Update Dec 1, 2022: The Developer Blogblog (versus network, site) went live as public 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. on November 18, 2022 and was announced on this blog the following Monday WordPress Developer Blog is in public beta

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The early months of this year saw a published proposal to create a Developer Blog on developers.wordpress.org. The blog is still an overall project goal for 2022. 

The next steps are  to firm up some editorial guidelines and introduce the group of people who are, so far, stewarding  the initiative. 

This post takes both of those steps and offers a list of content suggestions. None of this is set in stone: you will have questions, ideas, and other suggestions as you read through what is below. Those thoughts of yours are vital – please share them in the comments. 

The name of the new site is ‘Developer Blog’. Originally, it was going to be called the “Developer News Blog”, until some contributors realized that some of their best content ideas were not strictly news. So, why limit the scope? News can be incorporated as well as having wider information and updates.

The #meta team is almost finished, setting up the new blog site; thank you to @ryelle for her hard work adapting a News theme for this. 

The stewards of the original blog proposal have started recruiting people from WordPress contributor teams to build an editorial process and publishing guidelines. 

The process will likely include these tasks: 

• identify gaps in developer knowledge, 
• suggest topics, 
• find writers, 
• peer review of the posts, and
• report back to their teams on current updates. 

A huge Thank You to the contributors, who agreed to be available for the Developer Blog Editorial group:

• Jonathan Bossenger (Training) @psykro
• Mary Baum (CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.) @marybaum
• Michael Burridge (Documentation) @mburridge
• Milana Cap (Documentation) @milana_cap
• Francesca Marano (Test/Polyglots) @francina
• Anne McCarthy (Test) @annezazu
• Glenn Messersmith (Support) @bcworkz
• Joe Simpson (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)) @joesimpsonjr
• Justin Tadlock (Documentation) @greenshady
• Abha Thakor (Marketing/Core/Training) @webcommsat

During the initial phase, I’ve offered to facilitate the first few meetings, some day-to-day adminadmin (and super admin) and outreach to authors and reviewers. We need a volunteer to help lead this group and initiative. If you are interested, reach out to me via direct message in the 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/. or leave a note in the comments below. At this stage, it is hard to estimate how much time this would take, as processes are still to be set up.

Editorial Meeting Frequency and Agenda Suggestions

• Once a month in #core-dev-blog channel 
• Round Robin and discussions: Topics/Questions/Ideas from the team meetings, in support forums, questions that came up in Social Learning events, StackOverflow/ StackExchange, Twitter and other related communities. 
• Divide up a list of received blog posts for peer review (also async possible between meetings).
• Discuss comments and suggestions from readers.
• Open Floor.

Once the meeting frequency is finalized, it will be added to the make.wordpress.org/meetings calendar.

Suggested Editorial Guidelines 

Authors on the Developer Blog should follow the Make/Core Post & Comment Guidelines regarding Peer Review and Style and Substance. They also should follow the WordPress Documentation Style Guide 

Authorship

Posts should be published by users of 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/, with the author link going to the WP Profile page. Authors should also credit reviewers, editors, and other contributors. 

License

The license for content and media could follow the WordPress Documentation license 

 CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Original content and republishing  

On the Developer blog, only original content will be posted so that we don’t need to get additional written permission for republishing on the Developer Blog and so the proper creative commons license (cc01) is attached. 

If an author wishes to republish a post on a different site, it will be requested that the canonical URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org points back to the Developer Blog, but due to the licensing as CC0.1 it will not be monitored. 

Administration

• Create a public channel on WP Slack #core-dev-blog 
• Use 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 for content pipeline (assign to contributors and track the state of production. etc.) 
• Liaise with authors, editors, and reviewers

Content Suggestions 

The Developer Blog doesn’t replace any of the available team blogs or documentation handbooks. The primary target audience will be developers who write plugins, themes, or work for agencies, and use code to solve problems. 

What kind of blog posts are aimed for this site?

The list is certainly not comprehensive or exclusive. It should trigger a few additional ideas.

• Updates of 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/ 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 releases pointing out changes relevant for developers. This could be updates to the create-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. scripts, a new 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., or new extensibility opportunities. The corresponding Make Blog highlights End User features and UIUI User interface changes.
• A monthly list of updates to the Gutenberg documentation and other components, to allow developers to catch up on this month’s changes.
• Primers of advanced programming concepts used on Gutenberg and around Core. i.e., functional programming, state management. What is a reducer, resolver, arrow functions,  etc. 
• Developer Case Studies:
  • On implementing certain features into plugins or themes. 
  • On challenges and how to overcome them. 
• PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher gems – rarely used core functions/hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. with usage examples.

How can people contribute? 

After the site goes live, if you want to write a post for the WordPress Developer Blog: 

• Pitch your post with Title and two summary paragraphs (for first time contributors: use Google Docs, existing authors: add a draft post to the site.)   
• Share link in the public channel #core-dev-blog,
• It will be discussed in the next meeting. 

Until the site is live, you can share your pitch with the title and two summary paragraphs through a comment on this post. 

How to participate in the editorial group

That’s an open question, the editorial group could discuss this in one of its first meetings. If you would like to join in on the work, please indicate in a comment on this post. 

Props😍 to collaborators and reviewers: @cbringmann, @marybaum, @annezazu, @chanthaboune, @greenshady, @webcommsat, @mburridge, @milana_cap and @angelasjin.

#core-dev-blog

#developer-news