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

Announcement: Review of WordCamp sites without a tracker item – removal of some old WordCamp sites

Already some time ago, @iandunn handed me the list of 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 missing their counterpart in the WordCamp tracker.

Some of these sites are for WordCamps that did never take place at the end. Some sites are for WordCamps that have taken place well before the WordCamp tracker was introduced or do lack their counterpart for some other reason

I’ve gone thru the list of 60 sites and checked their status. Based on that, my proposal is that we:

  1. Create the counterpart post in the WordCamp tracker to backfill the history, with simple details like location, lead organiser (if available) and dates

OR

  1. Remove the WordCamp site, as the event never happened or the page links to a domain that does not work/isn’t controlled by 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. or WPFWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org..

Some of these sites go back to the early years of WordCamps, to 2008. More eyes on this list and determining the right action for the site would be highly appreciated, in case there is some historical information that isn’t available from the site.

The list of sites and proposed actions is here.

Please leave a comment on this post if you think that the proposed action in some of the sites is wrong. The discussion will be open until 2021-04-23 after which we’ll start to remove the sites and creating counterparts in the tracker. If you’d like to help with creating these counterparts, let me know in the comments!

#wordcamp-sites, #wordcamp-org, #wordcamps

WordCamp.org URL Migration Complete

Background

Earlier this year, @jonoaldersonwp and @joostdevalk highlighted some significant SEO problems with WordCamp.org, and proposed changing the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org structure to help fix them.

After discussion, the team decided to change the existing structure of year.city.wordcamp.org to city.wordcamp.org/year.

Status

All sites have now been migrated to the new structure. I’m not aware of any significant problems on past or current sites, but if you notice any please let me know.

Next Steps

We’ll need to wait a few months, in order for search engines to update their indexes. After that, we can measure the discoverability of 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 again, to see what problems remain, and how severe they are. Based on that, we can re-evaluate potential solutions for the remaining problems.

Feedback

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please leave a comment below.

#wordcamp-org

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

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

Schedule Block Available for Beta Testing

The Schedule block is now available for betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. testing on WordCamp.org. It will replaces the [schedule] shortcode, as a way to automatically generate a front end schedule based on the 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..

Kudos to @mrwweb for building an innovative prototype, @melchoyce for the design, and everyone who helped refine the ideas in previous discussions.

Screenshot of the Schedule block

Please leave comment below if you’d like to help with beta testing.

If you’re not currently planning a camp, you can use one of your older sites, or ask for access to a test site.

The new 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. doesn’t currently support the personalized schedule feature that the shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site. has, but that will be incorporated before the block is enabled for all sites.

Testing Details

  1. Leave a comment below, and include the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org of a past- or present- 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. that you helped organize. I’ll enable the block for that site.
  2. Edit the Session posts and update the duration field, if needed. If you skip this step, you’ll probably see a lot of warnings while using the block.
  3. Draft or publish a new page, and add the block to it. Please share a link to this page in the comments, so myself and everyone can see the results.
  4. Play around with the various options, and keep an eye out for bugs, missing features, pain points, etc. I’m especially interested to see if anyone runs into problems applying custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. to it, and any tweaks that would make that easier.
  5. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment below, or open an issue on GitHub.

Thanks!

+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.

#beta, #blocks, #schedule, #wordcamp-org

Who wants to test the new WordCamp blocks?

The WordCamp.org GutenbergGutenberg The 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/ blocks that were discussed and designed some time back are now ready for betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. testing!

Please note that currently Speaker, Session, Organizer and Sponsor blocks are available for testing. Development work on the 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 in progress, and will hopefully be available for testing in a month or so.

Beta testers, please report issues and bugs on Meta Trac or in the #meta-wordcamp channel on WordPress Slack.

Leave a comment on this post if you’re interested in testing these new tools on your 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. site. Thanks in advance for helping to improve our tools via testing and bug reports!

#blocks, #wordcamp-org

Request for Public Post Preview on WordCamp Sites

Hey all,

The 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 team has run into several times recently where it would be super helpful to allow people outside our team to be able to see and offer feedback on draft posts. A great example of that is the contributor team is about to write 18 posts, one for each WordPress contributor group, that summarizes what they do and what their current projects are. It would be amazing to be able to get direct feedback from each team as we do.

