Welcome to the official blog of the community/outreach team for the WordPress open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project!
This team oversees official events, mentorship programs, diversity initiatives, contributor outreach, and other ways of growing our community.
If you love WordPress and want to help us do these things, join in!
Getting Involved
We use this blog for policy debates, project announcements, and status reports. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to comment on posts and join the discussion.
You can learn about our current activities on the Team Projects page. These projects are suitable for everyone from newcomers to WordPress community elders.
You can use our contact form to volunteer for one of our projects.
We also have regular Community Team meetings on the first and third Thursdays of every month at 11:00 UTC and 20:00 UTC in #community-team on Slack (same agenda).
Events WidgetWidgetA 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.
For some time I’ve personally have felt that deputies would need another place than #community-teamSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel to discuss some topics. Mary’s proposal about monthly virtual calls is a great one to create a place for deputies to see each other and share how they are, though it has a slightly different function than I’m proposing here.
To keep it short, my few arguments why deputies would need dedicated channel:
1) We have 51 active deputies and the #community-team channel has over 1 500 members
2) During exceptional situations, like resent COVID-19 response and things caused by that, deputies needed to communicate realtime a lot while working with fast actions to help organisers. And in other hand, deputies stepping in to help with the response work needed to get (at that point) internal instructions. Sharing and creating internal instructions on a channel that has over 1 500 members, means that community members will see an incomplete and in some cases information that is subject to change. This means that #community-team channel is not space place for deputies to draft some posts, changes and guidelines in urgent or controversial situations.
3) Currently, some discussion that is internal for deputies for a reason or another (like how to respond in sudden situations/cases, how to handle this thing we haven’t faced before or issues that are delicate) are hepping in small(ish) deputy DM groups. For transparency this is bad.
4) The dedicated channel could encourage deputies to ask help when they need it during their work.
This is why I’m proposing: creating a new private channel for active deputies. Active deputies would be defined based on this deputy sheet we have.
Yes, the private channel is somewhat against the transparency we as a team and as a project in general cherish. At the same time, it should be remembered that some discussions that could involve all deputies happen in smaller DM groups. Creating a private channel for all deputies would hopefully reduce the need for that kind of DM groups and add transparency amongst deputies.
Also, the CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team has a private channel for some discussions mainly related to releasing new versions, because it’s more convenient to have a smaller channel instead of trying to have the discussion in the public channel where a lot of conversation happens. (Someone who is more familiar with the Core team can correct me if I’m wrong).
And the last argument in favour of the private channel is that we are already good in directing discussion from Slack to P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. when needed, so why we wouldn’t be good on moving some discussion from a private channel to public #community-team if the topic is something that can be discussed publicly.
When pitching this idea to some members of our deputy team, it got objections and a counter-proposal of creating new public channel for this purpose.
Please leave your feedback on the topic and particularly in the following questions:
Should deputies have another place than the #community-team channel to discuss among themselves if needed?
If deputies should have a dedicated channel, should it be private or public?
During the just concluded WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe, each team had to organize an onboarding call before the d-day (contributor dayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.). We had ours in the Community for an hour, and it was great to be able to put a face to each names we see all the time on SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and hear each other.
Hence, we (all present at the community team onboarding call for WCEU2020) propose we host one video call monthly for 20-30 minutes to check on each other and possibly learn something new about the other, or offer support where we can!
Next Steps – Picking a day and time to begin this in July 2020.
We would all like to hear your feedback on this proposal! We feel this would go a long way in bridging the gap and boundaries that exists in our world today! Please share any thoughts you may have including possible date and time of the month this may hold 💥💥
Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 16 April 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.
P2P2P2 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
Andrea talks about the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) concerns that have been raised concerning the use of Crowdcast as an online conferencing tool, she thanks all those who have helped with documentation surrounding its use and apologizes for not making sure it was a fully accessible tool before recommending it. Other platforms are currently been vetted and collated in this spreadsheet. If you know any good accessible tool out there that can be recommended to community organizers to use for online meetups, conferences and events, please add your voice to the conversation here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/04/03/online-conference-platform-concerns/
Ryan has suggested that the Diverse Speaker Workshops could be promoted by showing the online events in the Events widgetWidgetA 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. Section. He is asking if this should be considered, and if so to whom, and in what language or timezone this should be shown, please add your thoughts to this conversation here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/04/03/showing-online-workshops-in-the-events-widget/
Timi is taking feedbacks till the 5th of May 2020 on improving the trackers used by community team deputies for meetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. and WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. applications. To help out or share your thoughts, please do so here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/04/04/request-for-feedback-revising-application-tracker-back-end/
The Youth Event working group are talking about an online Kids / Youth Camp for Kids and have set their meeting hours to happen weekly on Thursdays at 2100UTC/5pm EST. If you want to get resources for your own family or just talk about things kids can do safely online, do join in the conversation with Sandy. See their full post here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/04/08/youth-event-working-group-chat-office-hours-april-9-2020/. A recap of their meeting on the 9th of April can be found here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/04/14/youth-event-working-group-chat-office-hours-recap-from-april-9-2020/, where they had conversations surrounding age limit for a kids camp, creating videos and content, having a mini series over the course of a month, etc. For parents looking for wholesome creative things for their kiddos to do, kindly leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments please.
