Announcing the Second Cohort (2024 Q1) of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program

We are thrilled to share the exciting news about the launch of the second cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship program, starting next week, Monday, February 19th! This program offers a special chance for those enthusiastic about WordPress to immerse themselves in the project and make impactful contributions.

Who Are the Mentees?

This cohort is made up of over 50 diverse contributors, each either matched with a mentorEvent 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. or part of a task-focused project under the guidance of multiple 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.. These participants were chosen from a pool of 76 applicants from around the globe. All those who submitted an application should have an email waiting for them with the application results.

Program Breakdown

This cohort will span over a six-week period:

  • Weeks 1 and 2 (February 19 – March 3): Kick-off session, initial mentor/mentee check-in, setting contribution goals, and online workshops.
  • Weeks 3 and 4 (March 4 – March 17): Focus on onboarding mentees to their chosen Make/WordPress teams, with support from team representatives, to make their initial contributions.
  • Weeks 5 and 6 (March 18 – March 29): Wrap up, set a 30-60-90-day goal, and a graduation session.

After these six weeks, mentees will gain a solid understanding of the WordPress project, contribute to their chosen Make/Teams, and prepare for continued involvement. Following the pilot cohort’s success, this cohort’s timing is again aligned with the WordPress 6.5 release, providing mentees with a firsthand look at the release process of WordPress.

Our Mentors

The success of this program is largely due to our dedicated mentors who provide one-on-one support, guiding mentees through their WordPress journey.

Project/GroupMentor(s)
6.5 DocumentationAnand Upadhyay @anandau14
Bengali Polyglots OnboardingMuhibul Haque @devmuhib
Community ThemesMargarita Cabrera Ramirez @onemaggie
Ganga Kafle @kafleg
Community/Polyglots/SupportArthur Kasirye @thehopemonger
CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.Kira Schroder @kirasong
Anne McCarthy @annezazu
Benjamin Zekavica @benjamin_zekavica
Docs SprintJenni McKinnon @ninianepress
India Event ReactivationAditya Kane @adityakane
Alexander Gounder @gounder
Aravind Ajith @aravindajith
Yogesh Londhe @yoga1103
Learn WordPress Content TranslationJenny Dupuy @jdy68
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.Steven Dufresne @dufresnesteven
Courtney Robertson @courane01
Photo Directory Reviewer TrainingTopher DeRosia @topher1kenobe
Polyglots & SupportTor-Bjorn Fjellner (Tobi) @tobifjellner
Polyglots Documentation OnboardingEstela Rueda @estelaris
Spanish Community + WPTVNilo Velez @nilovelez
Spanish Community Mentoring and Community OnboardingJuan Hernando @unintended8
Spanish Polyglots OnboardingJosep Morán @josepmoran/
SupportKavya Gokul @properlypurple
Sustainable ContributionPatricia Brun Torre @patricia70
TestOlga Gleckler @oglekler
Pooja Derashri @webtechpooja

Join and Follow Along

In the spirit of openness and collaboration, we invite the WordPress community to follow our cohort’s progress. While not everyone can be assigned a specific mentor,  those interested are welcome to join the #contributor-mentorship channel on Make/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/.. Here, you can engage in public sessions and stay informed about the developments of the WordPress 6.5 release and the broader contributor community.

For future updates on this program, you can check come back to this URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/tag/mentorship-program/ (RSS)

Acknowledgments

This program couldn’t happen without the tireless efforts of our mentors, the Contributor Working Group, and all involved in organizing and supporting this initiative. Your dedication to fostering growth and learning within the WordPress community is invaluable. Let’s make this cohort a success together to enhance mentorship within the WordPress project and empower more contributors!

@adityakane @angelasjin @hellosatya @javiercasares @KafleG @kirasong @nao @oglekler @onealtr @patricia70 @ratneshsonar @unintended8 @webtechpooja @yoga1103 @coachbirgit @josepmoran @harishanker @alexcu21 @alexdeborba @annezazu @askdesign @gusa @nilovelez @tobifjellner @tokyobiyori @topher1kenobe @voboghure @ninianepress @malgra @soberbanda @anandau14 @devmuhib @leogopal @matteoenna @lumiblog @krupajnanda

#wpcontributors, #5ftf, #contributor-working-group, #five-for-the-future, #mentorship-cohort-july-2023, #mentorship-program #contributor-mentorship-program

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | February 15th 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

The next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group is on the cards. We’re meeting today – on Thursday (February 15th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.

Today’s chat is particularly exciting, because we are launching the second cohort of the Contributor Mentorship Program next week (February 19th)!

