.com Importer

One of the first companion plugins the GatherPress team is currently working on is the ability to import meetup.com data to a GatherPress-powered WordPress site. This will make the transition from meetup.com to GatherPress as seamless as possible and simplify managing both as a group transitions from one platform to another.

Next steps

The ideal setup for the pilot is to run GatherPress on a multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. within the wordpress.org network, in collaboration with # 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.-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., # community-events, # meta, and # learn. This approach ensures seamless integration and alignment with the existing WordPress infrastructure, potentially allowing other meetup groups to join and already be in the definitive environment if the pilot program is successful. 

Alongside this trial, meetup groups should continue to leverage Meetup.com in parallel to GatherPress.

Timeframe

We are prepared to commence immediately and suggest a minimum of a 6 month duration to meet our pilot’s objectives.

Conclusion

This pilot program presents a unique opportunity to shape the future of event management in the WordPress community. By leveraging the collective knowledge and experience of our meetup groups, we can ensure that GatherPress evolves into a tool that truly resonates with the needs and expectations of our global community.

This proposal has been written by @patricia70 and @hrmervin and reviewed by @mauteri.

Suggestions, edition and additional information (thank you): @annebovelett, @devinmaeztri, @harishanker, @harmonyromo, @iandunn, @isvictorious, @javiercasares, @kcristiano, @nao, @peiraisotta, @unintended8, @_dorsvenabili

The draft was submitted for feedback to other community members as well, the above list only includes the persons who commented.

#meetups, #community-management, #community-events, #community-team, #learn, #meta, #meta-wordcamp

Junko Nukaga 5:11 am on November 28, 2023
Tags: community management, ,   

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

Devin Maeztri 10:56 am on February 3, 2023
Tags: , APAC, community management, , ,   

Update: APAC Meetup Reactivation Project

Last July, the 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. Reactivation Project was launched. We sought support from around the world as we believe local community leaders have the networks and experiences to help reactivate 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..

Three updates on the Global Meetup Reactivation Project have been published: in September, November, and December. We have yet to share the next update this year.

In December 2022, the APAC Meetup Reactivation team met and decided to share stories from the APAC community to learn from and inspire each other. We also want to appreciate the dedication and enthusiasm of the APAC supporters for this project. Kudos to everyone!

APAC Meetup Reactivation Supporters

  1. Ricky Blacker from Australia @rickyblacker
  2. Wil Brown from Australia @developerwil
  3. Afshana Diya from Bangladesh @afshanadiya
  4. Ahmed Chaion from Bangladesh @chaion07
  5. Mainul Kabir Aion from Bangladesh @aion11
  6. Mizanur Rahaman Mizan from Bangladesh @technocrews
  7. Aditya Kane from India @adityakane
  8. Aditya Shah from India @ethicaladitya
  9. Abhishek Prabhu from India @abyshakes
  10. Pooja Derashri from India @webtechpooja
  11. Yogesh Londhe from India @yoga1103
  12. Kharis Sulistiyono from Indonesia @kharisblank
  13. Sinar Hadi Wijaya from Indonesia @sinarhadiwijaya
  14. Junko Nukaga from Japan @nukaga
  15. Naoko Takano from Japan @nao
  16. Shusei Toda from Japan @st810amaze
  17. Yam Chhetri from Nepal @yamchhetri
  18. JC Palmes from Philippines @khleomix
  19. Lax Mariappan from Philippines @lakshmananphp
  20. Oneal Rosero from Philippines @onealtr
  21. Muhammad Usman Khalid from Pakistan @usmankhalid 
  22. Shakir Ali from Pakistan @engrshakirali

APAC WordPress Meetups in Numbers (as of Feb 2023)

  • 95 chapters were dormant as of May 2022.
  • 1 chapter in Japan was closed/removed from the program.
  • 51 chapters were reactivated.
  • 43 chapters are still in progress.

The APAC Meetup Reactivation Stories

Ricky Blacker, Australia

WordPress meetups in Australia are slowly coming back online, we have seen a few already getting back on track, the Sydney meetup has led the charge not only in being among the first to have in-person meetups again but have kept the community informed and engaged during the worst of Covid with regular online meetups and presentations, much Kudos to Wil Brown for his tireless hard work here.

