This is the home of the Make Community team for the WordPress open sourceOpen SourceOpen 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!
Here is where we have policy debates, project announcements, and assist community members in organizing events.
Everyone is welcome to comment on posts and participate in the discussions regardless of skill level or experience.
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If you love WordPress and want to help us do these things, join in!
Hello 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. Organizers,
Welcome to the August edition of the WordPress Meetup Organizer Newsletter! Get ready to dive into community-building inspiration and stay updated on what’s happening. Let’s empower and connect with our vibrant community together.
This month, we are thrilled to share a photo from the folks at Vancouver WordPress Meetup. To share your photo, rename 1 (one) photo as “Meetup-name_event-date” and upload it to this folder. Don’t forget to ask for permission from your group members too!
The WordPress Meetup in Antwerp launched their first-ever WordPress Summer Meetup. Forget computers, it’s all about fun from afternoon till evening. Dive into the vibe in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTs2wiwD6Qg. They jazzed up the day with 3 WordPress games during their walks. Super simple setup—everyone paid for their dinner. Remember: a backup plan is key if the weather turns sour. They kept things cozy with 10-20 people, perfect for easy mingling.
“Quedada” – a Spanish term for informal gatherings and conversations, originating from early Internet meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.. The Meetup revives this spirit in an online realm, mixing presentations with open discussions, all centered on WordPress and its vibrant Community. Join them to connect, share, and explore, uniting Spanish speakers from Spain to Latin America.
Unleash Your Imagination with NextGen Events
Ready to shake things up? Be the architect of unique events! Think of self-learning gatherings, idea pitches, networking days, show-and-tell expos, or speedy connection sessions. Elevate engagement and embrace innovation in easy, exciting ways! Your creativity sets the stage – let’s rock those fresh formats and themes together!
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. US: Join the Flagship Event Anywhere
Excitement ignites as WordCamp US 2023 unfolds this week in Maryland! This flagship event expects around 1,700 attendees from around the globe. Stay tuned with #WCUS on social media for real-time updates. Engage from anywhere through live-streamed WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. programming on their website and YouTube. Relive the magic on WordPress.tv post-event, just like all WordCamps.
Community Summit is Back
Just ahead of WCUS 2023, on August 22-23, about 128 WordPress open-source project contributors will convene at the Community Summit 2023. They’ll address crucial project matters, selected based on applications. This ensures a global, diverse representation of new and seasoned contributors from various teams and organizations. Although no decisions will be made at the Summit, your input matters – share your thoughts on takeaways and suggestions via comments, to be posted on Make WordPress blogs.
Need support or guidance from the WordPress Global Community TeamGlobal Community TeamA group of community organizers and contributors who collaborate on local events about WordPress — monthly WordPress meetups and/or annual conferences called WordCamps.?
Thank you for your contribution to the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ projects and for supporting the WordPress Community! Let’s keep growing together, and inspire each other!
Join us at WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. 2023 for an inspiring morning session followed by engaging breakout workshops, where we will collaborate on three different initiatives to strengthen our community. Let’s come together to make a positive impact and ensure WordPress remains a powerful and inclusive platform.
Morning Session: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
During the morning session, we will focus on fostering meaningful discussions and setting the tone for the rest of the day. The agenda for the morning includes:
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM:Welcome and Introductions
We’ll kick off the day with warm welcomes and introductions to create a friendly and inclusive atmosphere. Get to know Community Team fellows and local organizers and make meaningful connections.
11:00 AM – 11:45 AM: NextGen WordPress Events
We’ll think outside the box and explore innovative approaches to WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. events. Share your creative ideas and contribute to shaping the future of WordCamps.
BREAKOUT WORKSHOPS: 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM (before and after lunch)
In the afternoon, we will split into three breakout groups, each dedicated to working on different initiatives. Choose a breakout workshop that aligns with your interests and expertise:
Breakout Workshop 1: Improving Community Documentation and Tools
Join this group dedicated to updating the community handbook pages and reviewing WordCamp tools documentation. Help us organize and enhance our resources for smoother event planning.
Breakout Workshop 2: How to improve the Global Sponsorship program for organizers, community, and sponsors
In this workshop, we’ll discuss how to improve the global sponsorship program for WordPress events.