Meeting times

We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@adityakane, @alexcu21, @angelasjin, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @devmuhib, @foosantos, @gusa, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @josepmoran, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @matteoenna, @meher, @kirasong, @milana_cap, @mysweetcate, @nao, @ninianepress, @nomadskateboarding, @oglekler, @onealtr, @onemaggie, @patricia70, @ratneshsonar, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @tobifjellner, @topher1kenobe, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103, @hellosatya, @alexdeborba, @annezazu, @askdesign, @nilovelez, @tokyobiyori, @voboghure

Agenda

In the last mentorship chat, we finalized plans for our next cohort. Last week, thanks to y’all’s timely feedback, we published the call for mentors and mentees for the next cohort!

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Mentorship Cohort #2 status update
We closed our call for 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 mentees last week, and we are close to announcing our selected mentors and mentees (waiting for some final confirmation/feedback from mentors). At this point, we will chat about the current state of the selection process for transparency.

3. Draft Program Schedule
A draft schedule for our program is ready! We will be discussing the same in this chat for members’ feedback.

4. Call for Help
As the program is about to launch, we’re going to need a lot of help from our mentors and mentees to make it happen! We will define the areas where help is needed in the chat, but to summarize:

  • Documentation Tasks (Review mentorEvent 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., mentee guides, showrunning documents, checklists)
  • Facilitators (Folks who can engage the mentees throughout the program and run the program broadly)
  • Onboarding sessions hosts (We need representatives from Make/Teams to host sessions on various topics for our group)
  • And finally, some additional mentors (While our call for mentors is closed, we are looking for additional mentors who can support our pool of mentors)

All available tasks can be found here: https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/102/views/4?sortedBy%5Bdirection%5D=desc&sortedBy%5BcolumnId%5D=Labels

5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!

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/.

  • Please make use of the Slack #contributor-mentorship channel for open discussion.
  • Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.

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/

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #mentorship-chat #agenda

Recap of the Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on January 18, 2024

Agenda: 
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2024/01/17/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-january-17th-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting links (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/.): APAC/EMEA, AMER

Hosts: @adityakane (EMEA) @harishanker (AMER)

Notes: @patricia70

In Attendance:
APAC/EMEA @adityakane (host) + @angelasjin @harishanker @hellosatya @javiercasares @KafleG @kirasong @nao @oglekler @onealtr @patricia70 @ratneshsonar @unintended8 @webtechpooja @yoga1103 + async @coachbirgit @josepmoran

AMER: @harishanker (host) + @alexcu21 @alexdeborba @annezazu @askdesign @gusa @hellosatya @nilovelez @tobifjellner @tokyobiyori @topher1kenobe @voboghure + async @ninianepress

Last meeting recap:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/12/28/recap-of-the-contributor-working-groups-mentorship-chat-on-december-21-2023/

Notes

We shared the agenda and latest win:
@adityakane: “Currently, we have received 10 mentorEvent 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 13 mentee applications”

Mentorship Cohort Details

Program Schedule and status

  • Call for 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 mentees – Published :tada:
  • Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 8 – Feb 15) – Ongoing
  • Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
  • Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  • Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

@gusa asks if it’s possible to publish which teams are selected by applicants.

More Mentorship Projects Wanted

Here is a summary of the ideas we have received thus far:

@ninianepress mentions potential projects for the Marketing and Docs:

@annezazu suggests a dedicated release-oriented mentoring project that offers participants an inside view of releases with dedicated projects. She also shared that as part of the Queeromattic Employee Resource Group of Automattic, scholarships could be made available for participants. The idea was welcomed with great enthusiasm. 

Request for Feedback

We had a discussion around @gusa proposal and comment about scholarship/stipend.

Additional ideas for Mentorship Projects:

Amplify the Mentorship Calls

All working group members were encouraged to amplify the Mentorship calls. The Make/Marketing team already has published the following posts in social platforms on official WordPress accounts:

Additionally, the Make/Marketing team has an Amplify entry in their 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/ profile.

@hellosatya proposes to involve the Make/Marketing team to have the mentorship program mentioned in every team’s meetings.

Criteria for Selecting Mentors and Mentees

Discussion around the criteria:
https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/issues/9

Upcoming Tasks (Help welcome!)

We also reviewed upcoming tasks for the mentorship program. Working group members are encouraged to leave a comment on the relevant GitHub issue or help us by creating an issue.

Open discussion

@angelasjin proposed “office hoursOffice Hours Defined times when the Global Community Team are in the #community-events Slack channel. If there is anything you would like to discuss – you do not need to inform them in advance.You are very welcome to drop into any of the Community Team Slack channels at any time.” for mentors where she will be answering questions and providing support to mentors as needed. 

Notes by @patricia70, reviewed by @harishanker and @nao 

#wpcontributors, #contributor-working-group, #meeting-notes, #mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-recap, #mentorship-program

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda |January 18th 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this Thursday (January 18th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.

Note that this is our first chat of 2024, and today’s chat is exciting because we just published the call for mentees of the Mentorship Program’s second cohort!