The Melbourne meetup also resumed in-person meetups but seems to have stagnated for now. We saw the welcome return of the Sunshine Coast meetup in January, with the plan to carry this on every month.

The Brisbane meetup is looking to resume in-person meetups in March with a focus on finding a long-term solution for a venue and how the community would like to see the meetups proceed in the future.

Generally, across all meetups in Australia, we are battling with trying to get the momentum going again, as well as trying to solve the problem of finding a suitable venue for meetups as many have lost their regular space during covid, but the community is keen to get back to having monthly in-person meetups again and I can envisage that by the end of this year, we should see most resume back to normal.

Mainul Kabir Aion, Bangladesh 

We had two big meetups in November 2022 in Dhaka. They covered more than 200 people and created the biggest buzz ever and bringing many WP veterans together. Bangladesh is all about diversity and it was amazing to witness individuals coming together to celebrate during meetups.

The Sylhet group was reactivated thanks to the supporters. They followed the footsteps of the mega meetups and organized their version of it. Folks from the Dhaka community went there as well and 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. Sylhet was planned.

The Rangpur meetup chapter was also reactivated and continues their meetup after a long time. They have invited experienced developers as speakers. The most unique part is – they will treat everyone with tasty ducks and traditional pitas after the event!

Pooja Derashri, India

I am so happy to be a part of this Reactivation project because it has given me the opportunity to interact with other Meetup chapters in India. Overall, the project has been a mixed experience for me. Some groups have been very responsive, and we have been able to quickly schedule Meetups, while others have been less responsive. In some cases, they have assured me that they will organize a Meetup soon or next month, but when I follow up a month later, they are still saying they are in the planning stage. In my opinion, these groups may have limited bandwidth and are unable to run a Meetup, but they do not want to give up their role as organizers, so they are making false commitments. With perseverance and consistent efforts, we will be able to reactivate our fellow Meetup chapters.

Kharis Sulistiyono, Indonesia

I used the strategy of educating organizers and members about the importance of Meetups and the benefits of being part of the WordPress community. I also encouraged them to collaborate and share their experiences and ideas. This helped increase their motivation to revive the Meetups.

Here are key points I shared with the community:

  • Host a meetup on the home’s terrace: https://www.instagram.com/p/CiWFKvTv-Hn/
  • Host a meetup without an external speaker, instead be confident in leading the gathering format with a specific topic for discussion.
  • While choosing a meetup topic, avoid using generic wording and instead use persuasive language. For example, instead of a generic topic like “How to create a website with WordPress,” use an attractive topic such as “How to create an effective sales funnel with a landing page.”
  • Write a blog post about reactivating your dormant meetup strategy and share it with the community on social media channels: https://kharis.risbl.com/2022/08/03/5-strategi-sederhana-dalam-mengaktifkan-wordpress-meetup-tegal/

Junko Nukaga, Naoko Takano and Shusei Toda, Japan

In 2022, a total of 133 Meetups were held in Japan, both online and offline, in a style suited to each region. In addition to the regular Meetups, two Mega Meetups were held in Japan, where Meetup organizers from across the country came together.

Some groups returned to holding in-person events, others continued to hold online events, and some of them even introduced new styles of Meetup such as photo walks and inter-group collaboration.

Although one group was deactivated, a new group was started. Some regions were not able to hold meetups due to the pandemic, but some groups restarted through the Reactivation Project, and the Japanese community is still very active.

JC Palmes, Philippines

The WordPress Meetup Reactivation for Iloilo was a success due to the willingness of everyone involved. Despite a nearly three-year hiatus, the community had remained connected online

but not officially. This made it easier to get everyone together again and discuss plans for reactivating the group.

The coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. group had no issue with meeting right away and discussing our plans for WordCamp 2023 and other activities for the year. Everyone seemed eager to resume after such a long break, which made decision-making smooth and effortless.

This experience showed the strength of our community bond, even after such a long break, both in person or online. We are all willing and ready at any given moment if ever needed! The experience also served as motivation that despite everything else going on around us, we can still come together and work towards something bigger than ourselves!

Oneal Rosero, Philippines

In late 2022, after some prompting from the Meetup Reactivation team, the WordPress Manila meetup group held a hybrid meeting in October 2022, with about five attendees in person at the local Pantheon office and seven more over zoom. This helped create a nice balance of online and in-person participation. They held a translation workshop led by the Polyglots teamPolyglots Team Polyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/.. Four people got the badges for helping translate content into Tagalog. The last time the Manila Meetup group held an in-person meeting was in late 2019.

