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Hello friends! It is time to host the next Monthly chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this August (tomorrow – August 15th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress and to continue our work on mentorship programs. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
Meeting times
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.
2. Mentorship Program Updates We’ll be discussing our formal call for mentees, and steps towards finalizing the next cohort.
3. Mentorship Program Cohort #3 (Q4 2024)Implementation Steps With our cohort formally starting in less than two months, let’s start working on setting things up! Since this is a big topic, let’s use most of our time towards this.
4. Working Closely with the Sustainability Team Social Sustainability is a big part of what the Sustainability team does, which aligns with our group’s work. In fact, many of our group members actively participate in the Sustainability team too. Let’s discuss further on how we can work closely with that team going forward.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!
Looking forward to seeing many of you in the chat!
Note: On getting feedback from the community that the AMER timing of our chat was a bit off, we did an experiment where AMER folks could join the chat asynchronously, but it did not work out as planned, unfortunately. We will be resuming regular EMEA and AMER chats going forward from next week.
Notes
Program Updates
Call for Mentees Closes
The early call for mentees for the Q4 2024 WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program concluded on July 15, 2024. The program received 54 mentee applications from 35 cities and 20 countries, along with 30 mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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. applications from 10 countries and 19 cities. Significant interest was noted in the CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team and Plugins team, with 17 and 21 mentee applications respectively. Full application details were shared with the working group for evaluation.
In our chat, we took a detailed look at the applications. There was clearly a higher interest in the Community, Polyglots, and Photos teams from mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. compared to mentees. We also discussed the higher number of mentee applicants for the Plugins team, questioning whether applicants were more interested in creating plugins rather than contributing to the Plugins team’s work. A suggestion was made to separate the Core Team into distinct options: Core, Core Test, and Editor (GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/).
Based on discussions from the past chats, we put together an initial plan for the first cohort, including documentation. The goal of creating this document at an early stage is to create a clear, cohesive, and transparent plan for our initial cohort of the mentorship program helping us to create a more structured and systematic mentoring experience. Here’s a draft of the plan that was shared: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uatuObmi0iZyAC_bBSiGvAMoXV7UFZosPJyqRCySi38/edit
A draft project plan for the next cohort was shared, outlining phases from planning and cohort selection to The plan includes structured onboarding and training sessions, with a goal of establishing a replicable mentorship program format. The plan is based on the current WordPress 6.7 release plan.
Program Duration and Phases
Phase 1: Planning (June-July 2024)
Close Early Mentee Applications by July 15
Create a detailed project plan and white paper
Develop mentor and mentee documentation and guidelines
Define cohort selection criteria
Finalize facilitators and create vetting groups for mentors/mentees
Outreach for the mentorship program
Phase 2: Cohort Selection & Program Building (August–September 2024)
Open call for mentors/mentees
Finalize mentor/mentee selection and inform them
Provide pre-event orientations and training
Create the mentorship Slack channel
Phase 3: Mentorship Program (October 7 – November 15 2024)
Week 1: Welcome and introductions
Week 2: Onboarding and release process familiarization
Ensure at least 25% of mentees contribute to big picture goals-related projects
Major Changes from Previous Cohorts
Use 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/ Project for centralized management
Pre-scheduled live onboarding and training sessions as much as possible
Discussion
We had a discussion on the Mentorship Program and some excellent feedback was shared highlighting the importance of documentation and outreach to local communities.
Broad Suggestions
The team discussed several key points for improving the mentorship program. They emphasized the importance of documentation and suggested setting a 25% contribution goal. The need for outreach to local communities and the inclusion of local cohorts was highlighted. An introductory session before the final team selection was proposed, along with the flexibility for mentees to switch teams if needed. The conversation also covered the importance of planning for translations and setting an application deadline to accommodate vacations in Europe. The overall focus was on structured introductory sessions, local outreach, and careful planning for the mentorship program’s success.
