Tag Archives: meta-wordcamp

Patricia BT 7:43 am on September 5, 2024
Tags: , , , , , , meta-wordcamp   

Update about the GatherPress project

We were invited to give regular updates about GatherPress.

Here are the significant advancements made by GatherPress since our initial proposal. GatherPress continues to evolve, thanks to the active participation and feedback from community members. Here’s a detailed overview of our progress.

Call for Feedback and status of the Proposal

We are actively seeking feedback from current 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. Your insights are invaluable in helping us refine GatherPress to better meet the needs of the WordPress community.

There are several ways to help:

  • You can test GatherPress right now using this Playground demo in your browser or test it on your own site installing the 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 available in the plugin repository and provide your feedback in the comments below or in our main GatherPress GitHub repository.
  • If you are a Meetup organizer, you can start testing GatherPress by publishing your Meetup events in our Demo site joining the current WordPress Meetup groups that are already using this platform, helping us to test real cases. Read the home page here, fill the form to join the tests and provide your feedback on the same site or on our GitHubGitHub GitHub 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/ repositories: For the plugin features on our main GatherPress repository, and for the Community integration, on the Gatherpress-WP-org-integration repository.
    We would like to know if it was easy or not for you to add a venue, an event, and your general feeling about the use of GatherPress. ideally we would like to have feedback from attendees as well, so feel free to share the form with your attendees.
  • If you are a member of the Community or MetaMeta Meta 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. teams, please add feature requests and reply to questions for what is needed to create the integration between GatherPress and the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ network (user accounts, user activity in profiles, email sending, group creation and management, etc) here on the Gatherpress-WP-org-integration GitHub repository.
  • You can spread the word about the tool, invite event organizers to join the tests, invite people to test the tool and send feedback, etc.

It’s only after GatherPress has proven its viability through your feedback that the Meta team can implement it on the .org network for the pilot program, as we proposed in January. Therefore, your input is crucial to ensure a successful integration. Please test and provide feedback before the end of September 2024.

Improvements

Since introducing GatherPress, we have focused on integrating features that enhance event management within WordPress. Our initial release has been well-received, and community feedback has been instrumental in guiding our development process. Based on user feedback, we have implemented several improvements:

  • We added OpenStreetMap to load the maps by default, Google Maps is still available as an option,
  • Customizable post type and taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. slugs with localized defaults,
  • Improvements to accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility),
  • Import and export events, venues and topics using WordPress’ native tools,
  • Now using WordPress Playground to:
    • Enable the “Live Preview” on .org/plugins
    • Instantly preview changes from a commented Playground-link on each PR
    • Automatically generate multilingual screenshots for .org/plugins
    • Run end-to-end tests
    • Curate and maintain a set of demo-data, that is re-used in all of those Playgrounds,
  • And more, all our released features can be seen in our main GitHub project.

GatherPress on the WordPress Plugin Repository

GatherPress is now available on the official WordPress Plugin Repository since the end of June. This makes it easier for users to discover, install, and update GatherPress directly from their WordPress dashboards. Additionally, you can test GatherPress using the Playground. We encourage you to try the plugin, and as always, your feedback is invaluable.

Translation Availability

GatherPress is now available for translation. We invite community members to contribute translations, making GatherPress accessible to a broader audience. Please share it with your Polyglots teams to organize translation sprints and to get it translated to as many languages as possible!

Thanks to all the polyglots around the world, who have already translated GatherPress into 8 languages!

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. US Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor 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/.

GatherPress will have a dedicated table at the upcoming WordCamp US Contributor Day (September 17, 2024). This is a fantastic opportunity to meet Mike and Mervin, discuss the project, provide feedback, and contribute to the development of GatherPress. We encourage you to join us and get involved. You can even join us remotely via a video call during the Contributor Day if you do not attend the WordCamp.

Involvement can happen in many ways, for example:

  • Contribution with tasks we have identified as important for our next version.
  • Small backlog tasks to help get your feet wet with the project.
  • Testing and identifying issues in the plugin and documenting them in a ticket to be prioritized in a future release of the plugin.
  • Helping test our code by contributing to unit tests (JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. or PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php.) or end-to-end tests (playwright).
  • Work with the Meta team for the integration with the WordPress.org network.

