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Learn WordPress is getting closer to its full launch and more workshops are being published, worked on and planned. One essential idea with workshops are discussion groups, that are a great way to share thoughts and ideas between others that have watched the recorded workshop.
Discussion groups can be held via Zoom or in #community-eventsSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel by original workshop presenter(s) or anyone who wants to be a discussion group leader. Virtually anyone interested in leading a discussion group on any of the workshops on the site is welcome to do so.
To make the most out of workshops and discussion groups, it would be great to have at least two discussion groups per each workshop. These discussion groups can happen anytime and even after the workshop has been published already months ago – it’s up to the discussion group leaders interest.
Currently, discussion groups are a bit hidden in the Learn WordPress platform. I’m proposing the following additions in order to raise awareness about discussion groups happening and more attendees and discussion group leaders:
1. Add “Upcoming discussion groups” section between “Recent workshops” and workshop idea submission CTA on the front page.
This new section would list three next upcoming discussion groups and link to the meetup.com page where all upcoming discussion groups are listed. This way also older workshops get some attention on the front page if new discussions groups for those are scheduled.
We already have code to get meetupsMeetupMeetup 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. from meetup.com, so it shouldn’t be a big job to get scheduled discussion groups from there as well. Of course, it needs some dev time, but I’m sure it will be worth it.
2. Add “Interested in running a discussion group?” CTA next to current “Have an Idea for a Workshop?“ CTA on the front page.
I’d like to have many discussion group leaders, so running those won’t fall into the responsibility of a workshop presenter(s) and a small group of an active group of Learn WP deputiesProgram SupporterCommunity Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook.. With this new CTA in place, we make it more visible that virtually anyone can run a discussion group if they find a workshop they’re really interested in and there’s no scheduled discussion group for that workshop.
Quick mockup showing how upcoming discussion groups and new CTA could be places on the front page.
3. Add details about discussion groups in workshop pages.
Currently, the page of a single workshop only has a button “Join a Discussion Group” which is a bit vague. We should add a small blurb on top of the button explaining what is a discussion group. Below the button could be a small text, much like the CoCCode of Conduct“A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia notice, saying that if there’s no scheduled discussion group for this workshop, apply to be a discussion group leader to run one.
4. Create a new “Be a Discussion Group leader” page
As you might notice, two previous proposals contain a link to a page that doesn’t exist at this time on Learn WP platform. We should create a new page where it is explained what discussion group is, what it means to be a discussion group leader and how to apply. Currently, this information exists only in this make/community posts.
Tracking all the upcoming discussion groups and keeping an eye that each workshop has at least two groups
It would be nice to have at least two discussion groups for each workshop. These can happen anytime after the workshop has been published, even months later.
To keep track of upcoming discussion groups, we’ll use meetup.com where all scheduled discussion groups are being added.
In parallel to public listing on scheduled groups, I suggest that we create a new Google sheet with each workshop listed on it. In the sheet we can track if;
Zoom discussion group has been scheduled/held
Slack discussion group has been scheduled/held
Additional discussion groups have been scheduled/held
It would fall mostly under my lap, as I promised to manage discussion groups, but everyone who schedules a new discussion group in meetup.com should update this sheet.
With this sheet, we can track if a workshop hasn’t had any discussion groups and we can reach out to our discussion group leaders and workshop presenter(s) (not too) regularly asking whether they would like to schedule one. In future, the list of workshops needing a discussion group leader, could be added to the new “Be a Discussion Group leader” in Learn WP platform.
What do you think? Thoughts, ideas, comments, questions? How we could attract more discussion group leaders and attendees in your opinion? Please share your feedback before 2020-11-09.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve been working with the MetaMetaMeta 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 on the preferred way to collect and track non-technical roadmap or wishlist items for the the Learn WordPress initiative. I had initially proposed adding these as issues in the Learn GitHub repository. Concern was raised that we shouldn’t ask non-technical users to make a GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ account or learn how to use GitHub to be able to comment or contribute ideas. We talked though several options before arriving on the solution I’m sharing with you today.
The Resolved Posts pluginPluginA 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 has been installed on this site. The plugin adds a button at the bottom of each published post (when viewing on the front of the site) which toggles through three states: no value, to do (unresolved), and done (resolved). Unresolved posts have a red stripe on the left down the length of the post. Once resolved, the stripe will be green.
The 5 oldest unresolved posts will appear in a new Unresolved 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. in the 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. of this site. I’ve gone through all of the posts on this site and cleared the unresolved flag from posts that were informational or very old. I’ve commented on the four remaining posts that were unresolved asking for feedback to see if they should remain unresolved.
