Alt Text for WordPress Photos

Our goal is for the WordPress Photo Directory to be as accessible as possible, making it easy for anyone using a screen reader to understand what each photo is, as well as providing good alt text for those using any photos on their own sites and projects.

Alt text provides a description of an image that is read aloud to anyone using a screen reader for any reason.

In the past, some photo contributors have provided descriptions that include feelings or feel more story-like. (Like “waking up on a beautiful morning” or “a great day for a cup of coffee.”) These are not descriptive and are not generally helpful for people relying on screen readers to describe a photo.

In order to help you provide better descriptions when you submit a photo to the directory, we’ve compiled some information to make it easier. (Many thanks to @alexstine and @joedolson for their expertise and input.)

I think we can all agree that there is alt text that’s too short, but are there times when something is too descriptive?

Alex Stine: Sometimes ALT Text can be too descriptive in that it can provide more information than what people could actually see in the image. The experience should be equal, not more or less.

Joe Dolson: There’s a balance to strike. For the purpose of the photo directory, some assumptions need to be made. First, the audience and the author do not have a common knowledge base. For alt text, that means that personal information or specific knowledge of the scene should be omitted. Alt text is highly contextual, and in this case the context is “share the photo with strangers who will use it for their own purposes.” So the alt text should be strictly kept to information that is visible in the image. There are exceptions, however; well-known landmarks can and should be named. If it’s a picture of the Statue of Liberty, it would be disingenuous to omit that information. That’s a judgment call for the submitter, since “well known” is not strictly definable.

Some people think that adding colors to a description isn’t necessary, and others argue that it is. Should submissions to the photo directory include colors? Are there times when it should vs. when it shouldn’t? (Like describing clothes, or a building.)

Alex Stine: I think descriptions of color are okay since you would visually get this detail when looking at an image. People without vision may not fully understand the concept of color if they haven’t had vision before. For people like myself, I have had vision, so I may still be able to get something from knowing the colors.

Joe Dolson: Descriptions don’t need a detailed description of colors, but prominent or dominant colors should be mentioned. Again, it’s a judgment call how much detail to add. But colors should absolutely be mentioned. There are several reasons: one is because screen reader users aren’t necessarily blind and/or may have once had color vision; a second is because color-blind users will benefit from being told what colors are in a picture; and the third is because the photo directory search queries alt texts, so this enables searching for color.

How in-depth should a description be? For example, is “German Shepherd puppy” a good enough description, or would “German Shepherd puppy sitting on a wooden floor looking at the camera” be better?

Alex Stine: In this case, the second description (“German Shepherd puppy sitting on a wooden floor looking at the camera”) would be better. It allows me to more accurately understand the scene.

Joe Dolson: Object, action, and environment are the three primary characteristics that should be conveyed in some way. Anything else is bonus, but ensuring that those three characteristics are communicated is a good way of making sure that the description is roughly equal to the image.

When is including the location of a photo important? Is “mountains” enough or is “mountains in the Himalayas” better?

Alex Stine: This could easily fall in the categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of “too much information” as that information is not available to people with vision simply by looking at the image. Unless it is clear what the mountain range is by looking at it, this information should not be included in the description.

Joe Dolson: I think I addressed that above; essentially, it’s a question of how common this knowledge would be, or how significant. I will argue slightly with Alex on this because of the purpose of the photo directory – if somebody specifically is looking for pictures of the Himalayas, that should be possible. If the photo directory had any filtering or tagging, I’d say that information should be a tag, rather than an alt text, but, since it isn’t, I think that information should be available. But it’s only particularly important to include in cases where the image is of something that most people would actually recognize. A purposeful image of Mount Everest should probably say what it is. A pretty scene of some mountains that happen to be the Himalayas? Maybe not so relevant.

I want to also add that alternative text should be literal. You should describe what’s in the scene, and not make assumptions. Just to pick a random example:

https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/33465a66b7/

While it may or may not be valuable that this specifies Himalayas (I’d argue not, since there’s nothing distinct), the biggest weakness here is the word ‘Trekker’. It could also mean a Star Trek fan, and if a blind user included this expecting a person hiking with a backpack but it was actually a person in a Star Trek uniform…

Are there tools or resources that you would recommend for evaluating alt text quality and ensuring online content 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)?