Development Roadmap

Looking ahead, we have an exciting roadmap for GatherPress. Upcoming features include:

  • Recurring event management, 
  • BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. updates and improvements,
  • Email notification when event starts,
  • Event federation using ActivityPub,
  • New calendar block,
  • And more, all our planned features can be seen in our main GitHub project.

Furthermore, we are building addons to easily build integration with other plugins. 

We are also working to integrate GatherPress with the WordPress.org network, and are identifying the requirements with the Meta and Community teams before creating a full roadmap with dates for the integration and the start of the pilot program.

We are committed to continuous improvement and look forward to delivering these new capabilities.

Join the Team

We invite community members to join the GatherPress team. Whether you are a developer, designer, translator, community member or simply passionate about improving event management in WordPress, your contributions are welcome. Together, we can shape the future of GatherPress. You can join the GatherPress Slack or GitHub and participate in our weekly huddles on Fridays at 15:00 UTC (16:00 UTC from November to March). The upcoming huddles are always listed on the homepage of our website.

Get to know GatherPress and the Team

You can visit our blog and watch the interviews we gave, they are packed with information about GatherPress. To know more about who we are, you can have a look at the team page.

We are grateful for the community’s support and look forward to your continued involvement as we refine and expand GatherPress. Together, we are shaping the future of event management within the WordPress ecosystem.

For any queries or to provide direct feedback, please reach out to @mauteri or @patriciabt on 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/..

Thank you for your support!

The GatherPress Team

Written and reviewed by @patricia70, @mauteri, @carstenbach, @malgra from the GatherPress team, and reviewed by @_dorsvenabili, @nao, @peiraisotta.
Many thanks!

+make.wordpress.org/meta/

#meetups, #community-management, #community-events, #community-team, #learn, #meta, #meta-wordcamp

#meetups, #community-management, #community-events, #community-team, #learn, #meta, #meta-wordcamp

Patricia BT 2:48 pm on January 22, 2024
Tags: , , , , , , meta-wordcamp   

Proposal: Pilot program to test GatherPress on the WordPress.org network as a Meetup alternative

Introduction

We propose a pilot program to test GatherPress, a community-developed 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, within interested and active WordPress 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. This initiative stems from our community’s need for an innovative event management tool tailored to the unique demands of WordPress event organizers and participants.

The pilot program would be held in real-world conditions with WordPress Meetup groups.

We have expressed commitments to a trial run from New Jersey and Nashville groups in the USA, French-speaking groups in Switzerland, and potential interest from groups in Spain, Japan as well as from learn.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.

Overview of GatherPress

GatherPress, led by @mauteri and @hrmervin, is a plugin designed with functionalities akin to Meetup.com, but specifically crafted for the WordPress community by members of the WordPress community. It is the result of the WordPress community’s desire for new event management tools that meet the diverse needs of event organizers and members. 

You can find more information on the website and on GitHub.

Documentation pages, including a demo video, are available on the website.

We welcome everyone to comment here, to test GatherPress (also for accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)) or join the GatherPress weekly huddles, 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 or even the team.

Summary of Value Proposition

GatherPress

✅ Members and Attendance data lives on your website and database. Community Organizers define privacy policies, selectively publish attendees lists, gather additional data from attendees, etc.

✅ Democratized access to data and functionality, as WordPress is customizable

✅ 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.: free, and scaled with WordPress

Meetup and Commercial Apps

❌ Data Ownership, Data Integrity, Data Privacy

❌ Control of Roadmap, Enhancements, and Integrations

❌ Cost and Scale

❌ Control 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. and accessibility

Pilot Program Objectives

Real-World Testing

The pilot aims to test GatherPress in a live environment, providing practical insights into its functionality and user experience feedback.

Community engagement

Engage with the participating meetup groups from the international community. 

Feedback & Analysis

Collect feedback from both organizers and participants throughout the course of their use of GatherPress during the trial.

Analyse suggestions, feedback, and bug reports to refine the application into its next version(s).

Reports

Periodic summary posts on how the program is working for the whole community to know about it.

Future Planning

Following the completion of the trial, set the public roadmap of functionality and integrations to be released. Ultimately, the objective of GatherPress is to potentially replace Meetup.com as the centerpoint of the WordPress Community Events and Dashboard WidgetWidget A 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. source data. 