For the Learn WordPress roadmap items, each items should be created as a post on this site and include the #learn-roadmap tag. After publishing the post, mark it as a To Do. When viewing the #learn-roadmap tag page, a widget can be seen in the sidebar showing unresolved #learn-roadmap posts. This widget will also appear when viewing any post with this the #learn-roadmap tag. Going forward, I suggest we adopt the following:
if consensus to proceed with the idea is reached, an issue should be opened on the GitHub repository and a top comment be added with a link to the issue
once the GitHub issue is complete, the roadmap post can be marked resolved.
Please comment below if there is a better way to transition from roadmap post to GitHub issue for the developers to work on. I’ll leave this open for input until October 2, 2020.
Hugh Lashbrooke
9:47 am on August 6, 2020 Tags: learn-roadmap
Since we’ve been talking about moving beyond events when it comes to online WordPress content, and there’s an application form available for anyone who would like to assist with reviewing submitted workshops, this is a good time to discuss the submission and review process for workshops submitted to the Learn WordPress platform, which is intended to be hosted on learn.wordpress.org.
This process needs to be simple enough that it doesn’t discourage people from submitting their content, and open enough so that reviewers can collaborate on the process effectively. Here’s a proposal for how this could work:
Step 1: A presenter submits their workshop details in a custom form, which saves their details as a new post in the same post type that published workshops are stored in, but in draft status. This will sound familiar to 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. organisers as it’s exactly how WordCamp session submissions work.
Step 2: Reviewers are given a user role that permits them to edit posts in the workshop post type (possibly editor or a custom user role if necessary). They can log in to review the workshop and leave notes on it as needed. These notes can be viewed by other reviewers to facilitate collaboration in the process.
Step 3: For a workshop that is approved, the reviewer would then request any additional info from the presenter (likely using the support@wordcamp.org Help Scout instance for communication), and inform them that they should go ahead and record the workshop. This means that presenters don’t unnecessarily spend the time recording content that is not going to be used.
Step 4: The recorded workshop (hosted on WordPress.tv), along with any other missing info, is added to the post and it is scheduled to be published if it passes a final review of the content itself.
This process enables collaboration between reviewers and minimises any friction in the process.
Feedback
Does this process sound open and collaborative enough for this kind of platform?
Is there anything that you would change in the steps outlined above?
After much brainstorming, reflection, and discussion we’ll be adding non-synchronous workshops to our inspirational and educational content in addition to the online meetupsMeetupMeetup 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 events we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past several months. This exciting new effort is explained and discussed in greater detail in a recent post.
Later this month we’ll begin releasing new pre-recorded content aimed at educating and engaging both new and longterm WordPress users. While the content itself is sure to be fantastic, it’s just the starting point. Once the workshop content has been made available and community members and users have watched and learned from it, we will launch a discussion group, or series of discussion groups, to greater explore the content of each workshop.
Yesterday I announced the application to submit Learn WordPress workshops. Today I’m excited to share with you the application to be a workshop reviewer.
Workshop reviewers will review applications for workshops in their area of expertise and in the language(s) in which they’re fluent and make recommendations on whether the workshops should be created and shared in the Learn WordPress project.
After much brainstorming, reflection, and discussion we’ll be adding non-synchronous workshops to our inspirational and educational content in addition to the online meetupsMeetupMeetup 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 events we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past several months. This exciting new effort is explained and discussed in greater detail in a recent post.
Later this month we’ll begin releasing new pre-recorded content aimed at educating and engaging both new and longterm WordPress users. While the content itself is sure to be fantastic, it’s just the starting point. Once the workshop content has been made available and community members and users have watched and learned from it, we will launch a discussion group, or series of discussion groups, to greater explore the content of each workshop.
In the second Community Team chat Thursday, we were discussing how to promote this Speaker workshop. I suggested it could be possible to use 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.. Some discussion occurred in #meta-wordcamp as well which parallel’s Ian’s post.
A few differences to note from online WordCamps:
This workshop is being organized from Vancouver. I think the location of the organizers should be ignored since a typical radius would exclude potential interested participants.
This workshop will be held April 14-16 for one hour each at 1800 UTC / 2pm EDT.
This workshop will be offered in English.
I propose similar questions to Ian’s post, with a few modifications.
Questions
Should Community Team online training workshops show up in the widget?
If so, who should they be shown to? Here are a few potential criteria:
Everyone within a timezone where the event would occur between 8am – 8pm in the user’s local timezone.
Everyone who speaks the same language— or locale? — as the workshop.
A combination of the above? Some other criteria entirely?
Should the timezone and/or language of the event be displayed in the dashboard?
+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//metaMetaMeta 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. +make.wordpress.org/coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.