Program Dates
The team discussed potential dates for the mentorship program, suggesting October 7 – November 15, 2024, to align with the release week and avoid overlapping with WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event.. Concerns were raised about this timeline starting too late for optimal contributions to the 6.7 release. An earlier start, like September 30, was proposed for better alignment with the release cycle. Additionally, the idea of bringing a few early applicants as mentees to follow the entire release was considered, which could increase their chances of contributing effectively. The team agreed to finalize the best dates to balance program needs and core involvement.
Opening the Formal Call for Mentees
The team discussed how to combine early and later mentee applications for the mentorship program. One suggestion was to pair mentors and mentees initially, and if any mentees are left without mentors, issue a specific call for the required mentors closer to the start date. The challenge is balancing the early interest sparked by 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. Europe with the promise of a later call. Another idea proposed was to double-check early applicants’ interest before opening the standard invitation. Additionally, the importance of a longer, more structured program to build strong mentor-mentee bonds was emphasized, highlighting that ongoing support and camaraderie are crucial for effective mentorship.
Mini Cohort Starting Early?
A suggestion was made to pre-select up to five early applicants as mentees to follow the entire 6.7 release, starting with the Alpha phase, allowing them to make more significant contributions. This idea was well-received, especially if the mentees seem ready and mentors are available. Another suggestion was to include these mentees in the mentorship planning and documentation process. It was proposed that a “bridge mentor” could be appointed to explain the various aspects of the release as they happen, helping to navigate the complex release operations and enriching the overall experience for everyone involved.
Discussing Program Next Steps
We took some time to discuss next steps in the mentorship program:
Cohort Selection Criteria
Suggestions included prioritizing motivation, desire to learn, and ensuring mentees do not already have connections within the community. It was agreed that previous criteria used should be maintained, but adding a multilingual aspect would be beneficial to address language barriers. It was also noted that mentees should have some prior contribution experience, and mentors should be well-connected within the community. Emphasizing a safe and supportive environment for non-native English speakers was highlighted as essential for effective mentorship. The goal is to offer a more multilingual and globalized version of the mentorship program to better support diverse contributors.
Cohort Size
Participants debated whether to expand the cohort size to 100 or keep it smaller. It was agreed that the number of mentors available would determine the cohort size. A 1:2 mentor-to-mentee ratio was suggested as ideal, with a potential adjustment to 1:3 if needed. Additionally, the idea of creating a mini French cohort was proposed and received positive feedback, acknowledging the presence of Francophone members in the group. The overall consensus was to scale the cohort size based on mentor availability while ensuring effective mentorship.
Working with Projects
One participant suggested organizing an online Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. for bbPressbbPressFree, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org., potentially expanding it to include BuddyPress. The idea received support, and plans were made to coordinate and organize the event. Another participant highlighted the involvement of various teams such as Polyglots, plugins, themes, and learning in parallel operations with the release. The tech leads expressed enthusiasm for collaborating with the mentorship program during the 6.7 release, emphasizing the potential for cross-team projects and enhanced coordination.
Hello friends! It is time to host the next Monthly chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this Thursday (July 18th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress and to continue our work on mentorship programs. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
Meeting times
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Program Updates Our early call for mentees closed on July 15th, 2024. Let’s take some time to briefly share some information on applicant statistics and updates.
3. Mentorship Program Cohort #3 Planning (Q4 2024) Based on all the discussions from our past chats, I have put together an initial plan for our first cohort, including some documentation. The goal of creating this document at an early stage is to create a clear, cohesive, and transparent plan for our initial cohort of the mentorship program helping us to create a more structured and systematic mentoring experience. We will use this time to discuss this plan out in the open and to get folks’ feedback.
4. Discussing Program Next Steps Let’s discuss a project plan to get our mentorship program going. The goal is to create a framework and to work out in the open as much as possible. We will also discuss next steps such as handling our early applicants, opening our call for mentees, as well as finalizing other dates and details for the next cohort.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!
Looking forward to seeing many of you in the chat!
