Tag Archives: highlight

Junko Nukaga 8:33 am on March 17, 2023
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Community Team Goals for 2023 : Next Step

Thank you all so much for sharing your suggestions for the Community team’s 2023 goals, there are A LOT of excellent suggestions here to be excited about!

Over the next 2 weeks, suggested goals will be put into a new, public Community Team 2023 Goals Trello board as separate cards.

In March, we will hold a few chat sessions in the #community-team channel (if you don’t have an account already, sign-up for an one here: https://make.wordpress.org/chat/), where 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 anyone interested are invited to chat about specific goals, and add details to goal cards. The 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. board will be open for the next 2 weeks, so that people can share input outside of those sessions.

You can put your comments on the cards you consider high priority.
It can be just +1.

Then we will discuss final additions and priorities at our regular April chat meeting, 6 April. If you would prefer to have a Zoom hangout before then to discuss the goals, let us know what time zone and we’ll try to make that happen.

After that, the Team reps will summarize our goals and top priorities for 2023.

If any deputies are interested in helping with putting goals in Trello, or facilitating discussions and recapping goals, please pingPing The 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.” @mysweetcate or @leogopal or me(@nukaga)!

#2023-team-goals, #community-team, #goals, #highlight

Cate DeRosia 4:09 pm on January 23, 2023
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Community Team Goals for 2023: Call for Suggestions

It’s time to add your voice to what you’d like to see the Community Team accomplish as a group for 2023. As you can see in brainstorming posts from 2021, 2020, 2018, 2017, and 2016, every year we collected and shortlisted a long list of goals for our team.

This is an open thread for suggestions about what this team ought to focus on and/or try to accomplish this year. It’s ok to include:

  • Ideas that have already been suggested in the past
  • Propose things that maybe no one has ever mentioned.

Once the group has had time to make suggestions, we’ll recruit someone to summarize all the suggestions (example), and then discuss as a group, to set priorities. We’ll close comments on February 2.

Because of the short time frame, we’re looking at splitting the goal planning into two phase. We’d like to plan an initial set of goals for the first half of 2023 and then open the conversation again in May for the second half of the year. That doesn’t mean we can’t have overarching goals for all of to 2023. It simply opens our thinking to short term initiatives while also making sure that we are tracking our progress throughout a long and busy year.

Consider these as you think through your suggestions:

  • What would do you think 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. should or could work on?
  • What would help further our mission to connect WordPress enthusiasts?
  • What would inspire people to do more with WordPress?
  • How can we encourage contribution to the WordPress 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. project, in 2023? 

Comment below!!

#community-team, #goals, #highlight, #team-goals

Hari Shanker R 4:00 pm on November 5, 2021
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2022 Goals for the Community Team: Suggestions Invited

As 2021 is slowly coming to an end (can you believe it?) it is time to start thinking about the Community Team’s goals for 2022. While 2021 felt like a continuation of 2020, we did see some exciting changes on the horizon, especially as we paved way for the return of in-person WordPress meetups, WordCamps, and do_action charity hackathons. I feel that 2022 will be a pivotal year for our team as we begin to see a return to in-person events after nearly 18 months of online events. Hence, it seems prudent that the team starts thinking of its 2022 goals early on.

This post is intended as an open thread for suggestions for our 2022 team goals. Please share your ideas on what our team should try to accomplish in 2022. Ideas that were suggested in the past and new ideas are welcome. 

As you can see in brainstorming posts from 2021, 2020, 2018, 2017, and 2016, every year we collected and shortlisted a long list of goals for our team. However, the team often fell short of meeting these goals. As we are on the cusp of a challenging (and exciting!) year, it feels more prudent to have a small set of achievable goals that will help us find a direction for our team.

While all ideas are welcome, we request you to focus on high-level goals that are achievable, which will set the direction for our growth as we step into a new year.

We will leave this post open for comments until December 6, 2021 (Monday) December 13 (Monday) to give everyone time to make their suggestions. After that, we will be organizing brainstorming sessions to summarize the suggestions and filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. them into a short set of high-level goals for our team.

