First, the current Team Reps of 2024 would like to thank each one of you for voting. Voting has ended.
You made your voices heard and participated in voting.
Your selection of the two new nominees means they will join the Team Reps in 2025.
What happens next?
- The Voting Process has ended, and we are counting the votes to ensure everything was done correctly and fairly.
- The next steps are contacting the nominees who have the highest votes. We will ask them again. We want to know if they are willing to accept the role. They would represent the WordPress Project’s Community Team in 2025.
- Once they accept, we will announce who they are to the entire community. We will arrange a series of Hand-offs and Onboardings for them. These steps will make their role official in January 2025.
In 2025, I, @leogopal, and our dear @nukaga will step down as Team Reps. We have had the honor of serving this amazing community for the last 2 years.
We are happy and confident. We are grateful to have served alongside @peiraisotta and @st810amaze. They will stay as they continue supporting and welcoming our two new chosen representatives. They will onboard them just as we did for them. As well as continuing in their support, advocacy, and representation of the Community Team.
The next are the words & thoughts of me, @leogopal, and is not from my role as existing Team Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. or any official capacity:
The Power of Community
Power in our Community
This is a core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and fundamental distinction of a truly Community-lead, Community-driven, and Community-focused open-source project such as WordPress.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/.
Your voice matters.
Your votes matters.
Your nomination matters.
You, fellow community member, you matter!
– Leo Gopal, to the WordPress Community (and probably some politicians and philosophers before him)
You, the community, ultimately decide who will guide and represent you. You made the decision and participated in selecting our next 2 representatives of the community team. Just as you did for me 2 years ago. It was an honor. I am grateful to every one of you.
This exists in many other open-source projects. I have to admit that I am biased. I have spent over 15 years in the WordPress ecosystem (People of WordPress – Leo Gopal). Most of that time, I was a developer writing code or managing other developers. I spend all my volunteer hours in the community team. I came for the code, but I stayed for the community.
During my tenure as Team Rep, it was @nukaga, @peiraisotta, @st810amaze, and last year @mysweetcate that helped drive the day to day of the Community Team, while I had the honor of working on projects such as the Github 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/ and Attribution standardization and automation’s which we have adopted and so has many other teams behind the scenes (more on that in a separate post)
Reflection: Transitions over Endings
Conclusion – Transitions over Endings
As I reflect on the last 2 years, I realize there are definitely things I wished to have accomplished. I never quite got to some of these tasks. There are others that I wished I did better.
However, I am in contentment with the things I have done. The impact they have had is meaningful. This impact will continue long after I step down.
Most of the Community may not know this. There are many contributors behind the scenes like the Team Reps. They do so much work. Most of it is only known by a few. Typically, those who worked alongside them or helped in feedback or review are aware.
This is partly why I chose a project with the dear Isotta. We used Github as a tool. It helped us show contributions that were not previously attributed or recognized.
These contributions now are on their WordPress profile. This gives them the recognition they deserve.
2 years is a long time to serve as a volunteer in a single position for an Open Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project. When it ends, one reflects immensely on those 24 months. They find all that they are grateful for and all they have accomplished or have not. Additionally, they reflect on the failures or things they hoped to have done better or more of.
After doing such reflection, I wondered what is next for me now that this is over. I realized that life is much like the passion work we do. It’s a series of transitions rather than endings. I am excited to see where my work transitions me to next.
It has also left me grateful for my team-mates in the Team Reps team. They have supported me across the years. I am also thankful to the Community itself.
I would not have been able to do this without you. I also probably wouldn’t have wanted to do it without you.
Advice for our new and future Reps
Advice To the future Team Reps
(or, things I wish I knew from the start):
- Firstly, never ever lose the wide-eyed motivation, you start this role with.
- and keep hold of the the innocence of believing you can accomplish anything (especially if at first you fail or encounter obstacles)
- Importantly, Never forget that feedback is there to help you succeed. Even when it’s not always what you want to hear or easy to hear.
- Those who give their feedback have spent their time. They provide it with the sole hope of helping you succeed. Never fail to to thank those who give you their time in this way.
- Learn to appreciate feedback that contradicts your current perspective. Search out opposing opinions. This is how you nurture your ability to understand others perspectives & viewpoints and adapt accordingly.
- You learn nothing if you always succeed. It’s also a sign that you are staying safe in your comfort zone.
- Understand that you always have only two options. You will either succeed or you will learn. Failure only exists for those who quit.
- Learn how to fail fast. Learn how to fail often. Learn how to quickly pivot when you fail. Learn how to minimize the impact and always have a plan to reverse or revert should something fail.
- Getting great at dealing with failure is an invaluable skill. It helps you become someone who can succeed where others dare not travel.
- Seek out others who have succeeded and learn from them.
- Find individuals with skills you want to acquire. Do everything you can to learn from them. You can’t learn everything on your own. Gain knowledge from those who have already done the hard work.
- And finally, you are not alone. You have both a team of reps and a whole community. They are there for you to support and who are more than willing to support you.
- Get help when you need it. Our community is full of delightful people, always eager to lend a hand.
I am stepping down as a Community Team Rep for 2023 to 2024. I want to thank everyone. This is also a farewell to all who have been a part of this great journey for me. As I step down, I am excited to see our new Team Reps. They will step up and accomplish great things.
I do not know what my next adventure in the Community Team (or other teams) would be.
Whatever it is, I know that whatever it is, I will be doing it alongside the best of people.
+make.wordpress.org/updates/
#community, #community-team, #farewell, #gratitude, #leogopal, #p2-xpost, #team-reps, #weekly-update