We celebrated wins from the mentorship program in the last chat, incluing the program being featured in the WP Briefing Podcast and the DooTheWoo podcast. Our program also made a splash at 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. Europe 2024, with the event generating a lot of excitement and energy. At the camp, there was a dedicated WordCamp Connect session titled “Introduction to the Mentorship Program” which was facilitated by group members @nao@peiraisotta and @josepmoran. This session provided detailed insights into various aspects of the program and generated significant excitement among attendees. Additionally, in the opening slide of Matt Mullenweg’s 2024 Summer Update, the mentorship program was featured with Q1 2024 mentees being celebrated. Additionally, the opening slide of Matt Mullenweg’s 2024 Summer Update celebrated the Q1 2024 mentees of the mentorship program. Here are some pictures from WCEUWCEUWordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event.:
Participants in the chat expressed their enthusiasm and positive experiences from WordCamp Europe 2024. According to in-person participants at the dedicated WordCamp Connect session, there was great engagement and valuable questions during the event. @josepmoran‘s proposal to bring the mentorship program to local teams in their own languages got a lot of attention. Seeing all the interest from WordCamp participants in mentorship, we opened up an early call for interest for the 2024 Q4 mentorship program at WCEU, which was also announced in the final presentation!
Mentorship Program Cohort #3 (Q4 2024) Updates
Preparations for the next mentorship program have begun with the early call for interest already out. In the last meeting, the group decided on a cohort size of about 40 mentees paired with 20 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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.. The aim is to involve as many Make/Teams as possible, with each mentee working on dedicated projects contributing to the 6.7 release.
The program will be executed in four phases:
Planning (June to August 2024): The full call for mentees and mentors will open in August.
Cohort Selection and Program Building (August to September 2024): Selection of participants will take place, with announcements in early September.
Mentorship Program (late September to early November 2024): The program will run for 4-6 weeks leading up to the release week.
Graduation and Retrospective (November to December 2024): Focus on concluding activities and reflecting on the program.
Chat participants expressed great interest in the cohort and in joining the same in various capacities. We then opened up a discussion on the following important points:
On Ensuring Great Mentorship Participants emphasized the need for pre-introduction workshops to help mentees understand various teams and select the right one, preventing mismatches and dropouts. The importance of conducting interviews with potential mentees and mentors to ensure a clear understanding of stable and lasting contributions was highlighted. There was consensus on creating a clear schedule of workshops and introductory sessions. Additionally, the idea of multilingual mentorship programs was proposed to make contributions more accessible to non-English speakers, with suggestions for local language cohorts working on language-specific projects. Regular Zoom calls for mentees to share progress and experiences were also recommended.
Connecting Mentorship with 6.7 Release The group discussed integrating the mentorship program with the WordPress 6.7 release. It was suggested that mentees could work on high-priority projects or features related to the release, providing them with practical tasks. This approach aims to give mentees real-life experience and a sense of contribution to the coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. WordPress project.
Timeline to Open the Formal Call for Applications The group was in agreement with the suggested timeline.
Suggestions for Next Cohort Suggestions for the next cohort included setting clear expectations for mentors and mentees, involving them in practical tasks to build self-esteem and a sense of usefulness. The idea of having local language cohorts working on language-specific projects alongside the main program was discussed. Creating a dedicated landing page and providing recognition for mentors and mentees were suggested to enhance the program’s visibility and appeal. There were also proposals to include opportunities for mentees to work closely with release leads, providing valuable real-life experience. Direct outreach and scholarships for underrepresented groups were recommended to ensure a diverse group of participants. An early call for “Make/Team Projects” was also suggested for this cohort.
Creating a Plan for On-Demand Mentorship in 2025
We took some time to discuss implementation details for the On-Demand Mentorship Idea. Key points discussed in the last chat include creating a structured asynchronous mentorship approach, a pool of available mentors, clear processes, a dedicated onboarding Slack channel, mentorship content on Learn WordPress, Q&A sessions, and bridging cohorts with continuous mentorship.