Benefits of the Proposal

1. Community-centric development

This pilot and this project, empowers the WordPress community by directly leading the development process of a tool designed by and for the community at large.

A major challenge of the community is influence over the roadmap of commercially available tools, to build features and functionality needed by organizers, participants, and users with accessibility needs. 

2. Enhanced Event Management

GatherPress promises to offer a more integrated and seamless event management experience within the WordPress ecosystem. Among our goals are to allow community organizers to gather data from attendees unique to each hosted event as needed. Additional capabilities are present for triggering additional reminders, customized waitlist workflows, and selectively publishing attendees lists. The GatherPress plugin is built to be extendable and configurable. Companion plugins will be able to seamlessly integrate with the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. plugin. GatherPress will also be built to leverage features of other community-based plugins (like BuddyPress).

3. Cost-Effectiveness

This project has the potential to reduce the community’s reliance on external platforms like Meetup.com. The estimated cost savings of leveraging our own application is approx $ 215,000 USD per year, coupled with the full control over event management tools and ownership of our community’s data. WPCSWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation, created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. pays Meetup.com $24.50 per group per month (inclusive of a 30% discount). There were 734 groups as of October of 2023.

4. Use-Case Specific Testing

An example of how this testing can grant case-by-case capabilities includes Localization (translated language). By opening the pilot program to groups from various countries, we ensure that the tool is adaptable and functional in a multilingual context, essential for the diverse WordPress community. Furthermore, communities will benefit from the open source nature of the application, enabling customization of RSVP and onboarding workflows.

5. Data Liberation

The WordPress Open Source community is indeed large, and our data is valuable, as is the privacy. GatherPress hosted by WordPress community proper, will enable organizers and leadership to 1) own the community’s data, and 2) make it selectively available for analysis. Insights learned from our community at large, will inform growth opportunities and strategic initiatives into the future. Today, WordPress operates the Data Liberation project, enabling users of commercial tools to migrate into a WordPress experience. You can learn more about the Data Liberation project at: https://wordpress.org/data-liberation/.

6. Meetup.com Importer

One of the first companion plugins the GatherPress team is currently working on is the ability to import meetup.com data to a GatherPress-powered WordPress site. This will make the transition from meetup.com to GatherPress as seamless as possible and simplify managing both as a group transitions from one platform to another.

Next steps

The ideal setup for the pilot is to run GatherPress on a multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. within the wordpress.org network, in collaboration with # metaMeta Meta 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.-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., # community-events, # meta, and # learn. This approach ensures seamless integration and alignment with the existing WordPress infrastructure, potentially allowing other meetup groups to join and already be in the definitive environment if the pilot program is successful. 

Alongside this trial, meetup groups should continue to leverage Meetup.com in parallel to GatherPress.

Timeframe

We are prepared to commence immediately and suggest a minimum of a 6 month duration to meet our pilot’s objectives.

Conclusion

This pilot program presents a unique opportunity to shape the future of event management in the WordPress community. By leveraging the collective knowledge and experience of our meetup groups, we can ensure that GatherPress evolves into a tool that truly resonates with the needs and expectations of our global community.

This proposal has been written by @patricia70 and @hrmervin and reviewed by @mauteri.

Suggestions, edition and additional information (thank you): @annebovelett, @devinmaeztri, @harishanker, @harmonyromo, @iandunn, @isvictorious, @javiercasares, @kcristiano, @nao, @peiraisotta, @unintended8, @_dorsvenabili

The draft was submitted for feedback to other community members as well, the above list only includes the persons who commented.

#meetups, #community-management, #community-events, #community-team, #learn, #meta, #meta-wordcamp

Timi Wahalahti 7:28 am on September 29, 2023
Tags: meta-wordcamp, , tagregator, , ,   

Announcement: Sunsetting Tagregator plugin on WordCamp.org websites

WordCamp.org websites have had the Tagregator 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 available and enabled for ten years. The plugin allowed organisers to pull content from various social media networks onto their pages.

Recently, many social media networks have introduced breaking changes in their APIs. Some have even made APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. access nearly impossible at our scale. At the same time, the WordCamp.org MetaMeta Meta 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 has not received many questions or feedback about how to use the tool, while it most probably hasn’t worked as expected for quite some time.