Alex Stine: Test with a screen reader, that’s the best way. I also like the Accessibility Checker 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.

Joe Dolson: Alt text quality is heavily contextual. No tools required, just read the text and look at the image and decide whether it seems appropriate.

Announcing the New WordPress Photo Directory Team Representatives

Thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate and vote for your next Photo Directory team representatives! Your participation plays a vital role in shaping the future of the Photo Directory project.

We are excited to announce the three newly elected team representatives for the upcoming term:

  • Nilo Velez
  • Bigul Malayi
  • Michele Butcher-Jones

Each of these individuals brings a unique set of skills, passion, and commitment to the project, and we look forward to seeing the positive impact they will have on the Photo Directory. Their leadership will help guide the team toward continued growth and success.

Here’s a look at the final voting results:

Bar chart showing the vote percentages for the next Photo Directory team representatives. Nilo Velez leads with 30.56% (55 votes), followed by Bigul Malayi with 25.56% (46 votes), and Michele Butcher-Jones with 15.00% (27 votes). Other candidates include Sam Alderson (13.33%, 24 votes), Roy Tanck (12.22%, 22 votes), and Gale Wallace (3.33%, 6 votes). Total votes: 180.
  • Nilo Velez received 30.56% of the vote with 55 total votes.
  • Bigul Malayi followed with 25.56%, gathering 46 votes.
  • Michele Butcher-Jones rounded out the top three with 15.00%, receiving 27 votes.

The current representatives would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire Photo Directory community. It has been a privilege to serve as your representatives, and we are confident the new team will carry the torch forward with great energy and enthusiasm. We will continue to be around to help usher in the new representatives and ensure a smooth transition.

Please join us in congratulating @nilovelez, @mbigul, and @m_butcher! We’re excited to see the direction they will take as they step into their new roles.

Thank you once again to everyone who participated in this important process. Your involvement continues to make the Photo Directory a vibrant, collaborative community.

Call for Photo Directory Team Representatives

The Make WordPress Photo team is in need of two-to-three new Team Reps to assume this role. After 2+ years serving in this role and discussing our current availability at length, @katiejrichards, @topher1kenobe, and @mdburnette are ready to pass the proverbial torch.

What is a Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts.?

Ideally, all Make WordPress teams should have at least two representatives, allowing them to share responsibilities, divide tasks, and cover each other when needed.

Team Reps work with other teams across the project, share key updates across all contributor teams, and generally help to support the team as a whole.

  • Team Rep is an organizational role that is mostly administrative in nature; it is not a Lead role.
  • Letting go of the Team Rep title is not a loss of status, just a handing off of responsibilities.
  • Someone who is a leader in a team can lead whether they are doing the team rep job or not.

What to Expect in the Role?

Expectations vary from team to team, but here are some of what to expect:

  • Prepare meeting agenda by requesting updates from Photo Directory working groups
  • Conduct the team’s monthly meetings on the Make Photos SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel
  • Document meeting notes and share updates with other teams as necessary

Additional information can be found in the Photo Directory handbook.

What are our Next Steps?

  • Call for Nominations: Anyone can nominate a Photo Directory team rep! (Yes, you can nominate yourself!) The deadline for nominations is Friday, August 30th.
  • Voting for Team Reps: Nominees will be officially announced on Monday, September 2, and a poll for voting will be available the same day. It will stay open until Friday, September 13th. After that, the new team reps will be announced on 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/. at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US (and here on the Make Photos blog) on September 17!

Are YOU interested in contributing? Just provide a name in the comments section of this post.

Please nominate people for Photo Directory team rep in the comments of this post by Friday, August 30. Self-nominations are welcome.

Remember, a best practice before nominating someone is to check in with them first! If you are nominated, you do not have to say yes. Only people who respond positively to a nomination will be added to the poll, so please feel free to decline if you don’t feel that being team rep is the right fit for any reason.

If you have any questions, please do ask those in the comments!

