Nahuai Badiola 3:28 pm on September 15, 2023

Call for WordPress Sustainability Team Representatives

The official WordPress Sustainability Team was born during the WCEU Athens Contributor Day and is looking for team representatives.

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.?

Within the WordPress project, each contributor team should have a minimum of two team representatives, but three or four are recommended. Often abbreviated to “team reps,” these people represent the team across the project, share key updates across all contributor teams, and generally help to support the team as a whole. You can read more about the team rep definition and expectations on the Team Reps page. Currently, the Sustainability team has no formal representatives.

Expectations for team reps can vary from team to team. In general, Sustainability team reps help to:

prepare for and run the sustainability team’s weekly chats
providing as-required updates to other contributor groups
generally representing the sustainability team across the project, or in the occasional chat
maintain a high-level perspective and awareness on current team projects

Team reps should expect to dedicate, at least, 1 to 2 hours per week to these activities. Any active sustainability contributor can be a team rep, and we can have more than two team reps.

Opening nominations

Any active Sustainability person can be a team rep, and anyone can nominate a team rep. Self-nominations are also accepted. Everyone is welcome to give some thought as to who is a good fit for this role and nominate them in the comments of this post.

Nominations for Sustainability team reps will be open until September 29th, 2023 11.00 UTC.

After the nominations close, if there are enough nominees, we need to make a selection. The nominees will be published at make.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//sustainability and during the Sustainability meeting on October 6th. We’re still deciding about the most suitable voting system here. Please, check the post and give your opinion. Voting will start on October 6th, 2023 and will remain open until October 13th, 2023 11.00 UTC. Keep in mind that whoever is nominated as a team rep will need to accept the role to become a candidate to be voted. So if someone nominates you, and you aren’t available or interested, don’t worry – just let us know!

Those selected as team reps will take over these responsibilities starting 15th of October 2023 and would be in this position until December 2024.

If you have any questions about the team rep role, want to learn more, or any other doubts, please share them here in the comments.

Patricia BT 10:05 am on September 16, 2023

Giving the great work they already accomplished in the Sustainability team, I’d like to nominate Nahuai Badiola (@nahuai), Nora Ferreirós (@noradriana) and Thijs Buijs (@yellowlime)
- Nora Ferreirós 12:26 pm on September 19, 2023
  
  I appreciate your kind words, Patricia. Thank you 🙂
- Gus Austin 9:58 pm on September 19, 2023
  
  I would also like to nominate the folks responsible for enabling this team! Is everybody interested?!?
  - Nora Ferreirós 2:47 pm on September 26, 2023
    
    I think so! Thank you, Gus 🙂
Gus Austin 5:00 pm on September 18, 2023

Would each 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. have the same responsibilities or could those be split between several? For instance, can a team rep focus on the high level requirements but ‘not’ be responsible for running chats and posting updates? Do all those responsibilities (like running meetings) need to be handled by team reps?

Realizing some guidance from other Teams and community members might help, I’ve been asking questions in other channels and also commenting is this related Summit discussion.
- Gus Austin 5:24 pm on September 18, 2023
  
  To me it makes sense to have 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. for each focus area – they’d also be knowledgable enough about high level goals and activities to represent the team across the project but would ‘not’ be responsible for running weekly chats or providing required posts and updates.
  
  Seems like those responsibilities could be handled by other team members (potentially new contributors) if there were clear guidelines/documentation and team reps (and ideally mentors) were also providing guidance.
- Nora Ferreirós 12:25 pm on September 19, 2023
  
  No, Team Reps don’t necessary have to be responsible of tasks like running chats and posting updates. But these tasks must be done anyway. And if no one else does, Team Reps should.
  
  All of us want to be here getting the real work done, and carry out “high level goals”, but few people want to do notetaking or update posting, e.g. And it’s understandable. But, in my opinion, if you accept to be 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. you cannot completely disengage from tasks that are delegated to others. Tasks can be distributed and delegated (and they should be), but as Team Rep you always have to proactively make sure that all basic tasks are being performed.
  
  This is just my personal point of view and the way I personally approach being Team Rep.
- Gus Austin 5:23 pm on September 19, 2023
  
  I totally agree the Team Reps can’t delegate and disengage. They need to be responsible for getting things get done and making the best possible representation of our Team to the WordPress community…and WordPress to the 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. community.
  
  …few people want to do notetaking or update posting, e.g.
  