We realize that it might be difficult to implement this idea in 2024, but we are considering implementing the same in 2025. Towards that, we discussed the following points:
Adopt Current Cohort-Based Mentorship Structure for On-Demand Mentorship We discussed the idea of leveraging the existing cohort-based mentorship structure for the on-demand program. The idea is to create a detailed process and documentation to guide mentors and mentees, ensuring consistency. This approach could bridge on-demand mentorship with the cohort-based model, providing ongoing guidance and support. It was suggested to document key learnings and progress on a platform like P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/., allowing mentees to showcase their achievements.
Creating a Process for 1:1 Mentorship The value of offering mentorship on demand was highlighted in this discussion. We all agreed that having a structured program where new contributors could onboard into the project with the help of a mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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., could facilitate quality contributions. We shared the idea of creating a framework for mentors to support mentees asynchronously through a dedicated process and structure. The idea of having a pool of mentors was explored, with hopes of encouraging mentees to connect with other mentors, too, when needed, on an on-demand mentorship program.
Facilitating On-Demand Mentorship To facilitate on-demand mentorship, the group proposed creating a pool of available mentors who can be booked for sessions by mentees. This system would allow for flexible and immediate support. The idea of hosting sessions with multiple mentors for open questions was also discussed, with sessions conducted based on mentee interest. Creating a central repository of current mentor/mentee assignments was suggested to ensure coordination and awareness among mentors. We all agreed that to move ahead with on-demand mentorship, the process should be clear and documented, as well as possible.
How to Connect Mentors and Mentees Participants emphasized the need for a dedicated Slack channel for onboarding new contributors, serving as a general onboarding space with team-specific customizations. This channel would facilitate easy connections between mentors and mentees. Additionally, mentorship content on Learn WordPress, coupled with Q&A sessions, was proposed to provide flexible support. Collaborative documentation and clear guidelines would help mentors and mentees navigate the on-demand mentorship process effectively. We also explored the idea of setting up some Informal (unstructured) mentorship across the project. Also, we discussed setting up various criteria to match mentors and mentees, including their language preferences, region, personalities, etc.
In conclusion, the group decided to use preparation time towards Cohort #3 as a way to create documentation and structure as a first step towards launching on-demand mentorship in early 2025.
It is time to host the next Monthly chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting on the Next Thursday (June 20th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress and to continue our work on mentorship programs. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
Meeting times
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Wins and Updates from 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. Europe 2024 WordCamp Europe 2024 is over, and our program was a big hit at the event, so much that it was the opening slide on Matt Mullenweg’s 2024 Summer Update where our mentees from the Q1 2024 cohort was featured! The excitement was so much that we even opened up an early interest form for the Q4 cohort! Let’s do a quick debrief of updates and learnings from the event and to celebrate our wins!
3. Mentorship Program Cohort #3 (Q4 2024) In our past chats we have been discussing extensively on how our next cohort should look like. Based on all the ideas shared, let’s discuss and finalize a plan for our next cohort and start working on planning the same. We will be sharing the plan in this chat and will seek feedback from our group members. We also hope to assign tasks and start working as per plan.
4. Creating a plan for On-Demand Mentorship in 2025 We have received a lot of interest in the “On Demand Mentorship” idea that was discussed extensively in the last chat. Let’s start thinking of how a first version of the same would look like, how it could co-exist with our cohorts, and how do we trial this in 2025.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!
Looking forward to seeing many of you in the chat!
Brainstorming/Planning Cohort #3 of the Mentorship Program
We spent some time planning the third cohort of the WordPress contributor mentorship program. Participants agreed to maintain the six-week duration but also suggested extending it to seven weeks, dedicating the first week for introductions and onboarding. There was a consensus to keep the cohort size at 40 mentees paired with 20 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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., but with a backup list of mentors to handle emergencies or increased applications. Clear and visible documentation for mentors was emphasized, as current public resources on mentorship are lacking. Ideas like integrating mentees into multiple teams to showcase cross-team collaboration, creating a dedicated onboarding channel in Slack, and organizing an online 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. for mentorship were discussed. Leveraging existing programs like do_action hackathons and bridging with the Training Guide program for onboarding new contributors were also brought up in this discussion.
