Tag Archives: community-team

Hari Shanker R 2:45 pm on May 11, 2021
Tags: community-team, documentation-sprint   

Proposal: A documentation editing sprint for the Community team

I won’t mince words here – several pages in the Make/Community handbook are outdated and need to be updated. With recent changes to our program – especially with the shift to online events, some documents have become redundant. Many other documents that are still relevant, have not been updated to incorporate the latest changes. In this background, our docs could benefit from a structured, pro-active approach to make sure that they stay current and accurate.

To achieve this goal, I propose a documentation editing sprint for the Community team!

What is a documentation editing sprint?

Community contributors and deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. work together to audit, and edit outdated documents in the Community team handbooks and any related documentation pages, so that they provide accurate and up-to-date information for our community members.

What are the documents that we will be editing?

We should audit, review, and edit the following documents in our Community team handbook:

Since the community team actively works on the Learn WordPress project, it would help to review and make changes to the Learn WordPress handbook as well – if we have the bandwidth.

When do we do it?

I propose that we test this out by organizing an initial sprint exactly two weeks later on May 25th – which is also known as the Towel Day (no points for guessing – I’m a Douglas Adams fan! 🙈). If the initial sprint goes well, we can consider organizing multiple sprints throughout the rest of the year. Community members can work on editing the documentation pages at their own convenience throughout the course of the day.

Who can participate/Who edits the docs?

This initiative is open to all! Many Community deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. have edit access to the Make/Community site, they can perhaps edit the documents directly. Other community already members can propose changes in a shared Google doc which can later be merged with the main document.

How do we do it?

It would help to keep track of all the documents and their changes in spreadsheets, or using collaboration tools such as 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.. Perhaps, before the sprint day, a few deputies can do a pre-event sweep to identify the docs that need to be edited, and encourage contributors to work on those selected documents? Contributors can use a shared Google sheet to update the status of the edits they made and the work they did. We can use the #community-team 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 to coordinate the efforts. The efforts can be spread out throughout the day so that folks can work at their own pace.

Following the event, we publish a recap post to share about the changes that were made during the sprint. If it is successful, we can probably repeat the event later and perhaps even consider organizing regular documentation editing sprints (either once per quarter or once every month).

Request for feedback

  • First of all, what do you think about this idea and the proposed format? Is this something the community team should carry out?
  • Do you know of any specific documents from our handbook that need edits? If so, please share them in the comments.
  • The biggest question: How do we track progress – both contributions from individual community members and changes made to the documents?

Please share your feedback by May 20th (Thursday).

#documentation-sprint #community-team

Timi Wahalahti 8:09 am on May 6, 2021
Tags: community-team, , ,   

Community Team Meeting agenda for 2021-05-06

The Community Team bi-weekly meeting is happening today. The 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: 2021-05-06 12:00
Americas friendly meeting: 2021-05-06 21:00

Below is a preliminary agenda for the meeting. If you wish to add things you’d like bring to into discussion, comment below or reach out to team reps @sippis or @kcristiano. 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.

Preliminary agenda

DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. / MentorMentor 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. / Contributor check-ins

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

Highlights

Youth Working Group
Youth Working Group works together to provide resources to event organizers of kids based events. They are always welcoming new contributors! Join the group in their next meeting on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 1400 UTC in #community-team channel.

Contributor Working Group
This group is working towards creating a comprehensive, centralized location for all Contributor information that will help encourage all Contributors and Contributor Event Planners. This group also welcomes all new contributors who want to help! Follow #wpcontributors tag in our blog to hear about upcoming meetings.

Diverse Speaker Training Working Group
This group supports 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 WordPress events to run a workshop that will help increase the number of speaker applications from people from marginalized and underrepresented groups. This group as well is welcoming new contributors. Follow #wpdiversity tag in our blog to hear about upcoming meetings.

New and ongoing discussions

Discussing the path to in-person WordCamps
Throughout the pandemic, the team has maintained the safety and health of the community as the highest priority, and this has not changed. To that end, and knowing that this is a complex discussion, the Community team invites you to share your thoughts on how the WordPress community can safely move back to in-person WordCamps.