That is why the WordCamp.org Meta team has decided to sunset the Tagregator plugin after the discussion on GitHub.

Old sites with content that Tagregator has pulled from social media networks are unaffected since all the posts are cached in our database, and the plugin remains active on those sites.

Currently, there are no alternative solutions for displaying social media posts that the WordCamp.org Meta team would support. Given how restricted social media platforms are nowadays, it is also unlikely that such would come later. If you have good viable suggestions, you can suggest one in the comments.

Props @iandunn, @ryelle and @rmarks for helping with this effort.

#meta-wordcamp, #official-websites, #tagregator, #wordcamp-sites, #wordcamp-org, #wordcamps

Sjoerd Blom 12:23 pm on April 6, 2023
Tags: , meta-wordcamp, ,   

Personalised Coupon Codes for WordCamps

When you organise a 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. you get to a point where you need to issue coupons for speakers, organisers, volunteers and sponsors. Usually, coupons are “shared” with others from that group: volunteers will share a coupon code, speakers will share a different coupon code, and so on.

Using a shared coupon code also means that we need to verify every coupon that was used: is the buyer entitled to use the coupon code? Not every WordCamp team does this, but the WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. team does this.

For WCEU 2023 below is an overview of coupon codes that are needed:

  • Photographers: 24
  • Volunteers: 190
  • Speakers: 70
  • Organisers: 99
  • Sponsors: 208

Total of 591 coupon codes

As you can imagine this number causes quite a huge workload on the team that is responsible for the tickets, especially when they come across a name that is not on the list: then these names need to be flagged and also verified. Maybe this name was initially missed on the list? Or maybe this name is replacing someone else?

Smaller WordCamps may have around 125 coupon codes, but they don’t have a dedicated team just for the attendee services, but probably one person responsible for the tickets and verifying the coupon codes.

Using a personalised and unique code for everyone entitled to a coupon code is the best solution. Coupon codes are matched against a name and if there’s a mismatch: you know who to approach.
Also: the personal coupon code can’t be shared endlessly with other people who are not involved in the WordCamp.
And, not less important: it saves us from cancelling tickets that have been booked by people who shouldn’t use the tickets and also from hurting people’s feelings as they might feel offended when we contact them to inform them.

There are WordCamps that have created workarounds for personalised coupons, all were done through some side coding solutions, not as a real solution. So there is definitely a need for personalised coupon codes.

In the past couple of weeks, Vagelis Papaioannou developed a 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 that generates personalised coupon codes. You can find his repository on GitHub. It’s an add-on to the CampTix plugin. This plugin would really help WordCamp organisers create personalised coupons and save them a lot of time and unnecessary work.

Note: this post is a summary of a post in Slack.

#camptix, #meta-wordcamp, #slack, #wordcamps

Angela Jin 9:00 am on February 8, 2021
Tags: , , meta-wordcamp, props   

Community Team 2021 Goals Summary

Toward the end of last 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. requested suggestions for Community team goals for 2021! To help sort through all the many, excellent goals received, and to give more information to tasks, the Community team held open discussion sessions throughout January. Major kudos to all the community deputiesProgram Supporter Community 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. and members who participated! 

The community suggested a total of 33 goals, which deputiesProgram Supporter Community 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. have sorted into five, overarching goals:   

  • Improve communication within the Community team
  • Support event organizers
  • Increase training and support for deputies 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.
  • Revisit and improve tools and resources
  • Give visibility, support, and appreciation to contributors

Additionally, goals were sorted into two categories: 

Ongoing focus areas: A number of suggested goals centered around building stronger team culture, or areas that require ongoing support and teamwork.

Action Items for 2021: A number of goals were task-based, action items that support ongoing focus areas. Deputies gave thought to which action items could be addressed in the first versus second half of this year.

Many of these goals are big, ambitious goals, and while The Community team hopes to make as much progress as possible, the team also knows that things may not happen as planned. The team will revisit these goals after Q2 2021 to reassess action items for the remainder of the year. 

Help the Community Team achieve our 2021 goals!

Are you interested in helping us out this year? Awesome! Here are some suggested next steps: 

  1. Click on “Read more” below to learn more about our 2021 goals. 
  2. Share in comments the top three items you are interested in contributing to.
  3. Participate in the next Community Team meeting on February 18, 2021, 11:00 UTC and February 18, 2021, 20:00 UTC in the #community-team channel on Slack to connect with other contributors working on similar goals. 