  Again, I think running meetings, notetaking, and probably some other required/essential tasks could be handled by newcomers if they had guidance and resources.
  
  Assuming those resources aren’t readily available (think they could be outcomes of this and related Community Summit Discussions, the meetings and update responsibilities would be handled by Team Reps.
  - Gus Austin 5:44 pm on September 19, 2023
    
    To me it makes sense to have 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. for each focus area – they’d also be knowledgable enough about high level goals and activities to represent the team across the project
    
    If we’re clear that Team Reps must make sure essential tasks and responsibilities are handled, what about having a Team Rep for each focus area? Again, each would need to be aware of all goals, projects, and activities but it seems like focusing on a primary interest areas would result in at least three reps able to divvy up essential tasks and responsibilities between them.
    - Ant Miller 11:28 am on September 20, 2023
      
      As I recall the overt splitting of focus areas between names reps was proposed (by yourself) and discussed and the consensus was that at the outset we would not make that overt split but a split may follow later, and may be at the ‘team lead’ level, not at 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.’ level. https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C03JNV77Y57/p1690747307215829
    - Ant Miller 11:31 am on September 20, 2023
      
      I definitely think that as we evolve and start to make an impact that we will need to have a focus differentiation (for one thing the _way_ we do different focus areas will be different – some will be heavily dependent on coordination, others will be more independent). I was convinced by the argument at the outset we would benefit from all reps being fully across the whole brief of the team.
  - Nora Ferreirós 1:50 pm on September 21, 2023
    
    Again, I think running meetings, notetaking, and probably some other required/essential tasks could be handled by newcomers if they had guidance and resources.
    
    Yep, but I insist: it’s not that easy finding people to handle it. The second meeting turn has still waiting for someone to take charge for this tasks, e.g.
    
    Everything that makes the team move forward works for me, anyway.
    - Gus Austin 12:45 am on September 22, 2023
      
      it’s not that easy finding people to handle it
      
      I’m not doubting that but think it will be easier to find folks once we have reps, roles, and processes in place.
      
      Think we can all benefit from providing input in summit discussions that overlap with goals and needs. For example https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2023/08/27/community-summit-discussion-notes-refreshing-the-contributor-pipeline/
yellowlime 9:08 pm on September 21, 2023

I would like to nominate Csaba ( @littlebigthing) for the role of WP sustainability 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.. Csaba has joined and contributed to the team from the very first moment, when it all started still as an initiative, in a valuable way.
Csaba (LittleBigThings) 7:08 am on September 22, 2023

Thanks Thijs (@yellowlime)! 🙂
I am glad you’re all nominated (incl. @noradriana and @nahuai), deservedly so. Looking forward to keep working on this with you all, and hopefully many others!
Courtney Robertson 6:40 pm on September 22, 2023

I nominate @noradriana @nahuai and @littlebigthing
Núria Nadal i Rovira 8:51 pm on September 26, 2023

I would like to nominate @noradriana and @nahuai
hanopcan 9:10 am on September 27, 2023

I would like to nominate Nahuai Badiola (@nahuai), Nora Ferreirós (@noradriana), Thijs Buijs (@yellowlime) and Csaba ( @littlebigthing). All four of you have been working on this since the beginning and if you are willing to continue with the great work then I think you’d be an absolute asset to this team and these efforts
Estela Rueda 7:43 pm on September 27, 2023

I nominate @nahuai and @noradriana too.
Gus Austin 1:10 am on September 28, 2023

In addition to @noradriana @nahuai @littlebigthing and @yellowlime (who have been driving this from the start), I’d like to nominate @courane01 @sereedmedia @harishanker and @coachbirgit (for some type of representative role).

Realizing we’ll be in good shape if the original four are interested, it might be good to have team members representing different focus areas, teams, working groups, and timezones.

While it’s doubtful any of these folks could (or need to) commit to the ‘official’ 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. role, they might be able to serve a similar function just doing what they do on behalf of their primary Team, Working Group, or organization.

It really comes down to how we define our Team roles (including reps), responsibilities, and commitments. Which ends up being the type of task (see this GitHub issue) where these more experienced community members can really help!
- Gus Austin 8:24 am on September 29, 2023
  
  Realizing we’ll be in good shape if the original four are interested, it might be good to have team members representing different focus areas, teams, working groups, and timezones.
  
  Considering i’ve been pretty active representing different timezones and focus areas for the past couple months, I’ll throw my name into the hat (assuming we’ll have enough reps and team members to divvy up required responsibilities).