Discussion: Companies who run competitive ads against WordPress and apply to sponsor WordCamps
Recently, 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. organizing team raised a question to Community DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. about a potential sponsor’s product, a WordPress derivative, being promoted in competition with WordPress and putting WordPress in an unflattering light. This question naturally prompted some discussion around where our expectations could be clarified to address WordPress derivatives and how they are promoted by sponsors, speakers, and organizers.

Feedback time in this discussion has ended, but we can discuss it in brief if someone has something in mind.

WordCamp Europe plans
WordCamp Europe Online is coming in a month and the team has the opportunity to host some content during the event if we’d like to. Timi will put a more detailed post out there tomorrow, but here are the basics so everyone can start to think of possible ideas for the content.

We can host a workshop or two during the event days if we’d like to, to showcase or help related to our team. We can submit the workshop applications until Friday next week. Another opportunity we’ll have during the WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. days is to have a few zoom session, which can be more unformal. For example to help onboard new contributors, have kind of office hoursOffice Hours Defined times when the Global Community Team are in the #community-events Slack channel. If there is anything you would like to discuss – you do not need to inform them in advance.You are very welcome to drop into any of the Community Team Slack channels at any time. hosted by deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. to answer all questions related to events… we can do anything really if we’d like to!

Open floor

Opportunity to bring things into discussions that weren’t on the meeting agenda and if anyone has something they would like to share with the team. If you have a topic in mind before the meeting, please add it into the comments of this post.

Hope to see you on Thursday, either on Asia-Pacific / EMEA or Americas friendly version of the meeting!

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

Angela Jin 4:55 pm on May 4, 2021
Tags: , community-team,   

Tuesday Trainings: All About Community Deputies

This year we’ve changed the format of Tuesday Trainings to better get directly at the issues that seem to be on the minds of folks in our community. How are we doing that? Great question. We’re either seeking to answer commonly asked questions or address commonly heard complaints, concerns, and confusions.

If there’s a question you’d like to see answered or a topic you’d like to see discussed, please share it in the comments or email me at support@wordcamp.org with the subject line Tuesday Trainings. Now onto this week’s topic.

The WordPress Community Team is well known for hosting WordPress events around the world. Whether in-person or online, since 2006, volunteer organizers have hosted incredible events that connect WordPress enthusiasts to each other, inspire them to do more with WordPress, and encourage people to contribute back to the project.

Community organizing, however, is a multi-faceted world of wonders. Beyond the logistics of organizing an event, community organization involves excellent leadership skills, as well as knowledge of marketing, project and program management, and much, much more. 

So how is it possible that the WordPress Community team regularly welcomes new event organizers, many who may not have any previous experience?

It’s in large, large part thanks to the amazing people we call Community DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook.: 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. and/or 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 who enjoyed organizing so much, they wanted to help others around the world! 

Who are the Community Deputies?

Community deputies are organizers themselves, and many continue to be very active in their local communities. They participate in extra training around best 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. community building practices, and how the Community Team brings that to WordPress. This training, combined with their familiarity with the WordCamp and/or meetup chapter program, allows them to become experts in how to bring WordPress enthusiasts together.

Community deputies are, unsurprisingly, people-oriented. From everyday decisions to complex situations, deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. are guided by what is in the best interests of the WordPress community. Deputies frequently reflect on what would make things easier for contributors, and how to better support them.

Ok, but what exactly do Community Deputies do?

Community Deputies Deputies are charged with three areas of responsibility:

  1. Tackling an ongoing, regular list of tasks.
  2. Training, guiding, and mentoring WordPress communities and organizers
  3. Advising on direction and future of the Community team

The Community Team has a range of routine tasks that help keep everything moving slowly. This includes things like vetting applications for meetup groups and WordCamps, or sending Zoom accounts to meetup organizers. There are a number of queues that deputies maintain daily. For a full list of tasks, check out our deputy handbook.