The WPCS (WordPress Community Support, PBC) is beginning a Pilot Program to pay the production costs of online WordCamps hosted in 2020 with the hope that this will result in more online WordCamps during this time of uncertainty and in-person disconnection. If you have suggestions for making this pilot program more successful, or questions about its details, kindly share your ideas, concerns, or questions in a comment on this post: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/04/13/pilot-program-production-vendors-for-online-wordcamps/
We currently have a backlog of WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. and MeetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. applications. We would like to request the help of all deputies to help us stay responsive to community members, and to help keep our queues moving forward. To that end, we’ll be holding few vetting sprints 🙂
Each sprint will last for two hours, and we will collectively vet as many WordCamp and Meetup applications in that time as possible. If you are a deputy and would like to coordinate a sprint at another time, then please comment on this post and I’ll add it to the list.
All deputies are welcome and encouraged to join! Please comment on this post if you think you can take part.
What is a Vetting Sprint?
A vetting sprint for WordCamp or Meetup applications is a scheduled session where all available deputies meet together in the #community-team channel in the WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. group. Over the course of the sprint, we will all work on vetting applications and use the Slack channel as a central place to discuss what we’re working on and support each other.
Who can take part?
Any deputies who have access to the WordCamp centralWordCamp CentralWebsite for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. listings and/or the Meetup central listings can take part. That means people who have completed the deputy training, signed the deputy agreement and been given access to the dashboard.
If you are a deputy who has been active in the last year, then you should have access to this. If you don’t have access and still want to take part, please comment here or ask in #community-team and we’ll sort out your access.
How Does it Work?
We will be going through the open WordCamp and Meetup applications that still need vetting – you can find WordCamp listings here and Meetup listings here. We also have some handy notes to help you with the vetting process.
As always, deputies can work on these things at any time that suits them, but these dedicated sprints help to provide some direct, focused time for it.
Summary: We followed up on where team members are at in their individual projects. We started creating a plan for putting together our stats for our 2019 Year End Report. I asked for help with a summary paragraph for the top of our workshop script.
Hi Team! Looks like we have a more than a couple of MeetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. and WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. applications in our vetting queue, so let’s have a vetting sprint! This time during the weekend, on Sunday, so people who are not available to attend normally on weekdays can also contribute 🙂
There is more Meetup applications, so let’s keep our main focus on those.
What is a vetting sprint?
A vetting sprint for Meetup and WordCamp applications is a 1-hour session where all available deputies meet together in the #community-team channel in the WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. group. Over the course of the hour, we will all work on vetting applications and use the Slack channel as a central place to discuss what we’re working on and support each other.
Who can take part?
Any deputies who have access to the Meetup Tracker can take part. That means people who have completed the deputy training, signed the agreement and been given access to the tracker (details about the tracker here).
If you are a deputy who has been active in the last year, then you should have access to the tracker. If you don’t have access and still want to take part, please comment here or pingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.”@sippis on #community-team and we’ll give the access.
When is this happening?
Currently, we have one planned sprint that is EU timezone suitable. It would be awesome to have a sprint also for the US timezone, so please tell us in #community-team if you can lead that sprint!
All deputies are welcome to join in vetting sprints and do the vetting by themselves at any time!
How does it work?
As explained above, we will meet in the #community-team channel on Slack at the times listed and dive into vetting meetup applications. Here are some handy links that you will need on the day:
TL;DR: The Community Team is great at managing daily operations but sometimes we lose the “big picture” and things fall between the cracks. Enter Project Management!
The topic of project management has surfaced a few times in the past couple of years. During Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. at WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US 2018 a group of people (Christina Workman – @amethystanswers, Dean Burton – @burtondean, Javier Ontiveros – @javo01, Ken Mick – @kengmick, Ray Mitchell – @raym, Stacey CC DePolo) worked on a first proposal for a workflow and in the past few days @sippis and I reviewed it.
Project Management through TrelloTrelloProject 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.
Trello is a free project management tool based on kanban boards. In its simplest form you have three columns with three status: To Do, Doing, and Done.