Meeting times

We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@adityakane, @alexcu21, @angelasjin, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @devmuhib, @foosantos, @gusa, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @josepmoran, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @matteoenna, @meher, @kirasong, @milana_cap, @mrfoxtalbot, @mysweetcate, @nao, @ninianepress, @nomadskateboarding, @oglekler, @onealtr, @onemaggie, @patricia70, @ratneshsonar, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @tobifjellner, @topher1kenobe, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, and @yoga1103

Agenda

In the last mentorship chat, we finalized plans for our next cohort. Last week, thanks to y’all’s timely feedback, we published the call for mentors and mentees for the next cohort!

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Mentorship Cohort #2 planning

2-1: Program Schedule and status

  1. Call for 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 mentees – Published 🎉
  2. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 8 – Feb 15) – Ongoing
  3. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
  4. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  5. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

2-2. More Mentorship Projects Wanted
We are moving ahead with the Team Projects idea for this cohort. We have three active ideas right now: 

Are there any other projects that should be included?

More info about Mentorship Projects: https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/discussions/7

3. Call for Volunteers and Request for Process Feedback

We need volunteers to help with program tasks. Requesting group members to express their interest to help out with various available tasks:

  • Criteria for selecting mentors/mentees as well as selecting mentors and mentees. 
  • Amplifying our mentor and mentee calls for maximum impact
    • Follow up on the Marketing Team request
    • Sharing the announcement in various communities & 1on1 outreach
    • Emailing past applicants
  • Documentation Tasks
    • Revise & establish a Mentor guide (handbook, resource guide)
    • Revise & establish a Mentee guide
    • Show running document
    • Status checklist template for each mentee
      • Check-in templates (30-day, 60-day, 90-day)
  • Scheduling sessions and managing shared calendar
  • [Low Priority] Follow-up on the Mentorship Program participant spotlight articles
  • Any additional ideas on making our program more effective

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/.

  • Please make use of the Slack #contributor-mentorship channel for open discussion.
  • Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.

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/

4. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

The following folks contributed to this post: @nao @patricia70 @adityakane

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #mentorship-chat

Recap of the Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on December 21, 2023

In attendance: @adityakane, @alexcu21, @angelasjin, @gusa, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @onemaggie, @josepmoran, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @matteoenna, @kirasong, @devmuhib, @nao, @ninianepress, @oglekler, @onealtr, @patricia70, @sereedmedia,@st810amaze, @tobifjellner, @topher1kenobe, @webtechpooja, @sumitsingh, @tobifjellner, @yoga1103

Notes: @harishanker

Agenda:  https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/12/19/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-december-21st-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/ 

Meeting Start

Planning Mentorship Cohort #2 of the Mentorship Program

Our main focus for this chat was planning the second cohort of the mentorship program which kicks off in January 2023. 

Adjusted Schedule of the Mentorship Program Cohort #2

Based on feedback from the last chat, we decided to move our second cohort to January 2024, so as to give us more time to run the program on planned dates. Our updated schedule is as follows:

  1. Publish Call for mentees/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. (late November; close at the end of the year) Week of January 8, 2024
  2. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 16 – Feb 9) (Jan 8 – Feb 15)
  3. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
  4. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to. T the release week)
  5. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

Contributor Feedback

  • All members were generally in agreement about the updated schedule.
  • @st810amaze shared a concern about holidays around the world in January and February 2023, which could affect the program, and shared about upcoming holidays in this period. While it is not possible to change the schedule right now, we decided that it would be best to work around these holidays to ensure that our contributors get the best experience.
  • @kirasong: “I’ve shared this elsewhere, but I think the schedule starting after 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. makes it a bit harder for folks to contribute to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. for things landing in 6.5.Knowing that’s the case, though, we can pick tasks that are more likely to be able to be committed (like testing/tests/bug fixes). And/Or make the expectations clear that forms of contribution leading up to commits are good enough too. I like that the announcement post encourages getting set up early and if there’s any way I can help folks as they do that, I would love to.”
  • @harishanker: “Personally, I feel that the new schedule aligns better with our goals. It’s also nice to have the call for mentors/mentees in the new year, we could have some more sign ups that way. And in terms of timelines, I think we have sufficient time to work on all our tasks.”

Cohort Announcement Post Feedback

Our draft cohort announcement post and calls for mentors and mentees are out. All details can be found in the linked GitHub issue. Group members shared their feedback on the announcement post and the mentorEvent 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./mentee calls. 

Contributor Feedback

  • @harishanker suggested some mentor specific feedback along the lines of mentor motivation, experience, etc.
  • @angelasjin wondered whether we should add more questions or whether we should strike a balance to get the right mentors in our program. 
  • Based on the feedback, the mentor form was updated.
  • @alexcu21: “How will be the selection process, I guess you shared it on previous cohort but I can’t find it.”
  • As a result of the feedback, the mentor form was updated, and the selection process was clarified in the GitHub issue.