In addition to welcoming and orienting Meetup and WordCamp organizers, Deputies are also around to help answer any and all questions from organizers around the world. There are a number of common questions (check out other Tuesday Trainings to see some of those questions and answers), and deputies leverage their training and experience to give the best answers! Deputies routinely help with topics like how to sustainably expand an organizing team, how to diversify a speaker line up, or simply how to start a local community.

Sometimes, those questions can get pretty tricky, for example, questions around how help a potential sponsor change their licence to be GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples.-friendly. In many of these cases, deputies will work together to discuss and to provide the strongest community-driven responses. 

Supporting a global community allows deputies to have a broader view of the Community team and how programs are functioning. When deputies see areas for improvement, they’ll suggest them! Deputies will also bring up, discuss, and help decide bigger, whole program decisions. A great example of this is our work with exploring how to move back to in-person events. 

Of course, deputies rely on lots of collaboration and feedback organizers, WordCamp mentorsMentor 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., event sponsors, volunteers, and attendees to do all of this incredible work! Across discussions and projects, deputies regularly invite participation from any WordPress community member. 

Can I be a Community DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook.? 

Any WordPress organizer with experience and who is in good standing with the program can be a Community Deputy. To learn more about being a Community Deputy, check out the handbook. When you’re ready, submit an application! We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. 

Want to learn more? Come join us in the #community-events or #community-team channels in the Making WP 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/.! We’re super friendly people, so come say hi.  

Thank you @hlashbrooke, @sippis, @kcristiano for helping to write this week’s Tuesday Training.

#tuesdaytrainings

Timi Wahalahti 4:18 pm on March 12, 2021
Tags: , , community-team,   

Request for feedback: Review for the dedicated deputy communication channel

After the discussion on my proposal about a dedicated communication place for deputies, we agreed to experiment with a private #community-deputies channel in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. In the discussion, we also agreed to do a public review after three and six months to see how the channel has worked and decide its continuation. The channel was created in December, so it’s time for the first review.

The purpose of the channel is to be a safe place for all deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. to discuss sensitive and private aspects of our work, get peer-support when needed and ask second opinions for event applications. It’s not meant for discussions that could take place in public forums like this blog, #community-team or #community-events channel.

Guidelines for the channel are:

  • As we all are busy and have an abundance of unread notifications, please avoid irrelevant chatter.
  • Help to create a safe and welcoming space for all deputies. Be empathetic and help answer questions when you can!
  • If you feel that the discussion should take place in a public forum, say it and help to move the discussion to the #community-team channel or Community Team blog.
  • Any decision making that will affect the broader community will be made in public. Help others be aware of when they might be making a decision that should happen after public discussion.

As this year has continued being really strange, I think we really can’t use many numeric metrics while reviewing the channel. That’s why I’d like us to have an open, free form, discussion. Here are some questions to help start that discussion:

  1. Has there been discussion about topics that should have been taken place in public forums instead?
  2. Have you got help with some issue in the channel, which you’d normally handled by yourself or asked help from another deputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. in a private message?
  3. Has the channel helped you feel more connected to the team?
  4. In general, what is your feeling about the discussion that has taken place on the channel?
  5. Should we continue to keep using a private deputy channel?

Active deputies, please share your thoughts and raise new important questions to the discussion. This is also an open invitation for all community members to ask questions about the channel, which could help us with the review.

Discussion is open until 2021-03-29. If the result of the review looks like there’s no justification for private working space for deputies, the channel will be shut off at the beginning of April. In case the experiment continues, we will do another public review in three months.

Thanks to @angelasjin, @andreamiddleton and @kcristiano who helped with this post.

#slack
Angela Jin 9:00 am on February 8, 2021
Tags: community-team, , , props   

Community Team 2021 Goals Summary

Toward the end of last year, the 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. requested suggestions for Community team goals for 2021! To help sort through all the many, excellent goals received, and to give more information to tasks, the Community team held open discussion sessions throughout January. Major kudos to all the community deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. and members who participated! 