If you would like to be involved in the goal setting process, please comment on this post expressing your interest, OR reach out to @sippis or @harishanker in the Make 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/..

What would you think 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. should focus on, in 2022? Let us know in the comments!

#goals #highlight #team-goals

The following fine folks contributed to this post: @angelasjin, @kcristiano, @_dorsvenabili, and @sippis

jillbinder 5:00 pm on July 26, 2021
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Announcement and Call for Volunteers: Expanding #WPDiversity to three programs

TL;DR The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) is launching 3 new programs:

  1. Diverse Speaker Workshops
  2. New: Diverse Speaker Support
  3. New: Allyship program

We have great opportunities for volunteers to get involved with all three programs.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) in the WordPress Community Team is growing once again!

This group has been helping 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. and WordCamps attract and develop more diverse speakers since late 2017. In 2020 alone, we quintupled our impact by reaching 71 cities in 17 countries, and participants reported a 20% increase in public speaking confidence! (Check out our impact in our monthly reports.)

With your help, we will expand #WPDiversity to three programs to continue to work towards meeting the shared vision of diversity, equity and inclusion at WordPress events around the world.

We formed these three programs based on the community’s input on “Re-imagining the work of the Diverse Speaker Training group” for 2021.

1. Diverse Speakers Workshops:

Challenge

Often the speaker lineups of our meetups and WordCamps look alike and come from a similar background. There are many other voices that aren’t being heard as much: women, LGBTQIA+ individuals (which include non-binary, trans and genderqueer folk), people of color, people of different physical abilities, neurodivergent people, people who are older, etc.

Since the events of 2020, many meetups also haven’t had the bandwidth or confidence to run our workshops for themselves in their local communities any more. How can the WordPress Community Team support more diverse contributors, organizers, and leaders in WordPress?

The “Diverse Speaker workshops” from the Diversity Speaker Training working group (#WPDiversity) is a “stealthy,” highly effective way. We don’t ask people to be leaders. We bust through their impostor syndrome and help them find topics that people want to hear. Once they take that first step, many go on to do more.

Solution: Program 1 –  Diverse Speaker Workshops

The Diverse Speaker Training working group will continue to run the workshop for the global community directly, which we started doing in response to the pandemic in 2020. Now that the workshops are up on Learn WordPress, it is easier for more people to join our team and run our workshops for the global community.

We also support and encourage 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 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 to run a live or watch party workshop for your local communities yourselves. We are happy to help you get set up.

“Before taking the workshops, I didn’t have the confidence for public speaking. Thanks to these sessions, I can relax, gather my thoughts, and proceed with my presentation. I would recommend this workshop to people of color in the WordPress ecosystem. You belong here; it’s a no-judgment zone where you can find your authentic voice.”

– TC, Learner Advocate, @codebrother1, USA

“LOVED the #WPDiversity Workshop! It really inspired me to bring this type of content to the WordPress Mexico community and bring more diverse groups into speaking at our Meetups and WordCamps. ¡Muchas gracias!”

– Maryl Gonzalez – Co-Founder / Lead UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it./UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. Designer | Scrum/Agile PM – The App Chefs

2. New Diverse Speaker Support program:

Challenge

With the loss of in-person events, the road between Diverse Speaker workshop and public speaking was challenged, as the number of local groups running the workshop to encourage speaking at their own events dwindled. As mindset-shifting and confidence-boosting as our speaker workshops are, the most change happens when someone gets up to speak and has a good experience. We want to help people get on stage as soon as possible.

Solution: Program 2 – Diverse Speaker Support

Our working group is starting up a new 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, #diverse-speaker-support, to provide continued support for our workshop participants. There will be mentorship, networking, and most importantly, support to apply for speaker spots in meetup and WordCamps!

3. New Allyship program:

Challenge

There were events in 2020 that raised awareness and discussions about global inequality issues and social justice. As a result, our event organizers are more aware of diversity issues, but at the same time, feel nervous about being good allies and creating inclusive events.