January Stats for the WordPress Photo Directory

2024 is starting off strong for the Photo Directory!

Our goal is to moderate photos as quickly as we can. And with our bigger team, we’ve been working through photos even faster. Please do remember we are all volunteers and work through the list as we are able to in the event there is a backlog. (And during photo events like WordPress Photo Festival 2024 where there is an influx of photography we will work as quickly as we can, but submitters need to be patient.)

If you’d like to contribute photos to the directory, you can do that at WordPress.org/photos.

If you’d like to join the moderators team, you can do that at make.wordpress.org/photos/handbook/moderating-photos.

Current stats for the project as of today, February 2, 2024:

NUMBER OF PHOTOS: 13,250
PENDING PHOTOS: 45
REJECTED PHOTOS: 2242
PHOTOS SINCE THE LAST MEETING: 888
PHOTOS REJECTED SINCE THE LAST MEETING: 212
NUMBER OF CONTRIBUTORS: 1647

Top Contributors:
🥇 mbigul: 845 photos
🥈 topher1kenobe: 841 photos
🥉 shelob9: 453 photos
🏅 mdburnette: 436 photos
🏅 bhuwanroka: 384 photos
🏅 michelleames: 287 photos
🏅 jenniferbourn: 270 photos
🏅 sharankrishna: 198 photos
🏅 kafleg: 191 photos
🏅 chrisedwardsce: 175 photos

Categories:
NATURE: 8934
ARCHITECTURE: 2605
FOOD-DRINK: 1271
ANIMALS: 1124
OBJECTS: 1087
ARTS-CULTURE: 891
TRANSPORTATION: 783
INTERIORS: 378
PATTERNS: 303
TECHNOLOGY: 215
PEOPLE: 207
FASHION: 103
ATHLETICS: 32

Landscape: 8258
Portrait: 4715
Square: 277

November Photo Directory Update

November has come and gone! Let’s take a look at the numbers.

We have added even more new members to the moderator team! Our goal is to moderate photos as quickly as we can. And we’ve been crushing it! Please do remember we are all volunteers and work through the list as we are able to.

If you’d like to contribute photos to the directory, you can do that at WordPress.org/photos.

If you’d like to join the moderators team, you can do that at make.wordpress.org/photos/handbook/moderating-photos.

Current stats for the project as of today, December 1, 2023:

Number of photos: 11520
PENDING PHOTOS: 1
REJECTED PHOTOS: 1878
PHOTOS SINCE THE LAST MEETING: 1168
PHOTOS REJECTED SINCE THE LAST MEETING: 223

Top contributors
🥇 topher1kenobe: 817 photos
🥈 mbigul: 667 photos
🥉 shelob9: 439 photos
🏅 mdburnette: 428 photos
🏅 michelleames: 287 photos
🏅 jenniferbourn: 270 photos
🏅 chrisedwardsce: 175 photos
🏅 kafleg: 170 photos
🏅 sharankrishna: 156 photos
🏅 javiercasares: 152 photos

NATURE (7782)
ARCHITECTURE (2278)
FOOD-DRINK (1045)
ANIMALS (1029)
OBJECTS (980)
ARTS-CULTURE (814)
TRANSPORTATION (716)
INTERIORS (345)
PATTERNS (294)
TECHNOLOGY (185)
PEOPLE (181)
FASHION (92)
ATHLETICS (25)

Landscape: 7198
Portrait: 4066
Square: 257

October Photo Directory Update

October is in the books! Time for an update on all things Photos.

We have added new members to the moderator team! Our goal is to moderate photos as quickly as we can. Please do remember we are all volunteers and work through the list as we are able to.

If you’d like to contribute photos to the directory, you can do that at WordPress.org/photos.