We decided to focus on enhancing clarity, structure, and support for both mentors and mentees. Participants stressed the importance of setting clear individual project goals and maintaining general program goals to measure success. Improving mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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.-mentee communication and avoiding the initial loss of momentum were highlighted as key areas for refinement. Additionally, ideas for integrating initiatives like Hacktoberfest and WP Translation Day to enhance contributions were explored. Overall, the discussions aimed at creating a more effective and engaging mentorship experience, ensuring sustainable mentor participation, and providing a comprehensive support system for new contributors.
Based on the discussion, we arrived at a broad set of dates for the next cohort which are as follows:
June – July 2024: We finalize the structure for the next cohort
August – September 2024: Call for mentees/mentors goes out, we select mentors + mentees, and announce them.
October-November 2024: Mentorship Program.
It was highlighted that the mentorship program should avoid coinciding with major events like WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. to ensure that mentors are not overly occupied. Adjustments may be needed to align with the WordPress 6.7 release cycle, aiming to start the program after major events to maximize participation and focus. For further details, refer to the 2024 Major Release Timing Proposal.
We are going to start working on building the next cohort as per this plan, and will try to create an MVPMinimum Viable Product"A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia plan for the next cohort with the goal of creating a strong foundation and structure for the program as early as possible.
On-demand Mentorship
In our last chat, @tobifjellner shared an excellent idea around “on-demand mentorship”, where we create a pool of mentors who are available to support new contributors, so that new contributors coming in can get mentorship whenever they want. We discussed this idea quite a bit in this month’s chat.
@tobifjellner elaborated on this idea in the discussion. Essentially, the idea involves creating a dedicated Slack channel for onboarding, supplemented by an email sequence to help new contributors become familiar with the WordPress project. This channel could serve as a general onboarding space, with specific teams building on this process for their own needs. Additionally, the idea of mentorship content living on Learn WordPress, coupled with available time slots for Q&A sessions, was proposed to offer flexible support. The goal is to bridge the periodic cohorts with continuous, ongoing mentorship, ensuring new contributors receive guidance whenever needed.
Participants also discussed having a structured approach where mentors can support mentees asynchronously and provide guidance while encouraging them to connect with their primary mentors. This would ensure mentees receive timely assistance without undermining their mentor-mentee relationships. Creating a pool of available mentors and setting up weekly sessions for bug scrubs were suggested to maintain engagement and address specific questions. Furthermore, integrating the on-demand mentorship with existing programs like do_action hackathons and leveraging university partnerships for project-based contributions were considered valuable for expanding outreach and sustaining the mentorship program. We also pointed to discussions on different forms of mentorship in the WordPress Contributor Working Group Tracker.
On-demand mentorship was identified as an idea with great potential – and our group will continue to discuss the idea with hopes of creating a structure and launching it after the next mentorship cohort concludes.
Five for the Future Documentation Updates and Discussions
Additionally, in our chat, we highlighted a set of important ongoing discussions related to Five for the Future and the WordPress Contributor Experience.
A group of volunteers from our group have started working on creating documentation for self-sponsored and sponsored contributors for Five for the Future. We have already received excellent feedback on the same from community members on work done so far. Please review these docs and share any feedback that you have – the plan is to ship these updates to the Five for the Future website once the documentation is more complete. Feedback is specifically requested for these documents:
It is time to host the next Monthly chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting on the Next Thursday (May 23rd) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress and to continue our work on mentorship programs. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
Note: The Contributor Working Group typically meets on the Third Thursday of the Month, but for this month alone (May), we are moving our chat to the Fourth Thursday of the month.
Meeting times
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Brainstorming/Planning Cohort #3 of the Mentorship Program and Call for Interest Now that Cohort #2 is over, and since we received a lot of interest and excitement from community members on hosting Cohort #3, let us start making an initial plan on how Cohort 3 is going to look like. We are also going to use this opportunity to bring in new facilitators for the group for Cohort 3, so this will be a chance to do so.
3. On-demand Mentorship In our last chat, @tobifjellner shared an excellent idea around “on-demand mentorship”, where we create a pool of mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. who are available to support new contributors, so that new contributors coming in can get mentorship whenever they want. We will briefly explore this idea and think of a framework to build such a program.