Solution: Program 3 – Allyship

Our working group is launching a new Allyship program. We will train our WordPress meetup and WordCamp organizers with the Learn WordPress workshop “Creating A Welcoming and Diverse Space.”

This program will be in quarterly cohorts:

  • Month 1: A private, supportive, hands-on, interactive workshop over Zoom. You will walk away with an action list to start making changes right away.
  • Month 2: Public Slack coaching on #community-events
  • Month 3: Public Slack accountability on #community-events

Once people have gone through one cohort, the WP Community would love it if they continue participating in the Slack coaching and accountability sessions in future quarters. People are also welcome to re-take the workshop at any time as well.

“As an organizer of a large event, we’re overwhelmed with many challenges and often overlook diversity. But building a diverse and inclusive event is at the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. of what makes an event extraordinary. This workshop helped me understand these benefits while also providing simple concepts that are easy to comprehend and implement step by step.”

—Eric H., New York

“Before I took this workshop, I thought to have done a good job organizing inclusive and welcoming events. Thanks to this session, I realized how far I am from that. This workshop gave me a lot of inspiring ideas to put in place! I would recommend this workshop to anyone looking to achieve more diversity in their events or communities.”

—Alessandro R., Italy

Call for Volunteers

In order to accomplish these ambitious goals this year, the Diverse Speaker Training working group would like to invite you to participate!

Why volunteer with our team?

  • Our work is inspiring and feels good.
  • We make a difference in the community — with tangible results to show it.
  • We are a highly driven group with high impact. We get the right things done.
  • You will learn a lot! You get great experience and training that you can use. Past volunteers have gone on to lead other groups or get job promotions. 🙂
  • We value your ideas and input.

Volunteers

What: Our working group has all kinds of roles, from helping us develop the new programs to maintaining our current program. Workshop trainers, 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., translations, marketing, behind-the-scenes admin, and more. We also welcome people to just hang out in our meetings to participate in discussions and be available for small one-time contributions. Specific roles come up organically as we move forward, and you are also welcome to suggest creating a new role that inspires you and will assist the team in our mission.

When: You can participate as much or as little as you would like. We’d love it if you could attend meetings on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month at 5-6pm UTC. Not required, but very valued.

You’re a good fit if: You have a strong desire to bring more diverse voices into WordPress events, and you want to help shape how that happens. You do not need to have any prior experience, but a willingness to share ideas, collaborate, and help define and tackle tasks would be amazing.

Please Note

Our working group needs volunteers to help move this important initiative forward. If you have signed up for something, we are relying on you! We understand that things do come up, so if you commit to a task and are unable to complete it or fulfill your role, please tell us as early as possible. The sooner you tell us, the easier it is to make sure your task is covered.

Estimated time commitment:

  • Group meetings: 60 minutes every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, 5pm UTC.
  • Attend our Diverse Speaker workshop at least once (est 2 hours).
  • Attend our Allyship workshop at least once (est 2 hours).
  • The rest is up to how much time you would like to give.

If you’d like to take part in this working group, please comment on this post or come and attend our next meeting (2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, 5-6pm UTC on the #community-team Slack channel). I will then reach out to interested folks. If you have questions, please also feel free to comment on the post. I look forward to working with you and together creating something wonderful!

Thanks to @angelasjin and @evarlese for their feedback on this post!

#highlight

Angela Jin 4:00 am on July 1, 2021
Tags: highlight   

2021 Global Sponsors: Q3-Q4 Update

I’m thrilled to announce the Global Community Sponsors for Q3-Q4 2021! Thank you so much to all the sponsors who support the WordPress community programs, including WordCamps and WordPress Chapter MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups.

Please join me in welcoming Yoast as our newest Global Sponsor, and thanking all of our wonderful sponsors for their support.

Full details on the 2021 Global Sponsorship program and packages can be found here.

The Global Sponsor information for event organizers page in the handbook has been updated, and we’ll be updating the rest of the handbook pages in the coming days. WordPress Chapter Meetup group pages have also recently been updated to acknowledge our global sponsors.