Projects for the Mentorship Program

In this meeting, we discussed the idea of project-based mentorship for the next cohort – an idea that was originally suggested by @oglekler and @tobifjellner in our past chats. Mentorship programs from other 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. initiatives (such as Linux Foundation Mentorship and Google Summer of Code, to name a few), have always been project-based. These programs have always had encouraging results, as project-based mentorships offer direction and provide a great pathway for mentee engagement. In our chats, we brainstormed a couple of ideas for mentorship program projects. 

  • A project to have a group of mentees come together to build Community Themes (proposed by @onemaggie, who has kindly offered to be a mentor in that project as well) 
  • A Learn WordPress Tutorial on a high-impact topic created by a group of mentees, dividing work around script writing, video & audio recording, editing, and subtitles, as proposed by @courtneypk – who has also kindly agreed to support the idea. 

Ideally, we identified that mentorship program projects have the following features: 

  • Completable in four to five weeks
  • Something you and/or someone else can mentor
  • Benefits WordPress projects at large rather than specific individuals or organizations only
  • Required skills are relevant for beginner- to intermediate-level mentees

Group members shared the following feedback:

  • @nao: “Both projects sound like great fit, they are well-defined and low-risk, and provide lots of opportunity to learn new skills. Plus, group work is a good way to gain collaboration experience.”
  • @josepmoran: “ @nao Completely agree. Cooperation and fostering cohesion of work groups would be great.”
  • @oglekler: “I will think about Core project, but I believe that it should be a team work. It will be fun and mentees will learn to collaborate”
  • @harishanker: “I strongly advocate for group projects, I’m not sure how much we can do this for our Q1 cohort, but I would love to do more projects for other cohorts too. Having a clear output could be immensely helpful.”
  • @kirasong agreed that group projects are a good idea. “I thinkit’s likely to be easier to arrange for next time but trying it out is a wonderful idea regardless,” they added.
  • @javiercasares: “I think the project idea is great, but yes, we probably need to clarify the project and, mainly, the goal. I’m thinking on some project, but I’m usually involved in seed projects, so I don’t have any project right now…But, I think documentation may have some projects (I know Mobile and others have some needs, but probably somebody from the Docs team can help better). For example, probably we will have some projects from the Hosting team that may be around the time for the 2nd cohorst, so when I have some clarity about it, I can try and propose something” 
  • @st810amaze: “I love the idea of group work. Working 1-on-1 with the mentor is great. But having a chance to catch up with other mentees might motivate them more, and always a chance to make new friends.”
  • @kafleg and @onemaggie supported the idea strongly and committed their support to mentor new contributors in this project as part of the Community Theme Projects idea.
  • @tobifjellner: “How about some mentees organizing an online 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.? Someone might join as speaker… #marketing should be able to share useful ideas. We haven’t had a WP-TranslationDay for a while
  • @nao was excited about the idea of a translation day. “
  • I think it would be great if someone can mentor to lead a group of mentees (some PTEs, perhaps?) to update WPTranslation Day tools and docs, so it’s possible to run it this September (and every year!).This could be a Community/Polyglots TeamPolyglots Team Polyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/. joint project?”
  • On @nao’s nudge, @tobifjellner is going to ask in the next Polyglots meeting if anyone would be interested in being a mentor.
  • @gusa shared an excellent idea of a WordPress Hackathon from the Sustainability Team. “The description isn’t quite clear, but a primary goal is to create resources that could be used for training and mentoring. There’s already some overlap with multiple teams”, he added. Per Gus, this is already submitted as a NextGen event, and are working with the community team members to refine. 
  • @harishanker shared that the Contributor Working Group would love to work with the Sustainability Team on related projects. 
  • @gusa also pointed us to FundOSS – a program that tries to fund open source contributors. More can be found here: https://github.com/WordPress/sustainability/issues/22

Folks are also encouraged to share the feedback in 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/: https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/discussions/7

Mentorship Program Clarifications 

We clarified a few important housekeeping items for our chats:

We wrapped up the chat by thanking all group members for their contributions in 2023, and hoping for an exciting year ahead for the program in 2024. 

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #meeting-notes

#mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-recap

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | December 21st 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this Thursday (December 21st) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.

Meeting times

We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many time zones as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@adityakane, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @foosantos, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @meher, @milana_cap, @kirasong, @mrfoxtalbot, @mysweetcate, @nao, @nomadskateboarding, @onealtr, @oglekler, @patricia70, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @topher1kenobe, @tobifjellner, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103, @josepmoran, @ratneshsonar, @gusa, @matteoenna, @onemaggie

Agenda

In the last Mentorship Chat, we established a schedule for the next cohort of the Contributor Mentorship program. It’s time to open for the cohort 2 mentorEvent 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. & mentee calls!

