Proposal: Next Generation Event URL

In June, we started discussing tooling for NextGen WordPress events. One of the ideas we discussed is an updated URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org mapping, to accommodate a diversity of event types events.wordpress.org/city(or country)/year/event-type.

We anticipate that this new URL structure will make it much easier for new audiences to discover our community events, and for returning attendees to find what they’re looking for.

Community Day in Rome is the first NextGen pilot event to use this new URL structure. Their event URL is events.wordpress.org/rome/2023/training.

The second NextGen pilot event to use this new URL structure is a monthly online community building workshop for all community members in Japan. The event will kick off in August 2023 and is planned to continue into 2024.

The recent discussion in #community-team about the URL for NextGen events has resulted in several options to approach the URL, especially for multi-city, multi-year, and multi-format events.

Referring to the principles of readability, ease of understanding, and scalability, we’d like to propose the following URL:

events.wordpress.org/city(or country)/year/event-title.

The event-title can be anything that best describes the event. We can also add -2 to indicate the series of events.

For example

In 2023
events.wordpress.org/japan/2023/community-training
events.wordpress.org/japan/2023/community-training-2

In 2024
events.wordpress.org/japan/2024/community-training
events.wordpress.org/japan/2024/community-training-2

If there are no strong objections to this URL structure, we’ll be moving forward with it. Please comment if you have any questions or concerns about it.

Thank you to @angelasjin, @_dorsvenabili, @harmonyromo, @juliarosia and @samsuresh, for contributing to the post!

#next-gen-events #community-event #event-tooling

Discussion: Next Generation Event Tooling 

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 have done amazing things with WordCamp sites. While WordCamp has kept our events afloat for a long time, organizers have long raised challenges with the current platform. As we explore the Next Generation WordPress Events, it seems a great time to also iterate on our current platform as we look to the future of events. 

This is a broad call for input on what sort of tooling would make creating WordCamp sites a joy for WordCamp organizers. Specifically when it comes to building and using the WordCamp website, what have you experienced that you found frustrating? What would you like to be able to do that you currently cannot? 

What does it mean for our Next Gen WordPress Event experimentation?

We need you to share some ideas on how we can maintain our WordPress-powered event site such as WordCamp.org easier, and make it more useful for our event organizers. 

But remember! This discussion is NOT about: 

  1. The events hosted on Meetup.com.
  2. Creating brand-new infrastructure. Rather, we want to make improvements to the current infrastructure.

Idea Example 1: One-size-fits-all Application for Speakers

This came up during the Community Discussion on May 25, 2023, from the group that was assigned a topic on tooling. Having a speaker application system where organizers can send emails to and communicate with potential speakers can help avoid miscommunication and reduce event workload.

Idea Example 2: Alternative URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org Mapping

We’ve heard a great idea floating around — reworking our URL structure to include ‘event’. If folks search for “WordPress events”, they typically get results about event plugins, rather than community-organized events. 

Since the new audience might not be aware of terms like “WordCamp”, a more straightforward URL structure could help us reach broader participants who are seeking specific events such as training and networking.  For example events.wordpress.org/city/2023/event-type

An added benefit is that our community will be able to direct those who are interested in future events to check out updates by using URLs such as events.wordpress.org/city.

Share your feedback by June 20, 2023

To figure out the tooling that would be most effective for our Next Gen Event planning sites, please share ideas about what features could be added or removed to make the most of the website experience.

The community team is very aware that there are also additional tools folks would like to have, like better tools for surveys. e-mail, communication, newsletters. The hope currently is that the focus can be on WordCamp sites only, so the WordCamp 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. team can get a better sense of scope and priority. Future posts will have calls for additional tools!

Please comment by June 20, 2023. The Community and Meta team will review all comments and prioritize based on the level of impact and level of effort required. 

Thank you to @angelasjin, @harmonyromo, @peiraisotta, and @nao for contributing to the post! 

 #next-gen-events #community-event #event-tooling