4. Five for the Future Documentation Updates In our last chat, we mentioned that in addition to our work on mentorship, this group will additionally start focusing on bolstering the broader contributor experience of WordPress. As part of that work, we started focusing a bit on creating documentation for self-sponsored and sponsored contributors for Five for the Future. We have already received excellent feedback on the same from community members on work done so far, and we will use this opportunity to discuss this.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!
10 of our 28 mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. contributed to WordPress 6.5 with one of them being a noteworthy contributor 🧰
We had eight new core contributorsCore ContributorsCore contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. from the mentorship program 🧑💻
14 mentees have committed to join the WordPress 6.6 release squad! ⚡
Pre and Post-Event Mentee Survey Results
Contribution familiarity went up from 53.65% to 80.24% 📈
Contribution confidence went up from 57.72% to 82.62% 📈
88.62% of mentees were satisfied by the program! 🤩
80.68% mentees achieved their personal goals as part of the program! 😱
62.1% mentees created contribution plans! 🗺️
Participants shared the following feedback about the program later:
@patricia70: “Special mention to @lumiblog, mentee in the 2nd cohort and listed in the “Noteworthy Contributors” list of the 6.5 release credits! “
Thoughts about the program
@patricia70: “the program was very good and needs to continue into a 3rd cohort, with refinements based on the feedback”
@josepmoran: “I have firsthand experienced the benefits that this program achieves with people who have a strong commitment to contributing to WordPress and striving to keep its community alive and active. As a result of my experiences, I’ve also appreciated how much this recently concluded edition has grown and improved in terms of focus and goal attainment.”
@matteoenna: “Every now and then I get help from translate, so I respond slowly xD I loved it, it helped me better contextualize each team and created strong teamwork. Plus organizing a 30-60-90 helps. Maybe I would have included more “practice sessions” to the whole thing”
@devmuhibul: “I believe this is the best program to start contribution journey in WordPress. With the help of experienced mentors, here people at least can learn how to start walking. From where to start and all the guidance provided helps new contributors to keep contributing. “
From a facilitator standpoint, I think we should try project- or goal-based mentee recruitment next time, based on mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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. availability. So there is no ambiguity or mismatch between mentee’s interest and mentor’s capacity.
Using 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/ was something we tried based on the feedback from last cohort but I don’t think it was successful enough. Some other form of better communication tool (Calendar of course, but adding something else – Make P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. page? post?) might be helpful. Or even using GitHub docs (like this)?
@kirasong mentioned that the Contributor Mentorship Program successfully demonstrated that participants can contribute effectively to a release, even if they join later in the process. She emphasizes the importance of mentees feeling connected and integral to the creation of WordPress, which she believes is a powerful and crucial experience.
@rcreators: “I think it was great. It gives lot of great knowledge to start contribution to the WP in interesting way. Initially i thought contribution is only connected to programming but i really understand that its programming is just one small part of the larger contribution.”
@gusaus: “I wasn’t able to participate in the cohort (and kinda lost track of it after collab moved into a different channel ) but I thought mentoring projects was a great idea (hence several suggestions in this discussion) and would love to help enable more of that in moving forward. Also stipends and other incentives for mentees, mentors, and other participants. Was glad there was a bit of a test run in this cohort”
What could be improved?
@patricia70: “have the calendar of all sessions (onboarding, workshops, meetings, etc) more easily reachable/published, and all dates set in advance (not saying: tomorrow there is this) but at the start of the program, for all 6 weeks so we can plan our agendas accordingly + emphasize that all sessions are open to everyone (not only in the selected team/project we participate in). reach out in local communities, for example in France, @jdy68 said almost no one heard about the program before it was too late”
@josepmoran mentioned that the Contributor Mentorship Program has significantly matured in its recent edition, showing noticeable improvements in focus and achieving its goals. He mentions that the selection process of mentees needs minor adjustments to ensure alignment with the program’s objectives, emphasizing the importance of identifying genuine commitment. @josepmoran also underscores the value of using platforms like MeetupMeetupMeetup 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. to enhance program visibility and engage more effectively with the WordPress community.
