Committers, Maintainers, and Emeriti

Every year (generally around November/December), team reps from CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and related contributor teams review the list of contributors noted as committers and component maintainers. This yearly review helps keep our list of committers/maintainers current, so that any contributor can ask them for guidance and assistance.

This year, I would like to move some of the committers who no longer participate actively in core development to an emeritus status. The emeritus position has been a frequent topic of discussion in my time in the project, and I think this change would benefit WordPress in several ways.

  1. Having a larger percentage of active contributors in these lists will help new contributors succeed in getting the help they need.
  2. Having active vs. emeritus status for Core will let all active contributors know which areas need additional support.
  3. Having an emeritus status shows our commitment to the idea that contributors can participate as much or as little as they are able at all levels.

Over the course of February, I will reach out to committers we haven’t seen activity from lately— e.g., those without commits in the past 12 months or activity in Make or 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/.—and update their commit access in Core. If at any time in the future emeritus contributors are able to contribute actively again, then I think it would be appropriate simply to restore their commit access in Core.

Emeritus committers can, and should, feel comfortable supporting other contributors as a leading voice, since we all do benefit greatly from their long-term knowledge.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions I haven’t answered about this process!