Global WordPress Translation Day 3 – Info for event organizers

The third Global WordPress Translation day is happening on Saturday September 30th 2017 and we’re inviting everyone who wants to help translate WordPress, themes, and plugins into their own language, to join us for a 24-hour global translation sprint – #WPTranslationday.

The Global WordPress Translation Day is managed by the WordPress Polyglots Team.  It is a huge, global, translation marathon that will bring thousands of Polyglots together on the same day for a 24-hours live event and for hundreds of synced local events.

As 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. 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, you are 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/.’s best allies for this event. Please have a look at their post about the event for all of the details.

Once you have made the decision to organise a local event for this day, here is a handy event template that the Polyglots team put together for you to use:

Event Title: Global WordPress Translation Day 3

Event Description:

Global WordPress Translation Day is a 24-hour global event dedicated to the translation of the WordPress ecosystem (coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., themes, plugins).

This is a unique and innovative event – a cool mix of digital and physical: A 24-hour live stream on https://wptranslationday.org that will provide inspiration and training to both coders and translators on localizing and internationalizing. In addition to that, we will come together to learn about internationalization (i18n) and localization (L10n), as well as to translate WordPress, plugins, and themes.

Make sure to come with your laptop. We can help you create a 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/ account in case you don’t have one yet.

More info on https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2017/08/01/global-wordpress-translation-day-3/

You can copy and paste that content when creating your local event on your meetup group.

#global, #polyglots, #translation

2016 Global Community Sponsorship Levels and Benefits

tl;dr — new entity = new sponsor benefits and rules, proposal to allow things like coupon codes and calls to action, weigh in

New Benefits for a New Year

For 2016, a new subsidiary of the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. will be created to provide legal and financial support to official WordPress community events. Running the money via this new entity allows us to change some of the rules for event sponsors, since the tax laws for 501(c)3 organizations will no longer restrict us. Yay!

(Good background reading: 2016 Global Sponsorship, for info about new regions/names/etc, and Money, Money, Money, for background about a new financial entity supporting WordPress community events)

While a lot of the IRS rules are great for keeping WordPress community events from feeling like corporate trade shows, the rules are really strict and require a lot of volunteer time. We think we can keep the non-commercial feel of WordCamps and 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. while still allowing sponsors to offer discounts to attendees and make calls to action on their materials. We want to keep the expectation that sponsors will use factual/provable language when referring to their company and products, to avoid sponsors describing themselves as “the best WordPress hosting company in the world,” etc, at events.

Another notable change is the proposed switch the sponsor acknowledgement tweet from the 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. account (shout-out to Marjorie Asturias for doing these for the last year or so!) back to asking each 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 to tweet from their individual WordCamp account. While this might require a little more work from organizing teams, with the new organizer roles added to WordCamp Central, I think we can set up some reminder emails to make it easier for organizing teams to remember to tweet about global sponsors.

Oh, and you’ll notice the proposal to give a small discount on sponsorship of WordCamp Europe and WordCamp US for companies that sponsor in both Western and Eastern regions. We can’t include WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. and WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. in the Global Sponsorship program — their size and budgets are out of scale with other events in the program — but if companies sponsoring community events *worldwide* wish to sponsor WCEU and WCUS on top of everything else, we’d like to facilitate that.

Finally, we tried to create better differentiation between sponsorship levels, applying some new numbers to things like swag items for the self-serve swag table and tickets for sponsor representatives.

Without further ado, here’s the proposal for a new set of global sponsorship benefits and rules:

Global Community Sponsorship costs and packages

The following prices (posted for comment here) reflect sponsorship for the 2016 calendar year. In 2015, there were 53 WordCamps in the Western region and 34 WordCamps in the Eastern region. We anticipate at least a 10% increase in events in 2016.

Level Western (The Americas) Eastern (Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa)
Gold $160,000 $80,000
Silver $80,000 $50,000
Bronze $45,000 $35,000

Gold Community Sponsor benefits:

  1. Name, large logo, and company description/blurb on all WordCamp websites in the region
  2. Acknowledgment on the sponsors page on WordPress chapter account meetups/user groups
  3. Coupon code in your sponsor description, posted to all meetups and WordCamps in the region (subject to approval)
  4. A blog post written by the sponsoring company posted to the WordCamp site (subject to approval)
  5. Table at WordCamps for meeting attendees if space is available*
  6. Acknowledgment on sponsor page on WordCamp Central, including coupon code
  7. Announcement as a Global Community SponsorGlobal Community Sponsor Company that sponsors the WordPress community events through the global sponsorship program. on the WordCamp Central blog
  8. Dedicated tweet announcing your sponsorship from the official Twitter account for each WordCamp you sponsor
  9. Inclusion in the Thank You To Our Sponsors blog post on each WordCamp in the region
  10. Three swag items added to each WordCamp’s “swag table,” if available (subject to approval)
  11. Four free tickets to each WordCamp you sponsor, reserved for your company representatives**
  12. Worldwide sponsors will receive a 10% discount on sponsorship for WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe

Silver Community Sponsor benefits:

  1. Name, medium logo, and company description/blurb on WordCamp websites
  2. Acknowledgment on sponsor page on WordCamp Central
  3. Announcement as a Global Community Sponsor on the WordCamp Central blog
  4. Acknowledgment on the sponsors page on WordPress chapter account meetups/user groups
  5. Dedicated tweet announcing your sponsorship from the official Twitter account for each WordCamp you sponsor
  6. Inclusion in the Thank You To Our Sponsors blog post on each WordCamp in the region
  7. A sticker and postcard added to each WordCamp’s “swag table,” if available (subject to approval)
  8. Two free tickets to each WordCamp you sponsor, reserved for your company representatives**
  9. Worldwide sponsors will receive a 5% discount on sponsorship for WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe

Bronze Community Sponsor benefits:

  1. Name, small logo, and company description/blurb on WordCamp websites
  2. Acknowledgment on sponsor page on WordCamp Central
  3. Acknowledgment on the Global Community Sponsor page on WordPress chapter account meetups/user groups
  4. Announcement as a Global Community Sponsor on the WordCamp Central blog
  5. Inclusion in the Thank You To Our Sponsors blog post on each WordCamp in the region
  6. A sticker or postcard added to each WordCamp’s “swag table,” if available (subject to approval)

*Not all WordCamp venues will have space to provide tables to sponsors, but if the venue has enough space to accommodate sponsor tables, then community sponsors will be offered exhibition space. In your notification email, you’ll be informed whether or not the venue has exhibition space so you can request a table right away.

**Free, reserved tickets will return to the general ticket pool if they are not claimed one month before WordCamp. Tickets reserved for sponsors should not be used for ticket giveaways; these are only for your company representatives who wish to attend the event.

Different rules for sponsors

Here are proposed changes to sponsorship rules for 2016, with last year’s rules included for contrast:

2015 sponsorship rules 2016 sponsorship rules
1. Sponsors may provide:
  • The sponsor’s name and logo
  • Slogans that are an established part of the sponsor’s image
  • The sponsor’s brands and trade names
  • Sponsor contact information (such as telephone numbers, email addresses, and home page URLs)
  • Factual (value-neutral) displays of actual products
  • Displays or handout materials (such as brochures) with factual, value-neutral, non-comparative/non-qualitative descriptions or listings of products or services
1. Sponsor may provide:
  • The sponsor’s name and logo
  • Slogans that are an established part of the sponsor’s image
  • The sponsor’s brands and trade names
  • Sponsor contact information (such as telephone numbers, email addresses, and URLs)
  • Factual displays of actual products
  • Displays or handout materials (such as brochures) with factual, non-comparative descriptions or listings of products or services
  • Price information, or other indications of savings or value, if factual and provable
  • Inducements to purchase or use the Sponsor’s products or services, for example by providing coupons or discount purchase codes (subject to approval)
  • Calls to action, such as “visit this site for details”, “call now for a special offer”, “join our league of savings”, etc.
2. Sponsors may not provide:
  • Promotional or marketing material containing qualitative, comparative, or non-neutral messages about the Sponsor, its products or services (such as “the first name in WordPress hosting”, “award-winning”, or “the best e-commerce 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”)
  • Qualitative or comparative language, price information, or other indications of savings or value
  • Inducements to purchase or use the Sponsor’s products or services (for example, by handing out coupons or discount purchase codes)
  • Calls to action (“visit this site for details”, “call now for a special offer”, “go to”, “join our league of savings”, etc.)
  • Claims that WordPress Foundation, WordCamps, or WordCamp organizers endorse or favor a Sponsor or its products or services
2. Sponsors may not provide:
  • Promotional or marketing material containing comparative messages about the Sponsor, its products or services, such as “the first name in WordPress hosting”, “the easiest way to launch your site”, or “the best e-commerce plugin”
  • Claims that WordPress, WordPress Foundation, 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, WordCamps, or WordCamp organizers endorse or favor a Sponsor or its products or services , such as “certified WordPress training” or “WordCamp’s favorite hosting provider”
3. Sponsors agree that the Foundation and WordCamp organizers have the right to request and review sponsor materials in advance of an event, to require changes to any materials in advance, and to require that any materials that do not meet the above expectations be taken down or that any practices that do not meet the above expectations be discontinued during a WordCamp or event. The above restrictions also apply to material placed on any self-serve swag tables reserved for sponsor use. 3. Sponsors agree that the WordPress Foundation, any subsidiary of the Foundation, and WordCamp organizers have the right to request and review sponsor materials in advance of an event, to require changes to any materials in advance, and to require that any materials that do not meet the above expectations be taken down or that any practices that do not meet the above expectations be discontinued during a WordCamp or event. The above restrictions also apply to material placed on any self-serve swag tables reserved for sponsor use.
4. All sponsors are expected to support the WordPress project and its principles, including:
  • No discrimination on the basis of economic or social status, race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, or disability.
  • No incitement to violence or promotion of hate
  • No spammers
  • No jerks
  • Respect the WordPress trademark.
  • Embrace the WordPress license; If distributing WordPress-derivative works (themes, plugins, WP distros), any person or business officially associated with WordCamp should give their users the same freedoms that WordPress itself provides: 100% 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. or compatible, the same guidelines we follow on 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/.
  • Don’t promote companies or people that violate the trademark or distribute WordPress derivative works which aren’t 100% GPL compatible.
4. All sponsors are expected to support the WordPress project and its principles, including:
  • No discrimination on the basis of economic or social status, race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, or disability.
  • No incitement to violence or promotion of hate
  • No spammers
  • No jerks
  • Respect the WordPress trademark.
  • Embrace the WordPress license; If distributing WordPress-derivative works (themes, plugins, WP distros), any person or business officially associated with WordCamp should give their users the same freedoms that WordPress itself provides: 100% GPL or compatible, the same guidelines we follow on WordPress.org.
  • Don’t promote companies or people that violate the trademark or distribute WordPress derivative works which aren’t 100% GPL compatible.
5. Sponsorship is in no way connected to the opportunity to speak at an official WordPress event and does not alter the WordPress or WordCamp trademark usage policy found at http://wordpressfoundation.org/. WordPress Foundation reserves the right to modify the above requirements and expectations at any time by providing written notice to the sponsor. 5. Sponsorship is in no way connected to the opportunity to speak at an official WordPress event and does not alter the WordPress or WordCamp trademark usage policy found at http://wordpressfoundation.org/. The WordPress Foundation and any subsidiary of the Foundation reserve the right to modify the above requirements and expectations at any time by providing written notice to the sponsor.

What do you think about these proposed changes? Is any of the language confusing or unclear? Have opinions on coupon codes or twitter accounts? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

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

Reusing WordCamp lanyards: our badge of honor, or a pain in the neck?

Currently, 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. provides lanyards to all WordCamps in the US and Canada who need them, then asks the organizing team to collect the lanyards at the end of 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. and ship them to the next, closest WordCamp on the schedule.

This helps reduce the amount of waste that WordCamps create, which of course minimizes our combined carbon footprint, and makes us all very proud. Unfortunately, this project has faced a few challenges:

  • WordCamp organizers often forget to collect lanyards after the event; it’s frequently the last thing they think about on the “day of.”
  • WordCamp organizers often collect some lanyards, but not very many – best retention is 60%, tops.
  • Shipping lanyards from WordCamp to WordCamp cancels out some of the carbon footprint reduction.
  • Some people think it’s yucky to use a lanyard someone else has already used.
  • This program never grew past the US and Canada, because shipping between WordCamps internationally is really expensive.

So where do we go from here? I’d like to keep providing lanyards to WordCamps, if people agree that’s valuable.

Option A is to buy WordCamps recycled PET lanyards — branded with the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org.’s logo — in quantities high enough to get us a stellar deal. We could ship out these lanyards in the same package as WordPress swag (buttons, stickers). One advantage here would be that we could then provide lanyards to WordCamps outside the US and Canada, yay! The “yuck factor” would be neutralized, but we could not say that we were in any way reducing the amount of waste created by WordCamps.

Option B is to redouble our efforts to reuse lanyards at WordCamps, and all agree to do better at collecting them at the end of the event. This also doesn’t address the “yuck” factor, but it does reduce the number of lanyards that the WordCamp program generates. This also doesn’t address the issue of non-US and Canada events missing out on this benefit.

Do you have a preferred option, or can you suggest an Option C, D, or E to help us efficiently reduce WordCamp waste? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

#global, #wordcamp, #wordcamps