@kirasong suggests starting the next cohort earlier, during the alpha stage, to enhance contributions to features, while maintaining some overlap with release parties which are popular and boost mentees’ comfort and understanding of the development process.
@ninianepress: “Both my mentees went AWOL (I couldn’t get in touch with one of them at all) this cohort so… “
@peiraisotta: “I wasn’t directly involved in the cohort until almost the end, but I loved meeting everyone and hearing about each one’s experience. It was very illuminating to me see how different contribution areas needed different approach from mentors. I learn a lot from everyone’s challenges and wins. It seemed very cool to me see how mentees worked on their contribution plans, and how they connected to their new contribution teams. Another highlight, watching @matteoenna preparing a pitch for his company and convince them to join the 5ftF program”
Feedback on the cohort
@patricia70 “I felt a bit bad about my mentorship, and we didn’t accomplish much. some limited time during the 6 weeks for me for 2 weeks, and for my mentees only available some short time in their evenings or week-ends. + my choice of team was not that good as there was no practical, easy to do for first time contributors, tasks”
It would be great to do the mentor orientation before the program starts
If possible, as a mentor, I’d like to better understand what workshops are planned so that I know better what things to plan or go over with mentees individually.
@sancastiza: “The Mentorship program has been a wonderful journey for me, with some surprising things. However, it somehow helped me better navigate what I wanted to contribute the most. Soon I will have the opportunity to do my first Meetup.”
@peiraisotta: “I think that learning more about how he did it could help many people doing the same, if they want to. In general, I love that the cohorts support folks also in achieving other goals related to their career or development.”
What’s next for the mentorship program?
Since we have wrapped-up two cohorts, we discussed what the next steps of the program would look like. We also discussed an idea shared by @tobifjellner – which is a low-key always-on mentorship program where there are mentors available to provide 1:1 help to new contributors. :
Thoughts on Cohort-based Mentorship
@rcreators: “I liked the cohort based mentorship a lot. In this people can pick up what they like and learn from the group.”
@kirasong: “I am not sure what the future of mentorship looks like in WordPress, ideally. But I would love cohort based mentorship to continue to be a part of it!”
What should we do differently about the next cohort?
@nilovelez: “I would love the option to have mentees in multiple teams at the same time, like one main team and onboarding in others. Also short (1 min) videos explaining what each team does to help mentees choose would be really helpful.”
@kirasong supported @nilovelez‘s comment saying how contributing to multiple teams happened organically, and how she was surprised seeing how folks contributed to more than one team.
@rcreators: “In last few weeks I found, Forum team need more volunteer. So if there is some focus to push more mentee towards forums will be good.”
@devmuhibul: “We can make some premade short videos for each teams and share at the start of cohort program that will reduce the hard work of mentors and help mentees to start at least.” @patricia70 responded that all the recorded videos from this cohort could be shared in one space.
@kirasong: “I agree that this, along with the cohort model, could be helpful and is worth trying out.” Kira has also offered to be a mentor if such a program happens.
@josepmoran: “I think Tobi is on the right track. It could be mentoring sessions where the mentee and mentor join forces to be productive without deadlines in between. In fact, I still have a strong bond with my mentor, and he remains committed to the program from a slightly greater distance, as he appreciates the evolution of his mentee and the work he has done as a mentor.”
@patricia70 suggested an interesting idea of hosting an ongoing program (as @tobifjellner mentioned) with possibility to join the “bigger” cohort-based twice a year.
@coachbirgit: “I think, having some form of low-key always-on mentorship program in place would be helpful in addition to “bigger” cohorts. This might be suitable for certain teams to have some (interested) team members appointed as the “go-to” mentor for this team or working-group.”
@jdy68: “It’s easier to talk to one person than to a whole team where you don’t know anyone, so designer mentors are a good idea.but this requires a place where the mentors of each team (general or local) can be identified, and where they can be contacted.”