If you’d like to join the moderators team, you can do that at make.wordpress.org/photos/handbook/moderating-photos

Current stats for the project as of today, November 1, 2023:

Number of photos: 10,530
Pending photos: 58
Rejected photos: 1665
Photos since the last meeting: 952
Photos rejected since the last meeting: 161
Number of contributors: 1456

Top contributors
🥇 topher1kenobe: 810 photos
🥈 mbigul: 531 photos
🥉 shelob9: 425 photos
🏅 mdburnette: 424 photos
🏅 michelleames: 287 photos
🏅 jenniferbourn: 270 photos
🏅 chrisedwardsce: 175 photos
🏅 javiercasares: 125 photos
🏅 kafleg: 119 photos
🏅 mburridge: 113 photos

Categories
NATURE (7084)
ARCHITECTURE (2080)
ANIMALS (979)
OBJECTS (956)
FOOD-DRINK (931)
ARTS-CULTURE (769)
TRANSPORTATION (681)
INTERIORS (319)
PATTERNS (291)
TECHNOLOGY (168)
PEOPLE (165)
FASHION (70)
ATHLETICS (24)

Landscape 7969
Portrait 4238
Square 303

August Photo Directory Update

It’s almost the end of August! Time for an update on all things Photos.

Contributor Days this year have gone really well. We’ve onboarded many photographers into what kinds of photo subjects are acceptable, how we evaluate photos for inclusion in the photos directory, and what makes a good photo in general.

We’ve also begun onboarding new members to the photo moderators team.

If you’d like to contribute photos to the directory, you can do that at WordPress.org/photos.

If you’d like to join the moderators team, you can do that at make.wordpress.org/photos/handbook/moderating-photos

Current stats for the project as of today, August 28, 2023:

Number of photos: 8892
Pending photos: 0
Rejected photos: 1385
Photos since the last meeting: 1170
Photos rejected since the last meeting: 283
Number of contributors: 1282

Top contributors:
🥇 @topher1kenobe: 791 photos
🥈 @mdburnette: 424 photos
🥉 @shelob9: 285 photos
🏅 @jenniferbourn: 270 photos
🏅 @michelleames: 243 photos
🏅 @mbigul: 239 photos
🏅 @chrisedwardsce: 175 photos
🏅 @mburridge: 113 photos
🏅 @roytanck: 106 photos
🏅 @javiercasares: 88 photos

Categories:
NATURE: (5907)
ARCHITECTURE: (1786)
OBJECTS: (869)
ANIMALS: (837)
FOOD-DRINK: (774)
ARTS-CULTURE: (659)
TRANSPORTATION: (618)
INTERIORS: (290)
PATTERNS: (267)
TECHNOLOGY: (150)
PEOPLE: (115)
FASHION: (61)
ATHLETICS: (23)

Landscape: 5995
Portrait: 2671
Square: 226

The Road To 5000 Photos, A Retrospective

Back in December, when Matt announced the WP Photos project, I was tremendously excited. I had been thinking for about six months that something like this needed to exist, but I’m happy that it exists where it does now rather than somewhere else. I love looking at good photos, and having my beloved WordPress community uploading them sounded like heaven. I immediately applied to be a moderator, and after a month or two was accepted. Here we are eleven months later at over 5000 images uploaded. I didn’t moderate them all of course, we have an excellent team. But I did add it to my RSS feedRSS Feed RSS is an acronym for Real Simple Syndication which is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format. This is the feed., so I’ve seen all 5000, and let me tell you, there is some amazing material in there.

Marcus Burnette wrote a script to gather stats about the photos repo, let’s look at some about the last eleven months.

WP Photos Statistics

Stats:
5015 photos
57 Pending
620 rejected
634 since last meeting
78 rejected since last meeting
689 contributors

Our first set of numbers is about how many. Obviously, we know we’ve gone past 5000 photos, but there are some other interesting numbers here as well.

620 rejected photos out of 5015 isn’t bad, and in my experience it’s about 20% people uploading images they took from someplace else, and the rest are minor infractions of the rules. It’s surprising how often you don’t see a human face in a photo and just upload it. Sometimes it even makes it past a moderator. License plates have the same issue.

I’m particularly pleased by 689 contributors. The more we have, the less fragile the project is. It’s quite fun to be 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. 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/. and see delight on the faces of new contributors.