If you would like to see more context for these goals, please visit the public Trello board. 

The Community team will also need contributors to coordinate and organize efforts! If you have the time to take on this role, please share in comments which goals you would like to help lead. 

Thank you to @sippis, @harishanker, @afshanadiya, @nao, @andreamiddleton, @camikaos for helping to write this summary!

Read on to learn all about our 2021 goals in more detail! 

Continue reading →

#community-team, #goals, #meta-wordcamp, #props

Timi Wahalahti 8:35 pm on August 20, 2020
Tags: , , , meta-wordcamp, ,   

Changes in WordCamp and Meetup Application tracker

WordCamp.org has a tool for Community DeputiesProgram Supporter Community 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. to track WordCamps and MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.. Few changes to this tool have been made lately based on this request for feedback. I thought to share what has changed before those changes cause confusion. The technical side can be found from Github.

Field for swag notes has been removed from Meetups

This field wasn’t that great to follow on when and what swag has been sent to Meetups, so it got removed. All existing swag notes were migrated to log section and all new swag notes should be added as a private note. This way we know who and when did something related to swag.

“Already a 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.” field has been removed

Same information is already visible on original application and this field wasn’t really updated after the application was received.

“Original application” section improved

Previously original application showed just a dump of data in raw format. The new improved section shows the data in a clean table like layout, so it’s easier to read.

Private note field got bigger

While doing application vetting or leaving a longer private note, it was frustrating to write it down to a little text field. That’s why the field for writing down the vetting or other notes got bigger. At the same time, the field was moved almost to the top of the editing screen so deputiesProgram Supporter Community 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. can leave their notes faster when needed.

Thanks to @casiepa, @iandunn, @ryelle and @_dorsvenabili for providing the feedback on these changes!

#applications, #improving-wordcamp-org, #meetup-applications, #meta-wordcamp, #wordcamp-central, #wordcamp-org

Timi Wahalahti 6:50 am on August 20, 2020
Tags: , meta-wordcamp,   

WordCamp.org improvements and changes made during Q1 and Q2 2020

This is the start of regular series that highlight updates and changes made in WordCamp.org during last quarter by the #meta-wordcamp team and community contributors. The plan is to publish a similar post at the end of each quarter.

As this is the first update, it might be worth clarifying what is WordCamp.org and #meta-wordcamp.

WordCamp.org is a WordPress multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. network that contains all 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. sites, WordCamp 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. application tools, most of the budget tools and other miscellaneous tools needed to community management. Most of the source code is public in the Github repository, only some special plugins aren’t included because of security reasons.

#meta-wordcamp is a 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 but used often when referring the sponsored team of developers who are responsible for maintaining existing tools, developing new ones (mostly) based on Community Team requests and help with community contributions. Currently, the team consists of @iandunn, @coreymckrill and @ryelle. More widely, #meta-wordcamp is the right channel for event organizers to reach out when they encounter technical problem, bug or want to get started on contributing towards developing WordCamp.org.

Updates and changes made in WordCamp.org in Q1 and Q2 2020:

New features:

  • Multiple changes in preparations to migrate WordCamp site URLs to city.wordcamp.org/year format (discussion). Some sites have been already migrated if the event is over or organisers have requested the migrationMigration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies..
  • New Schedule BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. is available on WordCamp sites (announcement)
  • New Speaker Feedback tool is available on WordCamp sites (announcement)
  • Day of event page added to new sites as default (60b500c)
  • Better formatting on event application notes and links clickable (5c3ea7f)
  • WordCamps in pre-planning was added to APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. (311914d)
  • WordCamp attendee status can be now changed easily (73c9aaf)
  • Sponsor invoices support new refunded status (dfdbbd5)
  • WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ login is required to send WordCamp or Meetup application (fc5cbe0)
  • WordPress.org username is validated when applications are saved (92c0c72)
  • Automatic contact form spam deletion disabled until WordCamp is over (34d4bed)
  • Multiple updates to support organizing online events

Feature changes and improvements:

  • The default theme for new sites changed to Twenty Twenty (75f4a2e)
  • Camptix invoices 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 can be now activated by organisers (267dc13)
  • WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. receives CC from all email confirmations after event application has been sent (b8e6074)
  • Meetup application questions were updated per Community Team’s request (4a4ad19)
  • Tickets sold out the message was slightly tweaked to nicer one (5f3c274)
  • Multiple payment management related changes
  • Multiple minor PWA tweaks
  • Multiple Favorite Sessions tool updates

Bug fixes:

  • Sessions Custom Post TypeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. now uses correct timezone for session times (043587c)
  • Speaker application form WordPress.org login requirement was fixed (59c8193)
  • Improvements on Camptix ticket form accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) (bdacdcc)
  • Fix to invalidate Attendees page cache when an attendee is set to be private (4a1deba)
  • Tens of minor miscellaneous updates to keep tools working

#improving-wordcamp-org, #wordcamp-org

Ryan Marks 7:48 pm on April 3, 2020
Tags: #events-news-widget, , , meta-wordcamp   

Showing online workshops in the Events Widget

This post is similar to @iandunn‘s post, “Showing Online WordCamps in the Events Widget”, but in this case we are talking about Community workshops. The topic has come up because of the Diverse Speaker workshop on April 14-16. Other online global community workshops are likely to follow.

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 WidgetWidget A 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

  1. Should Community Team online training workshops show up in the widget?
  2. 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?
  3. Should the timezone and/or language of the event be displayed in the dashboard?

+make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//metaMeta Meta 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/coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

#events-news-widget, #online-events, #learn-roadmap

Kelly Choyce-Dwan 6:01 pm on March 2, 2020
Tags: , meta-wordcamp   

CampTix Ticket form accessibility improvements, changes to HTML structure

There are changes coming to the ticket selection table, order summary, registration form, and edit form to improve the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of registering for a 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.. The changes will deployDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. tomorrow, March 3rd, around 16:00 UTC.

Right now, most form fields didn’t have an “accessible name”, instead the form relies on the table layout to show which question corresponds to each input. This only works for sighted users— for anyone using a screen reader, the form fields are functionally unlabelled.

After this change, all inputs will have labels attached, so screen readers and other assistive tech will be able to connect the questions (for example, First Name) to the text input for the answer. This also changes some of the markup, which might affect your WordCamp’s style, if you have any custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site..

  • All ticket questions are now wrapped in a label element
  • All inputs have a unique ID (but this should not be used for styling)
  • Questions with multiple answers (radio buttons or checkboxes) now have their answers wrapped in a fieldset

The ticket selection table has also been updated so navigating through selecting a ticket is easier.

  • The quantity dropdown now uses the ticket name as the label
  • The ticket name is now wrapped in a label, instead of strong, and that table cell is now a th instead of td.

This fixes metaMeta Meta 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. ticket #1591, you can see the full changes on the GitHub PR. Please check your tickets page, especially if you’ve done any custom styling to it, and let us know in #meta-wordcamp on 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/. (or here in the comments) if you see anything unexpected.

#camptix

Milana Cap 10:52 pm on October 27, 2019
Tags: , meta-wordcamp   

Update: Contributor Orientation Tool

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. Europe 2019 organising team presented new tool that we’ve been developing to help new contributors select the make team they wish to contribute to – Contributor Orientation Tool. The tool was built as a prototype at which state we asked for feedback from broader community. Many thanks to @webcommsat for writing that post and @fabiofava, @iandunn, @karmatosed, @melchoyce and @mburridge for their feedback and input on that post.

As WordCamp Europe 2020 organising team is back to work, we are continuing our work on Contributor Orientation Tool as well. General plan is to write proposal and ask for help from community outside of WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. org team, rebuild codebase, enable Make Teams reps manage content for their teams, launch 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 at WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and after that, at WordCamp.org with close collaboration with #meta and #meta-wordcamp teams, respectively.

Before we publish our proposal, we would like to ask anyone interested in getting involved to reach out either here, in comments; or in Make Slack, look for @francina, @webcommsat (@abhanonstopnewsuk on 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/.), @siemens82 (@aleksandarnis on Slack) or myself (@zzap on Slack); or come directly to GitHub repo.

Also, if you are attending WordCamp US, feel free to find @francina and/or myself and we can chat in person. Thank you.