@coachbirgit also suggested that these thoughts could well be added to the Contributor Handbook.She shared that the repository for the next iteration of the contributor handbook was moved to the WordPress GitHub org. The #deib-working-group has taken over the responsibility to work on that in cross-collaboration with all teams. https://github.com/WordPress/contributor-handbook
Next Steps for our Working Group
The original purpose of the working group was to bolster the contributor experience of WordPress, and we identified mentorship as a kick-it off. Now that we have run two cohorts and have good clarity on mentorship, we explored working on other projects such as Five for the Future and also asked our group members to share if they have any thoughts on additional projects to work on.
@coachbirgit: “As mentioned in the proposal, I published last year, the idea of establishing a formal DEIB team as an umbrella group to enhance the contributor experience and act as a shared resource. From my understanding, the 5ftF, diversity speaker training and mentorship program would fit under that umbrella.”
@rcreators: ” There are many small companies or medium size company like to start contribute but the issue is contribution is connected to user profiles. Apart from that if they don’t have any contributor in the team, they have no clue. So it will great to put both items in to one umbrella. So new companies register to 5ftF and add more new contributors to the table.”
@kirasong asked for clarity on how 5ftF connects to contributions, and @harishanker clarified that it could be a way to work on Five for the Future in the open, and also have a chance to improve the contributor experience in WordPress through sponsored contributions.
@gusaus suggested a couple of ideas such as creating an entry point for various community programs, as well as an idea on extending do_action. We also briefly discussed and brainstormed some ideas on mentorship too.
@gusaus also clarified that Contributing to Five for the Future is indeed on the Sustainability roadmap #16. He also pointed us to some good discussion on collaboration in the #sustainability channel for us to pick up later.
In short, group members shared broad consensus on working on other impactful community projects.
With that discussion, we concluded the meeting. The open floor in both chats were empty, and we soon wrapped-up the conversation.
Please comment on the post below if you have any questions.
It is time to host the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group after a brief gap. We’re meeting on Thursday (April 18th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Mentorship Cohort #2 Recap The second edition of our WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program has concluded! The event was a huge success with 44 out of 52 mentees formally graduating from the program! Let’s take a moment to look back at the program, and celebrate our wins and learnings from the program, as well as the survey results.
3. What’s next for the mentorship program? Now that we have completed two cohorts of the mentorship program, how should we go ahead with the next edition of the mentorship program? What is the future of the program and how does it look like?
4. Next Steps for our Working Group The original purpose of the working group was to bolster the contributor experience of WordPress, and we identified mentorship as a kick-it off. As we have some clarity on mentorship for our program, it is time to explore other ways to improve the WordPress contributor experience, such as working on Five for the Future and to take other steps to address other obvious gaps in the WordPress contributor experience. Let’s brainstorm on what the next steps of our group will look like.
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!
The next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group is on the cards. We’re meeting today – on Thursday (February 15th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.
Today’s chat is particularly exciting, because we are launching the second cohort of the Contributor Mentorship Program next week (February 19th)!
Meeting times
We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.
The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!
1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.
Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?
2. Mentorship Cohort #2 status update We closed our call for mentorsEvent SupporterEvent 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. and mentees last week, and we are close to announcing our selected mentors and mentees (waiting for some final confirmation/feedback from mentors). At this point, we will chat about the current state of the selection process for transparency.
3. Draft Program Schedule A draft schedule for our program is ready! We will be discussing the same in this chat for members’ feedback.
4. Call for Help As the program is about to launch, we’re going to need a lot of help from our mentors and mentees to make it happen! We will define the areas where help is needed in the chat, but to summarize:
Documentation Tasks (Review mentorEvent SupporterEvent 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., mentee guides, showrunning documents, checklists)
Facilitators (Folks who can engage the mentees throughout the program and run the program broadly)
Onboarding sessions hosts (We need representatives from Make/Teams to host sessions on various topics for our group)
And finally, some additional mentors (While our call for mentors is closed, we are looking for additional mentors who can support our pool of mentors)
5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor! If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!
Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.
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/