The community suggested a total of 33 goals, which deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. have sorted into five, overarching goals:   

  • Improve communication within the Community team
  • Support event organizers
  • Increase training and support for deputies and mentorsMentor 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.
  • Revisit and improve tools and resources
  • Give visibility, support, and appreciation to contributors

Additionally, goals were sorted into two categories: 

Ongoing focus areas: A number of suggested goals centered around building stronger team culture, or areas that require ongoing support and teamwork.

Action Items for 2021: A number of goals were task-based, action items that support ongoing focus areas. Deputies gave thought to which action items could be addressed in the first versus second half of this year.

Many of these goals are big, ambitious goals, and while The Community team hopes to make as much progress as possible, the team also knows that things may not happen as planned. The team will revisit these goals after Q2 2021 to reassess action items for the remainder of the year. 

Help the Community Team achieve our 2021 goals!

Are you interested in helping us out this year? Awesome! Here are some suggested next steps: 

  1. Click on “Read more” below to learn more about our 2021 goals. 
  2. Share in comments the top three items you are interested in contributing to.
  3. Participate in the next Community Team meeting on February 18, 2021, 11:00 UTC and February 18, 2021, 20:00 UTC in the #community-team channel on Slack to connect with other contributors working on similar goals. 

If you would like to see more context for these goals, please visit the public Trello board. 

The Community team will also need contributors to coordinate and organize efforts! If you have the time to take on this role, please share in comments which goals you would like to help lead. 

Thank you to @sippis, @harishanker, @afshanadiya, @nao, @andreamiddleton, @camikaos for helping to write this summary!

Read on to learn all about our 2021 goals in more detail! 

Continue reading →

#community-team, #goals, #meta-wordcamp, #props

Mary Job 9:45 am on January 7, 2021
Tags: community-team, , ,   

Community Team Chat Agenda | January 7, 2021

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 07 January 2021. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly: Thursday, January 7, 2021, 11:00 UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, January 7, 2021, 20:00 UTC

DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook./MentorMentor 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. check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going?

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/. posts needing review/feedback

  • Global Sponsorship Update – Courtney P.K. – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/12/18/global-sponsorship-update/
  • Recap of Contributor Working Group on Dec. 16, 2020 – Christina Workman – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/12/20/recap-of-contributor-working-group-on-dec-16-2020/
  • Diverse Speaker Training Group (#wpdiversity) 2020 Year-End Report – Jillbinder – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/12/21/diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-2020-year-end-report/
  • Tuesday Trainings: Diverse Speaker Training Workshop Part 4 – Cami Kaos – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/12/22/tuesday-trainings-diverse-speaker-training-workshop-part-4/
  • Contributor Working Group Agenda | January 6 2021 – Christina Workman – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2021/01/05/contributor-working-group-agenda-january-6-2021/

Highlighted P2 posts

  • https://make.wordpress.org/community/2021/01/04/community-team-goals-2021-open-discussion-sessions/ – Angela
  • https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/12/01/program-wide-payment-and-contract-intermission-december-19-2020-january-3-2021/ – Cami
  • Community Team Reps for 2021 announced – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2021/01/07/community-team-reps-for-2021/ – Mary

Please add any additional items to this agenda by commenting on this post as needed.

#community-team, #deputy-chat, #team-chat

Angela Jin 10:59 am on December 17, 2020
Tags: community-team, , ,   

Community Team Chat Agenda | December 17, 2020

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 17 December 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly: 17 December 2020, 11:00 AM UTC

Americas friendly: 17 December 2020, 20:00 UTC

DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook./MentorMentor 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. check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going?

Announcements

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/. posts needing review/feedback

Highlighted P2 posts

Please add any additional items to this agenda by commenting on this post as needed.

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

Timi Wahalahti 9:06 am on December 17, 2020
Tags: , , community-team, deputy check-in   

Community Deputy check-in results and sum-up

In recent weeks, all Community Team DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. were contacted personally through 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/., and asked to provide feedback on contributions to the Community Team in 2020. Deputies were also asked about their plans for contribution in 2021, and how team reps and fellow deputies could provide better support.