Breakout Workshop 3: 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. & WordCamp Organizers – Ask Me Anything session
This workshop is open for Meetup and WordCamp questions. Questions on how to organize local meetup chapters, organize WordCamp or other WordPress events
Please note that each breakout workshop will have designated moderators and scribes to document the discussions and outcomes.
We look forward to having you join us for this enriching day of collaboration and growth!
The WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. Contributor Team has contacted all of the team reps asking us to help with their new approach to organizing this year’s Contributor Day. To hopefully make contributing easier, they are asking teams who will be present
Who would like to be the main onboarding contact?
The Contributor Team is suggesting we designate a team repTeam RepA 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 active team member) as the go-to person to send new contributors to on the day of, to answer team questions and help with onboarding.
Who would like to be table leads?
Table leads can help in a variety of areas. They might keep discussion flowing, facilitate on-site onboarding or orientations, and/or help the contributors stick to the schedule for the day.
Who would like to lead a topical discussion?
Lastly, you may have a community-related topic that would be valuable to discuss as a team. Share your ideas here or as a comment on the What Should We Work On post. We can decide as a team what to include in the day’s agenda.
Comment below to let us know how you’d like to be involved in WCUS 2023 Contributor Day!
With less than 2 months to WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. 2023, we have been asked to share our thoughts and goals with the Contributor Team.
So far this year we’ve had some robust discussions at both flagship WordCamps. Let’s keep that going!
Goal Setting
What would you like to see the team accomplish at WCUS this year?
What topics do you think we should focus on?
What goals would be impactful to our day spent collaborating together?
Planning Resources
Take a look back at what we’ve done so far, and think ahead to what direction we want to head toward for 2024.
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. Asia we worked on this agenda: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/02/14/wordcamp-asia-2023-contributor-day/
Speaker Workshop for Indian Women in the WordPress Community https://www.eventbrite.com/e/speaker-workshop-for-indian-women-in-the-wordpress-community-sept-24-25-tickets-348466712317
Saturday and Sunday, September 24 and 25, 2022
9:00am to 11:30am India time (IST)
Looking for women (people who identify as women some or all of the time) volunteers during the workshop:
If you’ve done public speaking or are a WP event organizer, you can 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. people on their talk topics, descriptions, outlines, etc.
If you haven’t, there are some behind the scenes admin items that we need help with (letting people in from the waiting room, muting people, checking for questions in the chat that I might miss, etc.)
We have 27 signed up. We are aiming for about 35 to register, so help with spreading the word would be much appreciated.
October Inclusion workshop: The group started the discussion on what format workshop should be to be able to cover more of the material:
Our first BIG success story on the channel: member @metalandcoffee did a great job at her lightning talk at #WCUS!
Ebonie added in the meeting: “I truly appreciate the existence of the Diverse Speaker group. <3 Definitely wouldn’t have done a successful talk without it!”
Creating Inclusive WP Events content (2 parts on different weeks)
India Women’s Training
APAC meeting
with really great engagement and click-through numbers!
9 Other Updates + Next meeting facilitator (anyone)
@onealtr and @santanainniss are collaborating on a new post describing the APAC WP Diversity meeting. This will be an improved place to drive social media posts to to help bringing more community engagement.
As a 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. organizer, I would like to see CampTix Attendee data populate in a Google Sheet instead of only being available as a downloadable CSV file. This would allow organizers to make a live set of data available for their needs including but not limited to on-demand badge printing.
Integration with on-demand badge printing solutions
I am an organizer of WordCamp US 2022 and am posting this during 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/.. Over the last 3 days, I observed the process we had in place between WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. and the vendor we used to print our badges.
About two weeks before the event, a CampTix export was created.
Unnecessary columns in the export were removed leaving only the columns the vendor needed: name, pronouns, company, Twitter handle, and ticket type (attendee, sponsor, speaker, media, volunteer, organizer).
A review of the export was performed, by hand, and removed characters that the vendor couldn’t print (leaving only UTF-8 characters).
About one week before the event, the modified export was sent to the badge vendor.
The badge vendor uploaded our CSV file to Google Drive, and mapped the various columns to positions where text would appear on the badge.
