Legal protections for organizers

As the WordPress Community begins to transition to in-person events, organizers are wondering what legal protections are available to them related to COVID-19. Here are a couple of solutions!

Disclaimer on 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. Ticket Purchases

We will be adding a disclaimer to the WordCamp ticket purchase page, which will protect organizers against claims related to COVID-19. The disclaimer text will read:

An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. COVID-19 is an extremely contagious disease that can lead to severe illness and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, senior citizens and guests with underlying medical conditions are especially vulnerable.

By attending WordCamp {city} {year}, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and waive any claims against the event organizers; volunteers; sponsors; the WordPress FoundationWordPress 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.; WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is 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., PBC; and their respective affiliates.

This disclaimer will appear on the ticket purchase page for the ticket purchaser to agree to. Agreement is given by checking a box next to the disclaimer (similar to agreeing to the Code of ConductCode of Conduct “A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia), before completing their ticket purchase.

We are aiming to roll this update out to WordCamp sites on Wednesday, 13 October 2021.

Insurance Policy

This year, WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. added a “communicable disease liability coverage” policy to our event insurance. This policy provides coverage to help defer any legal fees and costs related to lawsuits claiming damages due to:

  • Actual or alleged transmission of a communicable disease
  • An act, error, or omission by or on behalf of 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./WPCS in:
    • The supervision of any person who transmits, is infected with, and/or alleged to be infected with a communicable disease
    • Testing for a communicable disease
    • Actual or alleged failure to prevent the spread of a communicable disease
    • Actual or alleged failure to report a communicable disease to the authorities

This policy is currently in effect and covers all official WordCamps and WordPress Chapter 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..

Summary

These legal protections should hopefully ease the minds of organizers concerned about planning in-person WordCamps and WordPress Meetups. Please leave a comment below if you have any concerns or questions!

#policy, #wordcamps

Proposal: Recognition for event volunteers and attendees in WordPress.org profile

About two years ago Meta Trac ticket (note: please don’t continue in that ticket, this P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. is the more correct place for it) was opened about adding 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. volunteer and attendee badges to 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/ profiles. A few weeks ago Taco did bring it back to the discussion and I promised to write a proposal to move this forward.

Profile badges are graphics that do show users contributions towards WordPress project.

It is suggested that we should:

  • Give a badge for WordCamp volunteers
  • Give a badge for WordCamp attendees
  • Give a badge for 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. attendees

Let’s dive into each badge for a second.

WordCamp volunteers

Technically giving a badge for WordCamp volunteers is probably the most easiest of the badges to give automatically. In coordination with WordCamp 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, we could find a way to track all volunteers and their WordPress.org usernames as we do for organisers and speakers too.

It’s also almost unarguable that WordCamp volunteers are contributing to the project, so they should get a badge. In 2017 there was a conversation about recognising volunteers in WordCamp websites, that ended up in conclusion that we should do that. At that time the discussion didn’t consider profile badges and as an end result using Admin Flags functionality was suggested.

WordCamp Attendees

This is technically more harder to do, because we don’t ask WordPress.org usernames when attendees purchase a ticket.

Sure we could add a field and ask that, but then comes the question when badge should be added to profile. When a ticket is purchased? Then what happens if that ticket changes owner, is refunded or attendee doesn’t show up. If we add the badge after attendee has marked as attended in Camptix, not all would get a badge because not all WordCamps do use the functionality to mark attendance.

It’s also arguable whether attending to WordCamp is actually contributing to the project and something from which they should get a badge.

In the Trac ticket @andreamiddleton pointed out that in 2014 WordCamp San Francisco worked out a way display event registration and attendance on the activity log. She suggested that we recognise attendees in that way instead of giving badges.

Meetup attendees

Technically this is the hardest thing to achieve, because 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. live totally their own lives in Meetup.com and don’t have strong connection to WordCamp.org or WordPress.org systems. We don’t have a way to link Meetup.com profile to WordPress.org username for giving them a badge. Surely it can probably be done if team invests a lot of time on developing this feature.

The same discussion as with WordCamp attendees on their level of contribution to the project also applies to Meetup attendees.

The proposal

I’m proposing:

Badge for WordCamp volunteers

We should create a new badge for WordCamp volunteers and recognise them the same way as we do for organisers and speakers. Technical aspects need to be decided with WordCamp Meta team, but I’d create a new post type and re-use same functionalities that are used for organisers and speakers.

Log note for WordCamp attendees

We should start asking WordPress.org username during ticket purchase with an optional field in preparations to recognising WordCamp attendees.