The check-in was done with three things in mind: to know how many active Community deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. will continue in 2021, if and where there is need for more training, and to get feedback on how to improve the deputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. experience. The number side of results is also meant for tracking deputy engagement long term, as the Community Team expressed interest in regular check-ins.

In this post, I’ll be sharing a summary of results and general conclusions.

Response rate and deputy balance

All 35 active deputies were contacted, and 25 (71%) of them answered in a given time (one week). From those 25 deputies, 24% (6) are fully sponsored, 32% (8) are partially sponsored and 44% (11) are contributing on a  voluntary basis.

Time contributed

It’s worth noticing that deputies are very active contributors on the wider WordPress project. From all who responded, 60% (15) answered that they contribute to other teams. Over half of deputies contributing to other teams also contribute to more than one team outside of Community.

The year 2020

Deputies estimated that during the year 2020 they have contributed a total of 1051 hours monthly to the Community Team.

Number of deputiesTotal hours estimatedOn average per deputy
Fully sponsored6650108
Partially sponsored816421
Fully volunteer1123722
All25105142

The year 2021

Deputies were also asked to estimate how much time they plan on contributing to the Community Team per month in 2021.

They estimated that they would contribute 906 hours per month in total, around 36 hours on average per deputy. The estimates predict an approximately 14% decrease in contributed time when compared to this year. 

Total hoursOn average per deputyDifference in hours from 2020(% change)
Fully sponsored600100-50 (-7%)
Partially sponsored164210 (+/-0%)
Fully volunteer14213-95 (-40%)
All90636-145 (-14%)

Ways to contribute

Deputies were asked to tell how they have contributed to the Community team during 2020 and in which way they would like to contribute during next year. Deputies had a pre-formed list of options to choose from and a free field to list other ways that were missing from the list. Options were the same for both years and deputies were allowed to select as many options as they liked.

20202021
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. application vetting1816
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. application vetting1318
WordCamp mentoring1218
Local community mentoring1619
Financial aspects (Sponsorship wrangling, WPCSWordPress Coding Standards A collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to validate code developed for WordPress. It ensures code quality and adherence to coding conventions, especially the official standards for WordPress Core., payments)913
Triaging HelpScout1013
Developing Community Team (Writing proposals or comments on the 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/., etc)1614
Participation on a working group1013

The following observations were made from the answers:

  • 56% of deputies wish to contribute in more ways than they had this year
  • 16% of deputies want to contribute in fewer ways than they have this year
  • Routine, administrative tasks, like triaging HelpScout, are not popular ways to contribute amongst fully volunteer deputies. Instead, they prefer to contribute to local communities.
  • More deputies wish to work with local communities and events during 2021
  • Partially volunteered deputies expressed interest in routine, administrative tasks during 2021

Estimates on tools

Deputies were asked to estimate when they last participated in a discussion or used tools that are specific to deputy work. This part of the results is for historical analysis, rather than measuring how the team or individuals did in 2020.

This monthLast monthIn the last 3 monthsIn the last 6 monthsThis yearNot this year
Attended a Community Team bi-weekly meeting1432123
Posted or commented on the Community Team blog1432312
Logged in to HelpScout1350232
Logged in to WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.1712320

Observations from open questions

Deputies were asked to answer a few open questions: where they feel their contribution is most impactful, what team reps could do to better support deputy work, and if there are any blockers in contributions to the team.

Some observations can be made from responses to these questions:

  • Almost all of the deputies feel that their contribution is most impactful when mentoring event organisers and local communities.
  • Only a handful and mostly experienced deputies mentioned things related to Community Team management (proposals, team development, mentoring others, documentation etc.) as contributions that they feel are impactful.
  • Nearly half of the deputies felt that they had received enough support from team reps and fellow deputies.
  • Some deputies felt that the Community Team should do more outreach, frequent updates on what the team is doing, and highlight project-wide updates with the team more often.
  • Some things in the team are moving too fast or too much information is put out in a short period, making it challenging to follow with everything happening, especially for fully volunteer deputies.
  • There were suggestions for how tools and work procedures could be improved. For example, having shifts could help deputies maintain a regular cadence for routine tasks.
  • Deputies that found writing proposals most impactful wished for more active engagement from other deputies on Community Team blog posts, and help in getting more voices heard from the wider community.
  • Almost all full volunteer deputies have had time allocation challenges, because of COVID-19 implications or other things happening in their personal life.