#global-sponsors, #global-sponsorship

#highlight

Angela Jin 10:47 am on February 16, 2021
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Announcement: Decision making checklist for in-person meetups now available

The Community Team now has new handbook pages that give guidance to 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 thinking about whether or not they can host in-person 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.. Please understand that the team recognizes that it is still very unsafe to meet in person in many areas around the world. The vast majority of meetups will need to continue to be online. However, this new checklist will help meetups in areas that have more effectively contained COVID-19 (like New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan) to begin meeting in person again. 

If you are a meetup organizer and would like to get the Community Team’s recommendation on whether you could proceed with an in-person meetup, please visit the following pages, now part of the Meetup Organizer Handbook.

  1. In-Person Meetup Decision Checklist – Organizers can use this checklist to assess whether they can proceed with hosting in-person meetups, based on health authority data and organizer readiness. If you plan to move forward with an in-person meetup, you must submit this checklist to the Community team. 
  2. References and links to Health Authorities – Because the checklist asks organizers to reference health authority data, the team has compiled a list of resources for organizers.
  3. Templates for Meetup Organizers – Some helpful language that meetup organizers can use to explain to members how in-person meetups happen (or not). 
  4. Report form – If an organizer or community member needs to connect with 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. with concerns about local meetups, they can use this form.  

This checklist and process are new territory for the Community Team, in the face of a deeply challenging situation. As more people get vaccinated and regions are able to better address COVID-19, this process will need to evolve to reflect that, and to support the WordPress community’s other beloved in-person event formats (I miss you, WordCamps!). If anyone has questions or feedback on the current checklist and process, please do share that feedback by emailing support@wordcamp.org.  

My deepest gratitude to everyone who participated in the many discussions, and helped to thoughtfully think through and create this process now available to meetup organizers. Shout out and kudos to @sippis, @andreamiddleton, @evarlese, @jenniferswisher, @courtneypk, @harishanker, @kcristiano, @kdrewien, @nao, @_dorsvenabili, @jominney, @mariaojob, @tacoverdo, @ashiquzzaman, @adityakane, @samsuresh

#highlight

Erica Varlese 1:33 pm on December 1, 2020
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Proposal: Moving the Learn Working Group to Training

Back in August, the Learn WordPress platform, in its current state, had a soft launch. Since then, both the Training and Community teams have valiantly worked towards creating new content, improving and refining what’s already present on the site, and bringing on new contributors to help in these efforts.

With the current structure, we have the Training team and the Learn Working Group, housed under the Community Team, working simultaneously on Learn WordPress. Problematically, the two teams are not officially tied and, as such, it is not always easy to know what one another is working on. While there is some overlap from volunteers who are members of both teams, that overlap is not built-in by design. For such a large project that spans teams, this seems to be an opportunity to improve how we approach this work to bolster and strengthen our shared communication channels.

With all that in mind, I’d like to propose that the Learn Working Group be “formally” considered a cross-team working group to drive home the multi-team efforts, and that the group move its communications, meetings, agendas, et al. over to the Training team 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/. and 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. This is also a great opportunity to refresh and refocus the working group to confirm the engagement of everyone involved, while also giving us an opportunity to revisit and modify some of our processes across teams as we grow closer towards an official launch of Learn WordPress.

While proactive communication is necessary for collaboration in any 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. project, there are a few benefits here that this transition would assist with:

  • A more natural link between historical conversations and decisions with future iterations of Learn WordPress.
  • Leveraging the existing structures and tools of the Training team, i.e. weekly team meetings at alternating times with a chat or update on Learn working group tasks.
  • For new contributors that join through their experiences on Learn WordPress, more seamless onboarding between contributing workshops and/or lesson plans.
  • A joint Handbook that covers contributions and guidelines that include both the existing documentation for lesson plans, and new documentation for workshops.

For working group members, Community, and Training team folks, how does this proposal sound?

Are there any reasons we would not want to do this?

Any benefits that are missing?

I would like to leave this post open for a week – until December 9, 2020 – for conversation, thoughts, and concerns, with the idea that we can come to a resolution before the new year, especially as we continue planning for future improvements, changes, and iterations on Learn WordPress.