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Call for Volunteers for Mentorship Cohort #2
We are a bit behind schedule but still have enough time to run the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. program on the planned dates.

2-1: Review Adjusted Schedule

  1. Planning phase (now/ending)
  2. Publish Call for mentees/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. (late November; close at the end of the year) Week of January 8, 2024
  3. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 16 – Feb 9) (Jan 8 – Feb 15)
  4. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
  5. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  6. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

2-2: Review the cohort announcement

https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/issues/6

3. Team Project Wanted
Reflecting on the feedback from the previous cohort and related discussions, it appears we need to identify some well-defined projects for our mentees. @onemaggie brought up the Community Theme Project, which could fit well as one of them. 

Do you have any other project suggestions?

4. Clarification for the Working Group

  • 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/.
    • Please make use of the Slack #contributor-mentorship channel for open discussion.
    • Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.
  • Contributor WG 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/
  • Five for the Future GitHub
    • If anyone wants to work on documentation for the 5ftF contributors, please add it to the GH repository

5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #mentorship-chat

Recap of Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on November 16th, 2023

In Attendance: @javiercasares @nao @josepmoran @kafleg @patricia70 @matteoenna @harishanker @oglekler @sumitsingh @webtechpooja @adityakane  @ratneshsonar @jeffpaul @mysweetcate @topher1kenobe @sereedmedia @courane01 @gusa @ninianepress @tobifjellner

Facilitator (EMEA): @adityakane
Facilitator (AMER): @harishanker
Notes: @ratneshsonar 

Agenda: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/11/14/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-november-16th-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting Start: 

EMEA: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1700118080711109
AMER: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1700150402952559

Results of the Mentorship Program Survey and Contributor Story

Thanks to @ninianepress @sereedmedia and @nao, our working group shipped a post event survey which was sent to all mentees from the mentorship program. At the time of writing this recap, seven people answered the survey and the results are as follows:

Benefits from the program

  • Gaining confidence
  • Learning about CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.
  • Understanding release processes
  • Better understanding of WordPress teams and release processes

Suggestions

  • Meeting a Core dev while they solve the ticket in the next program (shadowing contributions)
  • Expand to multiple languages
  • Have mentees “try out” different teams by making good first contributions
  • Clear expectations on mentorship timelines and meeting times
  • Confusion in welcome meetings
  • More social interactions and connections between mentees. 

In terms of achievements, we also celebrated the following wins from our past cohort:

  • One of the mentees – @josepmoran published a post about his journey on Spanish WordPress.org and spoke about it at WordCamp Madrid with his mentorEvent 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. @javiercasares.
  • @prikari went on to become a co-organizer 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. Mumbai 2023, barely a few months after our cohort concluded.

Detailed survey results were also shared privately with working group members for further analysis. Our group members shared the following feedback:

  • To have more shadowing sessions.
  • 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. helping out mentees directly with the contribution process (matching mentors and mentees based on contribution interests)
  • Having a schedule beforehand and balance all activities amongst mentors and mentees.
  • Continue localized mentorships (mentors and mentees matched based on the languages they speak)
  • Offer clear expectations for the mentorship program, with better tracking of the mentorship progress in a public space (e.g. in a 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/ project)
  • Implement some suggestions now and big ticket ones (like multilingual mentorship) later, based on availability.
  • Have mentees focus on one team first rather than have them bounce around?
  • Use the Make/Contribute landing page.
  • Getting feedback from experienced mentees on what particular things might make their onboarding more pleasant.

Mentorship Cohort #2 Schedule & Plans

Based on members’ feedback from past chats, we have put together a draft plan for the next mentorship program. Here’s a link to the draft plan document – updated to factor in the 6.5 release date (March 26, 2024).

Plan Summary

  • We are following a similar structure from the last program, but will be expanding it to include more mentors and mentees.
  • There will be a call for mentors and mentees this time, with the hope of prioritizing mentors who match the contribution interest/experience of mentees.
  • Lesser time on general project introduction and more time for specific team introduction and release shadowing.
  • Deeper integration into WordPress release process for 6.5
  • More actionable pre and post-event feedback loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. and check-in
  • Follow-up contribution plan for mentees after graduation

Tentative schedule of Mentorship Cohort

  1. Planning: 2 months (We’re currently in this phase, November – December 2023)
  2. Publish Call for mentees/mentors (late November; close at the end of the year)
  3. Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 16 – Feb 9)
  4. Announce selected mentees/mentors (Early Feb; give enough time for the cohort to prepare)
  5. Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
  6. Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

We asked members to share their feedback on the program plan, and they shared the following with us:

Thoughts about the plan

  • There was general feedback that this program is a good next step from our past cohort.
  • @oglekler: “Highlight in a call for mentees and mentors the areas they can participate in. I want to make a point that it is fine not to be a developer to be an active and successful contributor.”
  • @jeffpaul asked any of the feedback items from the survey incorporated in the next cohort plans. @harishanker shared some of the key results that are incorporated into the new plan:
    • More hands-on sessions
    • Setting clear expectations on mentorship timelines
    • Being very clear on welcome meetings
    • Facilitating more connections with mentees
    • To have more mentors and mentees
  • @sereedmedia: “i wonder if the application dates being in the downtime holiday season will be a benefit or dampen interest? just hard to get people to pay attention during the holidays.”. Sé also suggested that the application period launch in January along the lines of “new year, new skills”. @mysweetcate suggested that if the program opens in December, we could keep the applications open until January 2024.
  • @patricia70 asked: “How do we mentor in areas we are not ourselves experienced in? would there be a short “mentor training” first? For example, I know a lot about community, DEIB, some of other areas, but not about Core or GitHub, bug scrubs, commits, etc”. Proposed answers include:
    • To have mentor training for this cohort.
    • @nao: “we should try to find a good match with top interest/expertise, but additional training & support from other mentors can also help mentors learn something new about the project.”
    • @harishanker: ” We could bring in mentees with some experience and train everyone on these basics, the ones that  – Core or GitHub, bug scrubs, commits, etc and also other program related areas.”
    • @adityakane: “in general a good overview of Core and Github usage as a learn course would be very helpful. For core specifically, I mean”
    • @javiercasares: “I think the Team Reps has a moment here… they know everything about their teams, the documentation and where to find material (and how to create it) so they should also be involved in some active way, supporting not only mentees, but mentors”
    • @josepmoran: “I totally agree and I join this interesting initiative, since since my presentation in Madrid, here in Spain a small movement has been created that I try to manage based on Javier’s teachings and explain my own experience.”
    • @adityakane: “About a learn course – I did suggest a Topic Idea: Getting Started with Github and Overview for WordPress Core Contributors — (it is still awaiting triage)
    • @glycymeris: “We are creating in Spain a Github handbook for non-experienced people that could be useful. It will be finished in a couple of weeks. If you want we could share it.”
  • @josepmoran: “Now not only am I and will be mentored, I am taking actions so that other collaborators are aware of these mentorships and I inform you of my learning and process of great progress as a more effective and continuous collaborator.”

Areas in the mentorship program that will help the program succeed

  • @oglekler: “I can cover several topics in online Zoom sessions and provide support via in-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/. meetings. I think we can have a brief overview of the whole ecosystem (I can do it, but I believe that there are people who can do it much better), second session is about how to start Core contribution (I already did this intro, but hopefully the second time it can be better), and some session with live example about how to create a patch and also another one about testing. I am just suggesting, and will be happy not to do everything I am proposing by myself.”
  • @ninianepress: “I think shadowing mentors is a fabulous and highly valuable idea and would help mentees a lot, I think. I think a graduation Zoom call is a wonderful idea and I think we should invite past graduates since we didn’t do so last time”
  • @harishanker: “I would pick release shadowing and finding ways for mentees to participate in any release related things. Testing comes to mind!”

Something to be included in the next cohort

  • @oglekler: “More feedback and visibility about mentees self learning. This part was sort of obscured for me. Making it more publicly organized and discussed will provide this visibility and give great feedback and insides.”
  • @harishanker: “We don’t have it covered, but I would like a sub-cohort of mentees (optionally) working on a group project. Perhaps something like a community 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. theme or a mini feature in core etc (which was suggested by @oglekler)
  • @ninanepress: “I would really love to see junior and senior mentees and mentors, and to have a mentorship chain”
  • @sereedmedia “love the mentorship chain. i think that is key to a sustainable program.”
  • @gusa asked questions on the mentorship program and highlighted the need for a broader culture of mentorship in WordPress. @ninanepress highlighted how the Docs Team has an onboarding guide. @gusus shared of his experience in the Drupal community and shared many excellent points which may be incorporated in WordPress. Some Community Summit sessions were also highlighted in the conversation:
  • @gusa also shared this task from the Sustainability team which highlights resource needs as well.

Contributing in the next session
Many working group members expressed interest in participating in the next cohort in different roles.

Contributor Mentorship Program Badge

One pending task from the past cohort is assigning badges to participants in the program. We had created a formal request for badges, but we recently received feedback from the 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 that the program completion badge may not align with the other badges given to mark contribution achievement, leaving us in a bit of a conundrum:

  • Should we work on a broader change in the badging system?
  • OR would it be better to display/celebrate the completion differently?