Any follow up thoughts?

Did these results raise some questions, thoughts, additional observations or interpretations? Was there anything that came up in these results that you think we need to discuss in greater detail? Please share your mind freely on the comments! Please share your thoughts before 2021-01-07.

Big thanks to @angelasjin and @courtneypk who did the deputy check-ins with me and helped with this post!

I’d also like to use this opportunity to thank a few fellow deputies that are going to take a break from deputy duties. @francina and @bph have been long-term deputies developing the team, a great inspiration to others and really valued members of the team. Thank you for all your contributions! Luckily we still get to collaborate on other aspects of the Community Team and wider WordPress project.

#deputies, #community-deputies, #community-team, #deputy-check-in

Christina Workman 6:09 pm on December 15, 2020
Tags: , community-team   

Contributor Working Group Agenda | December 16 2020

Here is the Agenda for our meeting on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 at 20:00 UTC in the #community-team channel in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. As always, you can add comments to the meeting afterwards, and/or add comments to the recap post.

Agenda

  1. Team check-in: How is everyone?
  2. Meet the Leads
  3. Review 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. and Google Drive
  4. Questions for me?
  5. Next steps: Relax, Refresh, Recharge

#WPContributors

#wpcontributors

Hari Shanker R 10:04 am on December 8, 2020
Tags: community-team, ,   

Tuesday Trainings: How to organize a successful discussion group

WordPress contributor teams announced the Learn WordPress initiative in August 2020, which offers recorded workshops paired with live online discussion groups to help participants learn different features of WordPress. Learn WordPress is gearing up for a full launch, and during the past few months, we have had several workshops followed by successful discussion groups. Discussion groups are, in fact, an essential part of Learn WordPress workshops. In August, @angelasjin published an excellent Tuesday Training post on being a successful discussion group leader. This post serves as a follow-up to explore ideas on how to organize a successful discussion group. 

What is a discussion group? 

A discussion group is an event where participants of Learn WordPress workshops can discuss the workshop topic amongst themselves, solidify their learnings, and find answers to their questions, in a live discussion. These discussions can take place over video calls on Zoom or text based meetings in 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/.. Discussion groups are facilitated and moderated by discussion group leaders who have watched the workshop and know its contents. 

How can I organize a discussion group?

Just like a 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., anyone can organize a discussion group! There are two ways to organize discussion groups:

  1. You can apply to be a discussion group leader, which will allow you to organize an official discussion group event for a Learn WordPress workshop.
    Once you are approved, you can organize a discussion event on the Learn WordPress Meetup group, just the way you would schedule a WordPress Meetup on a meetup group. Approved discussion group leaders will be promoted as event organizers for the Learn WordPress group. 
  2. You can directly organize a Learn WordPress workshop for a local WordPress meetup.
    Anyone can organize a discussion group for their local WordPress meetup. All you need is to watch the workshop of your choice and schedule a discussion group event for your local WordPress meetup group. If you are not the organizer of your group, you can reach out to members of the meetup organizing team to schedule the event for you. 

Discussion group leaders can organize the discussion event based on any available Learn WordPress workshop. They will need to watch the workshop in advance and should have a good understanding of the topics covered. Each workshop has comprehension questions and learning objectives, which will help discussion group leaders prepare well in advance for a discussion group.

Discussion group leaders for Learn WordPress can then go to the Learn WordPress Meetup group and schedule an event, just the way you would organize a meetup event. Make sure that you mention the name of the workshop and a link to it in the description. Past discussion group leaders have observed that asking a confirmation question to attendees in the meetup options ensures that participants have watched the workshop before attending. 

