GSoC

I submitted the WordPress application to participate in GSoC on March 29th, the deadline for applying. The mobile team helpfully added a bunch of project ideas, but coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team has been so focused on 3.6 that that area hasn’t gotten much attention, so I don’t know if we’ll be accepted or not. I left in the (not yet done) ideas and mentorsEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is 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. from a past year so that we wouldn’t look empty, but I would have liked more new projects to get in there. Will be trying to get some core peeps to help round it out today at WC Miami, and will shoot Carol at GSoC an email to let her know we’ve added more stuff (since they finished reviewing applications yesterday, and are announcing accepted orgs on Monday).

If we are accepted I’ll be looking for 2 people to project manage the program for the season. Will talk to a couple of likely people at WC Miami about that today as well.

Gnome Outreach Program for Women

I applied for WordPress to be a mentoring organization for the Gnome program, and we have been accepted. Some good things and some less than good things about this one.

Good Things:

• Not limited to just code. We could take on interns in design, support, translation, documentation, community management, you name it. And code, of course. Much more leeway in the effort to grow the ranks of women project contributors. How awesome would it be for a budding/potential support team member to be officially mentored by @ipstenu or @andrea_r? To have a design intern that could help with all the Make site stuff? To have a pm or org management type get involved with the day to day minutiae of managing our contributor community, much of which goes undone because I and many other people all run out of time for lower-priority administrative tasks? To do 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 reviews? To work on some of the international things suggested by Cátia and Zé? Helping with WC and 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. approvals? We have so many community jobs that don’t get the same level of attention as core contribution, and this would really put a spotlight on some of those areas.
• It’s a small program, communication has been very easy and low-stress so far, and the women overseeing it are readily accessible.
• Students get a stipend of around 5k for the summer, so they can work full-time on the projects.

Less Good Things (well, not less good, but less easy):

• Unlike GSoC, which is funded by Google so all we have to contribute is our time as mentors and admins, the Gnome program will require us to fundraise in order to cover costs. We need to cover at least one intern, and from there it seems to depend on how the general fundraising goes. Basically thinking now’s the time to start a fundraising effort aimed squarely at growing contributor diversity, to cover Gnome program, trainings, etc.
• We don’t have a list from a previous year of undone things that we can swipe. Well, we do and we don’t. Code projects can be swiped from there, but we need to come up with a list of mentors and project ideas for the non-code stuff tout de suite. Will try to get some people together at WC Miami to help with this also, but comments on this post from anyone with a project idea and/or willing to be a potential mentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is 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. for the summer would be great.

Anyway, on Monday we’ll know about GSoC, so we can make an announcement about both programs together. Will also be announcing some plans for WordPress’s 10th anniversary early this coming week.

#gnome, #gsoc, #interns