The following ideas were shared in our chats:

  • @javiercasares: “yes, this is something that has been talked about… we should have two types of badges, the team ones, and “goals one”… but that’s something from Meta… Maybe the option is:
    • mentors: Community badge
    • Mentees: the badges from the team they participate (as they gain the badges for their participation)
    • this is something “for now”, but having in mind having “goals badges””
  • @harishanker: “Personally, I think our badging system needs an overhaul. But we do need to celebrate the achievements of our mentees. I’m not 100% sure how best we can do that before badging is overhauled””
  • @josepmoran: “I believe that the mentored badge, without downplaying its importance, can be relative. What really matters are the badges you get through the contributions you make thanks to the emntorias course. and I think those are the ones that are really relevant.”
  • @tobifjellner changed the ticket type from bug to enhancement.
  • @courane01: “Noting in the gaming world, badges are called achievements.  Sometimes in the edu space. I think we should explore other 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. projects and how they do likewise. Ex: Linux Foundation does give badges for course completions. https://openprofile.dev/profile/courtneyr. I haven’t seen badging for other uses, yet. Nor have I looked though. I think continuing to differentiate team contribution from other areas is the central point, and terminology is the nuance to sort out first”
  • @tobifjellner: “I’d love for some badges to still remain as tokens of past contributions, even if we for safety remove some accesses when someone moves on (or even passes away…)”
  • @gusa: “I referenced some other projects with good badging/crediting systems in one of the #sustainability roadmap items/ideas”
  • @ninianepress: “What if we had team badges AND achievements? The latter being stuff like this mentorship completion and the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign badges”
  • @jeffpaul: “it seems like the response in that meta ticket is based on not understanding the mentorship program, perhaps restating how the program works will make it clear that the badges apply similarly as other team contribution badges do?”. To which @harishanker asked if we could still do the proposed badges without having to overhaul badging, to which, @jeffpaul agreed as there’s no limit to the number of badges, also the mentorship badge could be created for the community team. Jeff also went on to clarify: “yeah, my reading of the comment on that ticket was more confusion about the request than anything, so perhaps restating and giving some context/links out to make it more clear will hopefully help?”
  • @harishanker also clarified that as per this post, all working group members are eligible for the community contributor badge.

Group members were asked to share the feedback directly in TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7196

Feedback Request from Marketing Team: Contributor Onboarding

The Make/Marketing Team continues their work to improve contributor onboarding experience and would like feedback on:

Group members were asked to share their feedback directly on GitHub.

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #meeting-notes

#mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-recap

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | October 19th 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next WordPress Contributor Working Group Mentorship chat. We’re meeting this Thursday (October 19th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. Check out our launch post and past chats for more information on the working group and its plans.

Meeting Times

We will be holding these chats in multiple time zones to make accommodations for as many time zones as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

Note: We will only be hosting the APAC/EMEA chat this week, as we don’t have a host for the Americas chat yet. If you can host the chat in the Americas time, let me (@nao) know. The Americas chat was originally planned for 2023-10-19 16:00 UTC (Google Calendar link).

In case a host is not found for the Americas chat, group members in the Americas are encouraged to participate in the EMEA/APAC chat asynchronously.


The chat will be on the #community-team channel in Make/WordPress Slack. Use this .ics file for calendar entries to not miss it. It’s also on the Make/Meetings calendar. Anyone keen on enhancing WordPress contributor experience or developing mentorship programs is welcome!

Pinging some of our active working group members as well as facilitators/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. from our latest mentorship program pilot:

@adityakane, @askdesign, @carl-alberto, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @desrosj, @foosantos, @@gusa, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @matteoenna, @mayukojpn, @meher, @milana_cap, @kirasong, @mrfoxtalbot, @mysweetcate, @nao, @ninianepress, @nomadskateboarding, @oglekler, @onealtr, @patricia70, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @sz786, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @topher1kenobe, @tobifjellner, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103

Agenda

Following up on our last chat, we will focus on planning the next iteration of our mentorship program!

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

2. Planning for the Next Mentorship Cohort
In our last chat, there was a consensus that our group should do a cohort along with WordPress 6.5 release (likely in Q1 2024). Let’s discuss the second cohort’s structure, timeline, and milestones in this chat.

Feedback to the draft plan doc (put together based on previous chats) is welcome any time!

3. Call for Volunteers
Are you interested in building the mentorship program? Express your interest in joining the team to build the mentorship program’s next edition.

4. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that excellent discussion, we’ll open up the floor for discussing mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

#wpcontributors, #contributor-mentorship, #contributor-working-group, #mentorship-programs, #mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-agenda

Recap of the Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on September 21, 2023

In attendance: @adityakane, @coachbirgit, @gusa, @harishanker, @kafleg, @leogopal, @matteoenna, @mayukojpn, @kirasong, @nao, @ninianepress, @oglekler, @onealtr, @patricia70, @sereedmedia, @tobifjellner, @topher1kenobe, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103

Notes: @nao

Agenda: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/19/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-september-21st-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting Start

APAC/EMEA: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1695279617297589
AMER: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1695312003171489

Summary

Based on the conversation, here are some takeaways from the meetings:

  • We should try doing the next cohort alongside 6.5
  • The next cohort size should be bigger
  • We should put out a call for 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. along with mentees
  • We should try to include more Make/Teams in the process
  • We should revisit the process of mentorship, add more documentation, and processes
  • Our project management tool will be our GitHub Project

Pending Tasks from our Past Cohort

These pending tasks were discussed, and additional feedback was provided.