Camera Models

Top camera models

IPHONE 13 MINI 224

NIKON D7200 199

PIXEL 3 157

IPHONE 11 124

IPHONE XS MAX 123

IPHONE 5 105

IPHONE 13 PRO MAX 102

IPHONE 7 PLUS 102

PIXEL 4A 88

IPHONE 12 PRO MAX 86

When this project started I was deeply curious about whether we’d mostly get photos from phones or from cameras. Personally I use only my phone, but I know many people that have nice DSLRs uploading to the project. I’m in the 13 mini camp. I think it’s easy to see that phones are dominating this box. I’m guessing based on that stat that the majority of the photos in the project are spontaneous, and I love that. It’s far more a picture of our world as it exists now.

Camera Brands

Photos by camera brand

nikon 434

canon 526

sony 79

apple 1406

google 380

samsung 129

This isn’t a surprise, given the stat before it, but for camera aficionados it’s interesting. I’m not one of those, so I don’t know the significance of this breakdown. I’m particularly curious about the mainstream camera models. If you know if this is a good representation of general popularity please let me know in the comments.

Milestone Photos

Photo 1 – Scott Reilly
05/28/2021

Photo 100 – Marcus Kazmierczak
12/20/2021

Photo 500 – Michael Burridge
01/25/2022

Photo 1000 – Michael Burridge
02/04/2022

Photo 2000 – mdburnette
03/09/2022

Photo 3000 – mdburnette
06/14/2022

Photo 4000 – rafinkhan
09/06/2022

Photo 4100 – Pierre Lannoy
09/11/2022

Photo 4200 – Pierre Lannoy
09/13/2022

Photo 4300 – Topher
09/16/2022

Photo 4400 – ChrisEdwardsCE
09/20/2022

Photo 4500 – Irfan Nurhamid
10/04/2022

Photo 4600 – Jennifer Bourn
10/17/2022

Photo 4700 – Carlos Macías
10/21/2022

Photo 4800 – Dan Knauss
11/01/2022

Photo 4900 – chiharu nagatomi
11/09/2022

Photo 5000 – Roy Tanck
11/12/2022

Popular categories and colors

Most popular categories
nature (3200)
architecture (943)
objects (564)
animals (528)
food-drink (418)
arts-culture (334)
transportation (334)
patterns (186)
interiors (144)
technology (102)
fashion (39)
athletics (15)
Most popular colors
green (2347)
brown (2059)
blue (2002)
gray (1163)
white (1129)
orange (861)
yellow (750)
red (749)
black (738)
pink (351)
purple (141)
violet (75)
silver (35)

I put these two together because of how tightly together they’re tied. Any time I see a Nature photo, chances are at about 90% that it’s going to be tagged “Blue, Green, Brown“. Those are the colors of our world. Add in Gray for cloudy skies and it explains why Nature dominates the Most Popular Categories. Case in point:

Photo of a mountain under blue sky, tagged Blue, Brown, Green

World Photography Day

This was a global event that happened in August, and we did a push to get people to upload photos from their part of the world. All in all it went quite well, and we did a blog post about it, where you can see some of the photos that came from that specific event.

What it’s been like

It’s been a delight from the very beginning. Sure, there are 620 rejections, but I would venture a guess that none of them were deliberate attempts to get around the rules. I have about a dozen rejected photos I’ve uploaded myself.

We also haven’t a single “objectionable” photo yet. No one has been a jerk. At 5000 photos I find that to be impressive.

Our moderation team could use a few more people, but we’ve been able to keep up just fine. The reasons we don’t have more on the team are many, mostly legal. There are far more obstacles than I would ever have imagined, and some very smart people are working hard on it. We’ll get there at some point. Until then we rarely get above 50 unmoderated posts, and we’re often at zero (or five of the most recent moderator photos and they can’t moderate their own).

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the quality of the photos being submitted. The fact that a majority are from phones is a testament to the quality of modern phone cameras.

I’ll be curious to see if takes another eleven months to get to 10,000 photos. My guess is that we’ll get it about June. We’ll see.

If you haven’t taken part, please do so! It’s fun, easy, and a great way to get into WordPress contribution.

For those of you that already have uploaded, thank you very much.

WordPress World Photography Day Challenge 2022

August 19 marks World Photography Day, a global event that brings together photography enthusiasts to commemorate the importance of this art form and expression in our lives.