Due to last minute changes to ticket details, the export from two weeks before the event was stale in a few cases:
Attendees that update their ticket information (name change, company change etc.) caused old information to still appear on the badge.
Attendees that refunded their ticket still had a badge available to be printed.
Attendees who purchased an available (recently refunded) ticket weren’t able to print their badge.
A manual process was necessary to update incorrect information, or add missing people to the vendor’s Google Sheet.
Organizers only need to create an “export” once
Recent exports I have in my Downloads folder
Over the course of planning a WordCamp, I find I am often pulling a fresh CampTix export. For the same reasons that I spelled out in the section above, an export becomes increasingly less valuable as time passes. While the CampTix Summarize tool is useful when looking for a count of attendees and how they answered a particular question, sometimes more specific information is needed. For example, it’s useful to see the attendee’s name and their answer, especially in the case of:
Microsponsors
T-shirt sizes
Life-threatening allergies
AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) needs
For me, the export CSV file isn’t usable until I open it in a spreadsheet application and I don’t have one installed on my computer. So, I end up uploading the file into my WordCamp’s Google Drive and open the file with Google Sheets before I can begin working with it. It would simplify the workflow by having the data immediately available in Google Sheets.
Integration Proposal
We already allow a non-logged user to access CampTix data through the Attendance UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing.. This proposal adds a new tab on the screen below called Export Integration. It would have a radio field titled Enabled and a text area field titled Secret Link similar to the screenshot.
CampTix Attendance UI
Once the Secret Link from the Export Integration is generated, it should be embedded inside the Google Sheets function IMPORTDATA() which would populate the sheet. If there are multiple use cases for Google Sheet integrations, additional Google Sheet files can be created that invoke the IMPORTRANGE() function. If only a select number of columns or rows are needed for a particular use case, the limited access use case could be wrapped by a QUERY(). Here’s an example that might make sense for the microsponsor scenario: =QUERY(IMPORTRANGE("1gcuSqpN-x1NCn5ZaEKc_IhoBFQAlMhpjtjE1eUL4ZJo"), "SELECT C, D, E WHERE B='Microsponsor'", FALSE)
Feedback
I’m seeking feedback on this proposal through the end of September. Please let me know if you have any questions or need clarification.
Can you believe WordCamp US is this week?! We are very much looking forward to seeing many of you at Contributor Day on Sunday! Thank you to all who shared ideas on what projects we could work on during our time together. Below is a summary of the projects we will be taking on! 💪
Projects marked with a 💻 emoji can be participated in remotely!
Projects for All Contributors
Apply to be a 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. or 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. Organizer during the morning session and attend a group orientation during the afternoon session.
Apply to be a Community DeputyProgram SupporterCommunity Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. and attend an orientation.
Attend a Meetup Reactivation Roundtable discussion.
Review and update our Handbooks and help translate them to local languages. 💻
Assist prospective Community DeputiesProgram SupporterCommunity Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. in submitting a Community Deputy Application, vet them on the spot, and lead an orientation.
Attend a Global Sponsorship Roundtable discussion.
Meetup/WordCamp/do_actiondo_actiondo_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org.Vetting Sprint 💻
If you are attending WordCamp US 2022 and registered for Contributor Day when you purchased your ticket, we warmly welcome you to the Community Team table and look forward to contributing back to the community team together. Looking forward to seeing everyone there! 🎉
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. Group Reactivation (currently ongoing)
New Meetup 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. Program
Training for Meetup/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. Organizers
And of course, we always have our ongoing work supporting MeetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook., WordCamps, and other events across the globe. 🌏🌍🌎
Now, we’d like to hear your ideas! What kind of tasks should we focus on?
You can look at what we planned for WordCamp Europe’s Contributor Day earlier this year for inspiration. ✨ We’d especially like to hear DeputiesProgram SupporterCommunity Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook.’ ideas for what activities first-time contributors can take part in. (Keep in mind that some of our ongoing work requires access which might pose challenges!)
Welcome to the September 2021 edition of the 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. Organizer newsletter! Read on to stay updated on the latest tidings from the WordPress Community this month.