Training Team’s Onboarding Process & Guide Program

@leogopal brought up the Training Team’s Learning Pathway project and suggested that we work on creating different pathways for contributors to meet their interested roles.

@gusa shared @piyopiyofox’s comment in the Refreshing the contributor pipeline discussion, where she said the Training Team onboarding program is highly successful and can be adapted to other Make Teams, process-wise.

Planning the Next Mentorship Cohort

Timing

Many shared their preference for the next cohort tining to be after some break, possibly alongside of 6.5 release. “As soon as possible” was also mentioned.

Cohort Size

@nao @harishanker @adityakane @tobifjellner said the cohort size could be larger next time. No mention in the exact number, except @adityakane said doubling the size (= 26 mentees).

@tobifjellner suggested multiple mentees per mentorEvent 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. could also be possible.

Centralize project management

Everyone agreed that we need a better project management tool, and using the GitHub Project for the working group that @leogopal had set up earlier is a good idea.

@coachbirgit shared that the discussion feature on 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/ Project can be useful for the group, so @nao enabled it: https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/discussions

Working alongside a release

@nao @harishanker @coachbirgit @tobifjellner @kirasong @sereedmedia said running the next cohort along the 6.5 release would give enough preparation time for the working group.

@sereedmedia: “I like that the cohort could get exposure to the release process, regardless of what team they are on. it touches all the teams in some way, and the releases are why we are all here at the end of the day.”

@adityakane said intentionally decoupling the timing from release could help new contributors see non-coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development parts of the project.

@ninianepres: “having a cohort alongside one release it super great and less overwhelming. But also, it’s worth taking a look at when these releases are scheduled just so we don’t feel we’re rushed like the last cohort”

Duration/Timeframe

Some suggestions were brought up about the duration and timeframe: increasing the 4-week period, separating out the general onboarding parts, and spending four weeks on the specific team onboarding.

@sereedmedia made a point about reviewing survey feedback before making a concrete decision.

Things to change for the next cohort

Additional comments:

@kafleg: “Strictly monitoring and reporting the updates, and Mentee rating from Mentor and monitor”

@coachbirgit: “Template for a 90-day plan as follow-up for the mentees after the cohorts end.”

@sereedmedia: “Bug scrub & 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/. as a sprint, developing actionable contribution goals for each team that would be suitable for a “first issue”

@oglekler: “I can make a bug scrub 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. or something”

@ninianepress: “Consider having facilitators initiate the onboarding process, followed by mentors taking over/have different levels where junior & senior mentors or facilitators come in at different times; create checklists and forms for mentors as well this time and not just mentees; more clarity around defining the roles”

@adityakane: “Clearer framework, Github to project manage.”

Open floor/FYI

#wpcontributors, #contributor-mentorship, #contributor-working-group, #mentorship-programs, #mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-agenda #mentorship-chat-recap

#mentorship-chat-recap

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | September 21st 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It’s time for the next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting this Thursday (September 21st) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and our past chats.

Meeting times

We will be holding these chats in multiple time zones to make accommodations for as many time zones as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file, which contains calendar entries for our upcoming chat, so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!

Pinging some of our active working group members as well as facilitators/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. from our latest mentorship program pilot:

@adityakane, @askdesign, @carl-alberto, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @desrosj, @foosantos, @francina, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @meher, @milana_cap, @kirasong, @mrfoxtalbot, @mysweetcate, @nao, @nomadskateboarding, @onealtr, @oglekler, @patricia70, @patriciabt, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @sz786, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @topher1kenobe, @tobifjellner, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103

Agenda

In the last Mentorship Chat, we evaluated the pilot cohort of the Contributor Mentorship program. 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 Community Summit had some relevant discussions, and notes were published:

This week, let’s start planning for our second iteration of the mentorship program.

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

2. Pending Tasks from our Past Cohort
We have a few more pending tasks that need to be done from our past cohort: the participant survey and contributor badge. Let’s quickly share where we are and what help is needed.

3. Planning the Next Mentorship Cohort
It’s clear that our past cohort has been a success, and there has been positive feedback on bringing up a new cohort. How do we go about it? Let’s discuss our next steps: timing, cohort size, project management process, focus/teams, or anything else relevant.

4. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor for discussing mentorship broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

#wpcontributors, #contributor-mentorship, #contributor-working-group, #mentorship-programs, #mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-agenda