Title: contributor groups – WordPress Community Summit

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#  Tag Archives: contributor groups

 [  ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/andreamiddleton/) [Andrea Middleton](https://profiles.wordpress.org/andreamiddleton/)
6:40 pm _on_ November 21, 2012     
Tags: contributor groups, [team reps ( 3 )](https://make.wordpress.org/summit/tag/team-reps/),
[teams ( 3 )](https://make.wordpress.org/summit/tag/teams/)   

# 󠀁[Team Reps](https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2012/11/21/team-reps/)󠁿

_Note from Jane: These notes are from the 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. summit that
happened the weekend before #wpcsWordPress Community Support A public benefit corporation
and a subsidiary of the WordPress Foundation, [established](https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2016/introducing-wordpress-community-support-a-public-benefit-subsidiary/)
in 2016.. More information about the outcome of this talk will be posted soon to
wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and
shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress
core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations
and organization. [https://wordpress.org/](https://wordpress.org/)._

How were people chosen to be team reps?

Every contributor group were surveyed (via p2 and/or mailing list) to choose team
reps (primary and backup). The UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout
of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about
what they are doing. team was slightly different in that the group was not very 
active at that time, so the responses were low, but the selection was Jane and Helen
as second. Since Jane was organizing it, Helen was chosen as a CoreCore Core is 
the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds 
WordPress. team rep, and the UI team had devolved into mostly CSSCSS CSS is an acronym
for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of
a site. (dev), no UI team reps were assigned.

Core devs have team reps including long-time core committers, highly experienced
devs with commit access, experienced devs without commit access, and devs new to
contributing. This overweighted the team rep group in favor of core devs. Also, 
since people were voted in, roles have changed. Agreed to reduce the number of core
dev reps to two, just like all other groups.

Sometimes roles change (like Mika, who’s been working on plugins as well as support).
People should, ideally, just be responsible for one thing. How regularly should 
we revisit who the reps are? Should we time it with release cycle, or make it time-
based? 6 months, timed with calendar, not release cycle seems most attractive.

After the summit, Jane will post about another voting round – whittle down the core
dev reps, revisit UI/events/etc, and announce the new round of elections.

Term limits. Is it best to switch team reps every term? This can be a good way to
encourage people in your team to step up. Another idea is to have a team rep and
a rep-in-training, so that the alternate rep can be learning and training before
they take on the team rep responsibilities.

Do you lose team rep status based on poor performance? If team reps miss weekly 
updates or monthly chats, should they be asked to step down? Alternate reps should
represent the team if a team rep can’t make a monthly hangout or weekly update. 
If the whole team can’t post/represent for 2 weeks straight, then they need to re-
assess the reps.

What teams are light and need to be recruited for? Mobile, international, 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), and security (new team!).

Are there any teams we don’t have that we should? WordPress.org team (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.)
for sure. UI could use more designers. Support could use more people and documentation
writers. It would be a good idea to make documentation a separate group.

Agreed to close voting on December 14 for the next round of team reps to start on
January 1, allowing for a 2-week orientation and training/getting up to speed.

It needs to be emphasized to the community that the team rep position is more about
communication and project management, not necessarily prestige. Let’s keep assessing
our processes and structure, and make iterative improvements.

[#contributor-groups](https://make.wordpress.org/summit/tag/contributor-groups/),
[#team-reps](https://make.wordpress.org/summit/tag/team-reps/), [#teams](https://make.wordpress.org/summit/tag/teams/)