Newsletter contents:
Updated Guidelines for In-person WordCamps
Online event updates
Tuesday Trainings
News from the WordPress world
🔙⛺️ [Announcement] Guidelines for returning to In-person WordCamps
The Community Team published new guidelines for returning to in-person WordCamps in regions where in-person events are allowed by the local public health authority. You can now organize in-person WordCamps for fully vaccinated, recently tested negative, or recently recovered folks (in the last 3 months) — provided your region passes the in-person safety checklist OR if vaccines and/or COVID testing are accessible to all. If your region does not meet these criteria, please continue to organize online events.
Does your region meet the updated in-person 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. guidelines, and do you want to apply to organize an in-person WordCamp following the guidelines described above? You can do it by submitting the WordCamp application form right away!
Check out our Tuesday Trainings (#TuesdayTrainings) where the Community Team publishes a different topic on our blog each week to help organizers and interested community members:
Is there a question you’d like to see answered, or a topic you’d like to see discussed? Send an email support@wordcamp.org with the subject line “Tuesday Trainings”!
🗞 News from the WordPress world
WordPress 5.8.1 is out! The CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team is actively working on WordPress 5.9: Don’t miss the roadmap and planning posts. The team aims to ship the release by December 14.
We launched 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/ Version 11.3 and Version 11.4 this month
Help the Test Team explore BlockBlockBlock 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. Theme switching by sharing feedback on the process.
If you have any questions, Community Team deputiesProgram SupporterCommunity Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-eventsSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community. Let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions!
Thanks to all the WordPress 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. organizers who responded to our recent survey. We received 23 submissions from around North America and abroad.
Many of the responses were very detailed and thorough. They’re too long to include here verbatim, so we’ve curated some common themes.
We added a bit of commentary in this post, and we’ll discuss these topics in more depth during our Grow Your Meetup! workshop 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. US. You’ll find us in the Community Room, Room 274.
Tell us a bit about your group
Many Meetup groups are established vs new, at least a few years, some 10+ years
Covering a range of topics: beginners, advanced users, development
Active members are a small subset of overall membership
Comment: There’s an oft-cited model of community participation: 90/9/1. Out of your entire community group, 90% will be passive (lurkers); 9% will be active; and 1% will be very engaged regulars.
How big is your group?
Ranges from 100’s to 1000’s of total members
Average turnout ranges from 20-50 depending on the topic
Presentations attract more people than socials
Comment: 30 seems to be the sweet spot for a reasonably-sized meetup group, regardless of the total number of members registered in the meetup, nor those who RSVP for each event.
How often do you meet?
65% meet once a month
35% meet more than once a month
No respondents said less than once a month
Comment: Consistent, routine events are a must if you want to build a strong meetup group. An active meetup group should meet at least once a month. This consistency builds momentum that helps make future meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. more likely to happen.
How do you promote your group?
Meetup.com is the primary method
Social media (Facebook & Twitter) and word-of-mouth
WordPress Dashboard, if part of the Chapter program
Comment: In general, it seems like meetup organizers don’t do a lot of outreach or promotion — we rely on Meetup.com to bring members to us, as well as word-of-mouth referrals through existing group members. This could be a big opportunity for us to find new members.
What’s worked?
Consistency – same day of the month, every month
Mixing it up – different locations, times, appeals to different people
Involve the group – planning, choosing topics, online groups
Setting topics in advance; focusing on peer/user support
Comment: Two things here. First, consistency leads to routine which leads to habit. But what works for some people won’t work for others. That’s where options come into play: different days, different times, different formats, different topics, different locations.
Issues?
Finding locations/venues
Finding speakers/presenters
No-shows, low turnout vs RSVPs
Comment: Totally consistent with our experiences as organizers, and an ideal topic for our group brainstorming session on Friday morning.
Advice for new meetup organizers?
It takes time. Start small, persist, keep showing up
Don’t overthink/overcomplicate; have a structure/template
Plan in advance, get experts in as speakers
Have a team of committed co-organizers
Other advice?
Don’t try to do everything yourself; you’ll burn out
Recognize other leaders, invite others to step up
Diversity and inclusion takes effort, but it’s worth it
You’re growing a community, not just hosting a meetup
…
That’s just an overview of what we’ve heard through the survey. We’ll address all of these points, and much more, during the Grow Your Meetup! workshop at WordCamp US in the Community Room, Room 274.
Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey!