In January 2023, the Manila Meetup team organized an in-person meetup at the Pantheon office in BGC, there were 23 people in attendance. The talks ranged from site builders to security and I was able to talk briefly to invite people to contribute to the learn.WordPress.org teams.

Among the attendees of the Manila meetup in January 2023 were people who live in Cavite but work in Manila and they expressed interest in reactivating the Cavite Meetup with new and more experienced members.

In late 2022, the Meetup group in Baguio was also contacted, but they felt  like they didn’t have enough active members to run a WordCamp, but they are looking to restart Meetups early in 2023

I also got in touch with the Meetup group in Cebu. They held an in-person Meetup in December 2022. In February 2023, they will host WordCamp Cebu 2023 with local and international speakers.

If you are aware of an inactive WordPress Meetup group in your area and are keen to help reactivate it, please get in touch with us! You can become a co-organizer and play a role in bringing together WordPress enthusiasts in your area.

You can locate your nearest Meetup group by visiting this page. If there is no WordPress Meetup group in your area, you have the option to start one by joining the Meetup Chapter Program.

#meetups #reactivation #outreach #community-team #community-management #APAC

Leo Gopal 1:45 am on January 19, 2023
Tags: community management, , github, , , team-projects   

Proposal: [Experiment] Adopt Standardised Team-wide Project Management Tools – already utilised by other Make Teams for a Quarter.

This proposal is focused towards improving our project management and goal and progress tracking by using the same transparent tools that other Make Teams already utilise.

Background and Skeleton

Currently we have many spreadsheets, trelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. boards, 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/. groups and many other disparate ways of working on our various ongoing projects outside of helpscout.

From my personal experience having returned as a Community DeputyProgram 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. and now as 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., I believe that the first action – before further planning and goals discussions – is to standardise and fully utilize the power of the tools already available to us. We can benefit by learning from other teams that already consistently use these tools.

…and possibly this demo of a Make Community Team →

Benefits of adopting 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/:

GitHub is a powerful and widely-used platform for project management and issue tracking already in full use by @WordPress.

Adopting GitHub for these purposes within the Community Team would bring a number of benefits, including:

  1. Improved collaboration and communication: GitHub provides a central location for team members to access and work on project tasks and issues, as well as a built-in system for commenting, tracking progress, and assigning tasks. This makes it easy for team members to stay informed about the progress of a project and to contribute to it, even when working remotely.
  2. Increased transparency and accountability: With GitHub, team members can easily see the progress of tasks and issues, as well as who is responsible for them. This increased transparency helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that tasks and issues are not falling through the cracks.
  3. Better organization and prioritization: GitHub provides a number of tools for organizing and prioritizing tasks and issues, such as labels, milestones, and project boards. These tools make it easy for team members to understand what needs to be done and when, and to focus their efforts on the most important tasks.
  4. Standardisation: By adopting GitHub for project management and issue tracking, the Community Team will standardize our way of working, making it easier for new team members to get up to speed and enabling more effective cross-team collaboration. This standardization also makes it easier for Community Team members to track progress, identify issues and make data-driven decisions.

Overall, adopting GitHub for project management and issue tracking would bring improved collaboration, increased transparency, better organization, and standardization, ultimately leading to a more efficient and effective team.

Next Steps, the Experiment:

I propose we adopt these tooling methods similar to other make teams, and experiment with its usage for a month, having monthly meetings reviewing its success or not, and gathering data for more data-driven decision making

If after the first Quarter the consensus is that this does not suit our team, we will revert back to initial project and tracking practices and explore more.

Update: Other teams using github already were kind enough to share some of the resources they use and workflows which would be extremely beneficial should we move forward with this adoption standard.

Proposal Adoption Feedback Form

Please comment on this proposal!

What excites you about potential Community Team adoption of GitHub?

What concerns do you have?

Take the Proposal Poll →

Thanks to @mysweetcate @juliarosia @megabyterose @peiraisotta for their help editing, offering invaluable advice, and their support for this proposal by @leogopal

#community-management, #community-team, #github, #proposal, #team-goals, #team-projects