Thank you so much to @courane01, @camikaos, @hlashbrooke, and @angelasjin for helping me write this proposal.

+make.wordpress.org/training/

#learn-wordpress #highlight

Mary Job 9:37 am on December 1, 2020
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Community Team Reps: Submit your Votes

In November, the Community team opened up nominations for new Community team reps for 2021. The poll is now open and ready for your vote!

What are team reps?

In the WordPress 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. project, each team has one or two (or more!) representatives, abbreviated as “reps”. On the Community team, we ask reps to commit to the role for a full calendar year.

Team reps are responsible for communicating on behalf of the group to the other contributor groups via weekly updates, as well as occasional chats. 

As a reminder, it is not called “team lead” for a reason. While the people elected as team reps will generally come from the pool of folks that people think of as experienced leaders, the team repTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. role is designed to change hands regularly.

This role does have a time commitment attached to it, at least one hour a week. The main tasks include:

  • Writing the agenda for the biweekly chat (example)
  • Run the chat (example)
  • Write the recap and post it in Updates
  • Keep an eye on the moving parts of the team and provide reports for quarterly updates (example).

Over the year, the team can decide to add one or two people to help, depending on how much work there is. For now, the Community team would like to elect two team reps for 2021. 

Where can I vote?

You can vote in the public poll here. You can vote for up to two people at the same time, but once you have submitted your vote you won’t be able to vote again.

This poll will remain open until Tuesday, December 22, after which team reps will be selected based on the votes received.

#community-team, #highlight, #team-reps

Angela Jin 12:18 pm on November 16, 2020
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Community Team goals for 2021: share your suggestions!

In January of this 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. posted a request for suggestions for 2020 goals that saw a lot of substantive ideas and suggestions. Of course, this year turned out to be nothing like anyone expected, and COVID-19 forced us to entirely change the way we support the WordPress community. With in person events still on hold, and the brand new Learn WordPress platform being live, it seems timely to start the discussion on 2021 goals. 

If you’d like to see past brainstorming posts, we have them from 2020, 2018, 2017, and 2016.

Please consider this an open thread for suggestions about what this team ought to focus on and/or try to accomplish in 2021. As in past years, you are welcome to suggest ideas that have already been suggested in the past, or to propose things that are entirely new!

We will leave this post open for comments until Monday, December 14 to give everyone time to make their suggestions. After that, we will summarize all suggestions (example) and discuss as a group to set our priorities. If you would like to help summarize the suggestions, please reach out to @angelasjin on 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/.!

What do you think the global community team should or could work on, to help further our mission to connect WordPress enthusiasts, inspire people to do more with WordPress, and contribute to the WordPress 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. project, in 2021? 

#goals #highlight

Hugh Lashbrooke 8:31 am on October 23, 2020
Tags: highlight,   

Learn WordPress course planning

In order to make sure Learn WordPress is ready for a full launch, we need to work towards publishing content as soon as possible that can empower WordPress users to learn relevant and valuable skills. The best way to do that is by compiling courses that target specific learning outcomes. I proposed this on GitHub, so check that out for a deeper explanation of the data structure for this.

In this post, I’d like to explore some course outlines that we could use on Learn WordPress. For a full launch later this year, we need to have a minimum of two complete courses published on the site.

Alongside the course outlines below there are links to existing docs and lesson plans that could be used for people to record the workshops, as well as currently available workshops in some cases. The existing lesson plans and documentation make it very easy for anyone to record a workshop on the topic with minimal effort.

The course & workshop names aren’t set in stone – they’re just from initial brainstorming and this can all be evolved over time.

The feedback needed here is:

  1. Is there anything you would add/change about the course outlines listed here?
  2. Are there any additional courses you can think of that would be good to include?
  3. Which two courses should we make sure to have ready before we do a full, marketed launch of Learn WordPress before the end of 2020?
  4. Are there any workshops that you would like to be involved in creating/recording? If a lesson plan exists, then the workshop is simply using that as your script to record the workshop.

Please read through the proposed courses and outlines below and leave your feedback in the comments!

Continue reading →

#highlight, #learn-wordpress