Each team that uses kanban boards usually comes up with different ways of leveraging them, including some very complex use cases. We tried to keep it simple enough to be easy to use for as many people as possible, but customised it to the team’s needs.
Why Trello: a SWOT Analysis
Strengths 1) Tool – Free – User friendly – Mobile apps – Browser based 2) Processes The Community Team is busy busy busy. Sometimes we get so busy with the daily stuff (vetting, orientations, invoicing, payments, etc…) that we don’t keep an eye on the bigger picture. Trello will help us do that. – Team work – Work progress – Multiple projects under the same roof (working groups can add a board)
Weakness 1) Tool – Browser based – you can’t use it when you are offline like Google Docs and then sync when you have a connection – Limited in terms of functionality if you are a professional project manager 2) Processes – People need to be added to the boards to be able to edit, comment, etc… – New tool to learn
Opportunities 1) Tool – Add-ons to make the worflow even more efficient 2) Processes – It allows new contributors to pick a project and join the team that is working on it without being a deputy – It allows existing contributors that have been out of the loopLoopThe Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. to go back to working actively on projects
Threats 1) Tool – Not open sourceOpen SourceOpen 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., might disappear into the void – Might become a fully paid tool in the future. There is nothing pointing that any of the above will happen, but you never know… 2) Processes – Change can be met with resistance – Not enough buy-in from senior members of the team – Logging activity in Trello rather than on the team blog adds another level of complexity to deputy reporting
After doing this SWOT analysis it looks like it’s a good idea to try it for real. Especially since we are aware of the threats we can self-correct over time 😉
Suggestions for a smoother adoption
Define the scope
Trello is not for daily activities (vetting, orientations, payments, invoicing, mediation, quizzes, etc…) nor for Community Organisers to organise their events.
Trello is for:
time and scope defined projects
one or more people working on it
Working Groups are a great example, because they are very focused and need all the members to be updated, whether they are present during the biweekly chats or not.
Commit to the experiment
From now to December 31st, we kindly ask you to give Trello a proper chance. It means that if you are working on anything Community related you should use our public board to keep track of the project so everyone can be informed and join.
Make it part of our team chats
We should introduce the board at our meetings as the tool we use to work on projects.
This is an example how the Marketing team does it, and it’s a great way to reinforce how useful Trello is for everyone:
Right click on your mouse, Open in New Tab, so you can actually read what it says 🙂
Trial Period
We will use Trello until the end of the year. If by December 31st 2019 we see that this tool has actually slowed down projects or became a roadblock for new contributors, we will discontinue it.
What does success look like?
Everything that is non daily operation is documented in the Trello board.
We keep the board updated (even by moving projects into the Backlog column) so people that haven’t been active for a while or are looking for a way to contribute to Community can pick up a task and go with it.
Every proposal that we post in the blog and is met with enthusiasm is turned into a project card in Trello so we know that something happened after we said “What a great idea!”
100% buy-in from all the Community Team
100% buy-in from new contributors that understand that this is part of the on-boarding.
Next steps and call for feedback
To ensure adoption we need these processes to be clear, understandable, and useful.
Please check the guidelines in the Column “👇👇👇 START HERE 👇👇👇”. Do they make sense? Do you think it’s a good workflow to start with?
Explore the projects in the “To Do” and “In Progress” columns. Do they make sense when you see them in action?
Add your project, no matter how simple or complex it might be. Ask in #community-events or #community-team to be added to the board (an unfortunate feature if the software). You need a Trello account to join.
How do you think we should integrate the board in our meetings?
The Diverse Speakers Training group #WPDiversity (formerly Diversity Outreach Speaker Training #WPWomenSpeak) has created a Roadmap for the length of @jillbinder‘s first contract, May 2019 – April 2020.
We are posting it here for feedback and to interest new volunteers to join the group.
Introduction
This working group helps WordPress Meetups and WordCamps develop a more diverse speaker roster via a training (workshop) that helps folks bust through their Impostor Syndrome and develop a topic, title, pitch, bio, and outline.