To celebrate, the Photo Directory team has set up an open challenge for anyone to contribute to the WordPress Photo Directory

Submit a photo that captures something unique about your local area, in a way that helps represent the geographic diversity of the WordPress community.

The challenge starts today, August 18, 2022, and will end on August 28, 2022.

Photo challenge details

Take a photo of something you love in your local area (your neighborhood, town, city, or country). It can be a landscape, a street, a building, or something iconic of that region, for example. How you capture it is entirely up to you. Feel free to get creative and try a different shooting angle or composition.

Challenge requirements:

  • Make sure your images meet the WordPress Photo Directory guidelines for licensing, image file size and format, and content to be considered for approval and inclusion. 
  • You can submit up to five (5) photos at a time for approval. Once approved, you can upload more.

Here are some images contributed to the Photo Directory to inspire you:

How to submit your photos

For example: “Blaise Castle in Bristol, UK – WorldPhotographyDay22”. This will help search purposes and the Photos team to tag the images appropriately.

  • Once submitted, your photo will be reviewed by a volunteer team to ensure it complies with all the guidelines. It may take up to 48 hours for review, occasionally longer. You will receive an email as soon as your photos are reviewed.

If you have any questions when submitting your photos, please refer to the Make Photos Handbook. You are also welcome to join the #Photos channel 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/. at any time! Beyond this challenge, everyone is encouraged to get involved in the Photo Directory project!

You’ve submitted your photos, what’s next?

Contributions to this photo challenge will be featured across the 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/ social media channels. Stay tuned!

Once your photos are approved, we encourage you to leave a comment on this post with the wordpress.org/photos link of your photo and why you chose to take it (or a brief story behind it). 

Also, remember to post them on your social media platforms using the hashtags #WPPhotos and #WorldPhotographyDay so that more people can see and enjoy your contributions!

We look forward to seeing your photos!

Helpful resources

Thanks to @katiejrichards, @topher1kenobe, @mdburnette, @rmartinezduque, @laurlittle, @webcommsat, @oglekler, and @sereedmedia for sharing ideas and helping put this challenge together.

Announcement: Photo Directory Team Reps 2022

Following the call for nominations and voting, we now have our new Team Representatives for the Make Photo Directory team for 2022

The WordPress Photo Directory is a new directory of free, WordPress community-powered, CC0-licensed photographs. Photo Directory Team members moderate photos, maintain and improve the directory site, and provide resources that enable photo contributors. Because the Photo Directory is brand new, our team reps will help build the foundation for Photo Directory’s exciting future. As such, it was decided that we start with three team reps. 

Without further ado, our Photo Directory Team Reps for 2022 are Marcus Burnette (@mdburnette), Katie Richards (@katiejrichards), and Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe)

Marcus Burnette

Marcus Burnette is a designer, web developer, amateur photographer, podcast host, and virtual event moderator. As part of the GoDaddy Pro Events and Community Team, Marcus is passionate about helping agencies and freelancers build eCommerce sites for clients with GoDaddy’s premium WordPress and WooCommerce platforms.

Katie Richards

Katie likes to say she came into WordPress backward by getting involved in the WordPress community first and using and contributing to 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. project second. She admits she is a type-A person who enjoys creating systems and structure and has decided to use those skills for the good of the open web in her daily work at Pantheon, and with the Diverse Speaker Training working group (#WPDiversity). When not at a computer, Katie enjoys reading (nothing self-improving), learning about architecture, and watching the sunset from her backyard.

Topher DeRosia

Topher has been a WordPress user since 2010, and has contributed to the project in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., plugins, 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. organization, translation, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organization, documentation, and a variety of other things. His favorite type of photography is macro photography.

Please join me in congratulating Marcus, Katie, and Topher! 🎉


What are team reps? 

In the WordPress open source project, each team has one or two (or more!) representatives, abbreviated as “reps”. The Photo Directory Team is hoping to bring on at least two team reps who can commit to the role for a full calendar year.

As a reminder, it is not called “team lead” for a reason. Team reps are responsible for communicating on behalf of the group to the other contributor groups via weekly updates, as well as occasional chats. 

#team-reps