Preparation before the event

One of the first things you need to keep in mind is the discussion group format. Most discussion groups are organized on video over a video hosting tool such as Zoom (you can reserve a community zoom room, if available). Alternatively, you can also organize a text-based discussion group in the #community-events channel on the WordPress Slack. 

Make sure that you have watched and understood the workshop before the event. Based on the Learning objectives and comprehension questions on each workshop, it might help to prepare some notes. Based on these, prepare a list of discussion points that you can introduce to the audience. Sometimes, many participants in a discussion group may not have seen the Learn WordPress workshop before, so it might help prepare a recap of sorts using slides. Some discussion group leaders have had success organizing quizzes as part of discussion groups. If you are interested, you can create a short, fun quiz with a tool like Kahoot! and use it for your discussion group. 

Ensure that you have scheduled the discussion group at least one week in advance; this will help you get the most participants. Send your group participants reminder emails to watch the workshop along with a reminder about the upcoming discussion group itself. It might be helpful to send a reminder email 24 hours before the workshop and another one shortly before the event.

Tips for a successful discussion group event

Join the discussion group call five minutes early – this will help you stay prepared. Start the discussion group by welcoming everyone. Introduce yourself, briefly talk about the Learn WordPress initiative, and explain what discussion groups are. If you do not have many participants (less than 5), it might help to start with self-introductions – that can be an excellent way to break the ice. Then, ask the members if they have seen the workshop. If at least 20-30% of attendees have not seen the workshop, you might want to start by sharing the gist of the workshop in a capsule form. Do not take more than 10 minutes for the recap. Once the recap is done, you can officially start the discussion group!

Here are some tips: 

  • You can ask open-ended questions based on the workshop and ask participants to answer them. If no one answers, reach out to folks individually and ask questions. 
  • Another way to start the discussion is by reaching out to individual participants in the call by asking them to share their learnings from the workshop.
  • Based on your notes, find a couple of tricky points and try to initiate a conversation. If your group does not seem to be active, you might want to intervene and lead the discussion. You can slowly pass the ball on to other members. Within the span of a few minutes, you should see the discussion gaining momentum.
  • Ask your group members to share any questions that they may have. When they ask questions, even though you may know the answer, ask other group members to answer them. 
  • Some people may not be comfortable talking on a video call. They can always share their thoughts in chat. In fact, you can encourage folks to share their questions in the Zoom chat.

In the meantime, keep a note of the time. Discussion groups are typically one hour long you do not want your group to go past the time limit!

Get creative with discussion groups

Just like how you have the chance to experiment with online 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., you can also get creative with discussion groups. Here are some ideas that you can try out:

  • Do a quiz: You can use free tools like Kahoot! for quizzes. The quiz works best towards the end of the discussion group. It need not be long – all you need to have is about 5-8 questions. The questions can be simple yet fun and playful. Add trick questions if you want to! We’ve found that activities like quizzes help spice up discussion groups!
  • Group activities: For discussion groups on practical topics such as the Introduction to publishing with the block editor workshop, it might help organize activities (either individually or in groups), depending on the number of participants. For example, you can ask participants to create a quick 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. layout by giving them some instructions. The task should be fairly straightforward, and participants should complete it in less than 30 minutes. You can then review the work and share instructions on how to get it done. If you are using Zoom for your call, you can use breakout rooms to divide people into groups (this would work if your event has 10 or more participants). 
  • Play games: Several fun games can be used to make online events more effective. Like quizzes, making them the focus of your discussion group might not precisely be effective. But having a short game somewhere towards the end of the workshop might be sufficient. 

Concluding the discussion

Start wrapping up the workshop five minutes before the time is up. You can share a summary of what was discussed and allow for one or two closing remarks. Once the workshop wraps up, it might help send all attendees a personalized message thanking them for the participation. Please don’t forget to share any additional information shared in the workshop (any discussion points, links, slides, etc.). 

Do you have any ideas for organizing a Learn WordPress discussion group? What can we do to make sure that the discussion group is engaging for our participants? Please share your thoughts in the comments! 

#tuesdaytrainings

#community-team #learn-wordpress