I’m in favour of Andrea’s suggestion on showing the attendance on profile log instead of giving them a badge. Log note could be added after the WordCamp, in case the ticket changes owner on the first event day. Logic could be that everyone with a ticket does get the note unless there are at least a certain amount of attendees marked as attended when log note would be added only to those attendees.

What about Meetups and other event formats?

For Meetup and our other event format attendees, I would say it’s a too low-level contribution towards the WordPress project and technically too complicated to implement. Hopefully we can start recognising them at some point, but not for now.

Feedback

Read the original proposal and discussion on Meta Track ticket, there are good arguments and points. Note: please don’t continue in that ticket, this P2 is the more correct place for it.

Please share your feedback on the topic and especially on:

  • Should WordCamp volunteers get a badge?
  • Should WordCamp attendees get a badge or a note in their log?
  • What things do we need to take into consideration in these cases?

Share your thoughts before 2020-08-13.

#attendees, #meetups-2, #recognition, #volunteers, #wordcamps #meetups

WordCamp Incubator 2018-2019 Update Thread: March edition

Howdy Globlal Community Team!

Are you wondering how the last 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. Incubator went last weekend?

You’re very lucky, because this is the time of our monthly update about the WordCamp incubator and WordCamp Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia) happened less than a week ago 😉

Pinging @adityakane and @bee for letting us how your Incubator went.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

#incubator #wordcamps #monthly-updates

WordCamp Incubator 2018-2019 Update Thread: February edition

Howdy Community Team!

Are you wondering how 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. Incubator is going?

Well, this is the time of our monthly update about the WordCamp incubator in Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia).

Pinging @adityakane for letting us how your Incubator is going.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

#incubator #wordcamps #monthly-updates

WordCamp Incubator 2018-2019 Update Thread: January edition

Howdy Community Team!

Are you wondering how 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. Incubator is going?

Yes, we’re back! this is the time of our monthly update about the WordCamp incubator in Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia).

Pinging @emanuel_blagonic for letting us how your Incubator is going.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

#incubator #wordcamps #monthly-updates

WordCamp Incubator 2018 Update Thread: November edition

Howdy Community Team!

Are you wondering how 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. Incubators are going?

Yes! this is the time of our monthly updates about the two WordCamp incubators in Montevideo (Uruguay) and Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia) 😉

PingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” to @remediosgraphic and @emanuel_blagonic for you both to tell us how your Incubators are going.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

#incubator #wordcamps #monthly-updates

WordCamp Incubator 2018 Update Thread: October edition

Hola Community Team!
I’m sure you were wondering how 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. Incubators are going…
So, yes! this is the moment of our monthly updates about the two WordCamp incubators in Montevideo (Uruguay) and Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia) 😉

Pinging @remediosgraphic and @emanuel_blagonic for you both to tell us how your Incubators are going. Thanks in advance!

#incubator #wordcamps #monthly-updates

WordCamp Incubator 2018 Update Thread: September edition

Howdy Community Team!
Are you wondering how 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. Incubators are going? You’re lucky, because this is the moment of our monthly updates about the two WordCamp incubators in Montevideo (Uruguay) and Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia) 🙂

Hi @remediosgraphic and @emanuel_blagonic can you both tell us how your Incubators are going? Thanks in advance!

#incubator #wordcamps #monthly-updates

Payment Intermission: 1-7 October 2018

The Automattic sponsored staff members of 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., who routinely handle WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. banking, will be at a company offsite meeting from 1-5 October 2018. During this time we’ll stop 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. 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. vendor payments, reimbursements, and sponsor payment attribution.

If you’ll need to pay for goods or services at the start of October, please submit all requests no later than Friday, 28 September 2018 at 16:00 UTC.

Payment requests submitted after that time will not likely be processed until Tuesday, 9 October 2018. Sponsor invoices paid during 1-7 October 2018 won’t be marked paid until 8 October 2018.

If you have an urgent payment request that must be handled that week, but did not submit your request prior to 28 September, please reach out to @kcristiano or @adityakane 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/..

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., 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., and community members will still be available by email at support@wordcamp.org or on Slack in the #community-events channel as usual.

Normal vendor payment and sponsorship attributions scheduled will resume Tuesday, 9 October 2018, though it may take us a day or two to get fully caught up.

#payments #afk #wordcamps #meetups

WordCamp Incubator 2018 Update Thread: August edition

Hi all! If you’re wondering what’s going on with the two 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. incubators in Montevideo (Uruguay) and Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia), this is the moment of our monthly update 🙂

Here’s where @remediosgraphic and @emanuel_blagonic will post their updates for August 🙂

#incubator #wordcamps