I made a Meta Trac ticket requesting to have the Public Post Preview plugin installed for this purpose, and @iandunn said there’s no technical problems with it but suggested that I get buy-in from the community team first. If you all are on board, he would be able to add it to the list of plugins that is off-by-default but can be turned on by any WordCamps that want to make use of it.

Any thoughts? Worries? Cheers? General feedback?

Thanks,
Aaron

#wordcamp-org

WordCamp.org 5.0 Upgrade

WordCamp.org hasn’t been upgraded to 5.0 yet, because @coreymckrill and I were busy with 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 and the WP 5.0.1 release. Now that those are done, we’ve had time to plan and test the upgrade, and everything is working well in our development environments.

Given that, I’d like to deployDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. the upgrade to the production server on Tuesday, January 1st. Things will essentially remain the same as they are today, where users are able to choose between the 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. and Classic editors.

The specific changes are:

  • The Classic Editor 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 will be enabled. The Block Editor will be the default for most post types, but Classic will be available for all types. Users will be able to choose which editor they’d like to use. Site admins can override those if they’d like, though.
Settings for the Classic Editor plugin (under General > Writing)
  • The GutenbergGutenberg The 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/ plugin will be deactivated. Once the Phase 2 changes have matured to the point where they’re ready for testing on production sites, then we can discuss re-enabling it (similar to the discussion we had for Phase 1).
  • The Block Editor will be available for some of our custom post types, like Speakers, Sessions, and Organizers.

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or concerns.

#gutenberg, #wordcamp-org

Feature Request: Give WordCamp attendees ability to mark/save sessions of interest on camp schdeule

Attending 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. is great, but as an attendee I have to repeatedly refer to the schedule to see which talks I wanted to go to next and which room I should be in, etc. I’d like to suggest a new feature to enable users to create a custom track from a published schedule on a WordCamp website. A way for users to select their desired session and somehow save this “custom” track or collection of sessions.

What does saving mean?

I think the 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 would be save and print or email the custom schedule/agenda. The user would select one talk (maybe more? if they’re interested in multiple sessions) per time slot to attend by clicking that slot in the schedule, and visually the schedule would highlight marked sessions. Perhaps selecting a session would even create a new list of sessions as that attendees custom agenda for the Camp and that agenda can be printed. I’m sure proper 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. would deem it necessary to include some type of buttons or interface to add a session to an agenda and then to remove selected sessions too. As MVP, this could be front-end only and not even save any data. It could populate an email or be ready to print – or even simply allow users to keep the page open on their phone for quick glances during the conference.  I especially see this agenda layout being useful on mobile, where it’s tough to fit a complex schedule.

For a nicer experience though, the site would save the user’s selections and allow them to return to the schedule to see their saved/selected sessions. Ideally this would be tied to their .org account or something so either on the computer or phone they could log in and view their saved agenda.

How could it be useful to more than just the attendee?

Then if we end up being able to save this data, why not allow users to opt-in to share their schedule with other attendees or even the public. Attendees and sessions are displayed, let’s connect them. Each session abstract could indicate interest either by how many attendees have selected this talk or even list all interested attendees. I could see this being useful information to gauge general interest for talks and may help ensure to have ample space for each session. For example, if one session has a high level of interest it could be moved to a larger room to account for more attendees. Anyways, I digress…

Here I’ve mocked up a quick and ugly schedule with some marked sessions:

wordcamp raleigh schedule with marked sessions

Here’s a nasty screenshot of a schedule for WordCamp Raleigh with sessions marked as proposed. Notice there are two sessions saved at 11am, while only one session for later times.

The main point here is to have a way that when viewing the WordCamp schedule, attendees can select which sessions they are most interested in to create their own agenda during a WordCamp, and then a convenient way for users to save this agenda for quick reference during WordCamp. Sharing this interest may help attendees network and connect with others before and during the event. This data could possibly provide general feedback to organizers for planning purposes too.

I don’t believe this is the first time this type of idea has come up and I’ve had positive feedback from others and hope this can generate a useful discussion and roadmap. Thoughts?

#improving-wordcamp-org, #wordcamp-org, #wordcamps #feature-request