Goals by the end of April 2020
Improve the training based on the feedback from the feedback questionnaires results and things Jill has learned
Promote the training and results of training to WordPress community organizers and prospective speakers (identify metrics here — number of tweets/articles/pageviews)
25 workshops held in chapter meetups or WordCamps
Train 30 people to run the speaker training workshop
Train 125 people from marginalized communities to become speakers
Roadmap
Notes
“Andrea” refers to @andreamiddleton. * and bolded – Stretch goals
Ongoing (Daily or Monthly tasks)
[Admin] Checking Helpscout for new signups
[Trainers] Updating calendly with trainings and communicating to participants about them
[Trainers] Run 1-2 Trainings a month
[Promotion] Write monthly Meetups newsletter article by 10th of the month (ish)
May 2019
[Admin] Restart team (Done)
[Promotion] Create new hashtag and update everywhere (Done)
[Andrea and Jill or Team] Vocabulary for workshops vs trainings (Done)
Improving our offering based on the email questionnaires (and the ideas already in Jill’s head) (Done – not yet published)
May – July
[Andrea, Jill, team] Smoothing out our processes
June
[Material] Improving the training based on the feedback from email questionnaires and things Jill has learned
[Promotion] Create a shorter team name (Done)
[Team] Publish roadmap; Recruit more volunteers
[Trainers] Get us using new systems (calendly, require they’ve created a meetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. for it, email questionnaire)
[Trainers] Schedule first new training(s) starting in June
[Trainers] Start giving trainings again, 1-2 times a month
[Trainers] Jill record a short video on what this is
[Andrea, Jill, Trainers / Promotion] Create new email questionnaire follow-up system and/or Zoom interviews; Send it out to previous facilitators; Start collecting case studies for marketing ?
June – July
[Translations] Translating the workshop and materials to Brazilian Portuguese and Italian
[Trainers] Contact past attendees and dormant emails (not responded in several months) to let the new speaker wranglers this year know about workshop and see if they’d like training
[Trainers] Contact past attendees to see if they’d like to take it again
[Trainers] Contact past attendees for their info for the “Past Workshops Celebration” page
[Promotion] Put the workshop into the materials for WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Speaker wranglers and the Meetups info
[Training, Promotion] Create a “Past Workshops Celebration” page on Make WordPress that shows images, stats, and maybe stories of each workshop
August
* [Workshop] Short and long version of workshop
[Trainers] Trainings in different time zones start (to confirm with @angelasjin)
August – September
[Translations] Translated the workshop and materials to another 1-2 languages
September
* [Self-guided Training] Record 10-20 minute “how to use”
* [Self-guided Training] Have team attend a training that we record for Train The Trainers
* [Languages] Start onboarding trainers who can do other languages
October
* [Self-guided Training] Record module facilitator notes
October – November
[Translations] Translated the workshop and materials to another 1-2 languages
January 2020
* [Languages] Start offering trainings in different languages
More frequent trainings start. 3-4 time a month?
Marketing
@aurooba is taking on creating a Roadmap for Promotion. These are Andrea and Jill’s suggestions before consulting with her:
A page somewhere in the WordPress ecosystem to show pictures, stats, and maybe stories of all the places that had our workshops. A little public visibility to encourage people to send us their info.
Visual Roadmap
This is a version of the above put in a summary form so that it could be laid out visually.
We are always looking for folks who care about Diversity in WordPress (#WPDiversity). We are looking for:
Big-picture thinkers
Project management strategists
Content strategists
Marketing strategists
People who can carry out a marketing plan
Trainers (we will train you)
Folks who can do small admin tasks
Folks who can just give opinions here and there to help guide us through the big and little decisions
Translators
and more!
Comment here with your interest, write to @jillbinder on the WordPress Slack, or attend tomorrow’s meeting (2nd and 4th Wednesdays) on the #community-team Slack channel: Wednesday, June 12 @ 5pm UTC.
Office hours are usually quite quiet, people ask their questions when it’s convenient for them and deputies forgot to open or close those (regardless of the bot we have to remind us). There is almost always deputy to answer questions or if there isn’t, the question will be caught up later when some deputy sees it.
So, I’d like to question if community hours are really needed and propose their retirement. In exchange there are few things we could do to encourage people to ask questions freely.
During the last community team meetings, few good ideas were conducted from the discussion:
replace the office hours sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. and welcome box text with something more general about #community-events channel and encouraging to ask questions at all times
having a random empathy bot that reminds #community-team that we should post something encouraging to #community-events if the channel has been quiet for some time
Some concerns were also raised:
some people are waiting for the office hours before asking their questions
we don’t want to loose a human touch so having a bot in #community-events opening/closing office hours, sending random reminder messages or auto-replying is not an option
we need to be very clear that people can ask their questions any time, but know that they may not get an immediate answer
Please share your thoughts about retiring office hours or ideas on how to evolve those! Comments will close 10.4., please leave your comment before that.
Concerns have been raised about the posting of news about the WordPress Governance Project on make.wordpress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and use of the #community-teamSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel giving the impression the project is sanctioned as an official WordPress project. It has not received such sanctions from WordPress leadership.
For this reason, all further work of the WordPress Governance Project will take place on the dedicated site at wpgovernance.com and asynchronous chat will happen at twgp.slack.com.
To allow everyone interested to sign up to the New Slack channel, and get acquainted with the new site, the first meeting will be postponed by one week to January 15, 1600 UTC.
