Welcome to another edition of the Training Team’s Contributor Spotlight!
In this series, we introduce one of our many valued contributors and invite you to learn more about their journey.

Meet Margherita!

Today’s featured contributor is Margherita Pelonara—Ciao!

A pillar of the Italian WordPress community, Margherita is a great example of the magical things that can happen when you dare to say, “Why not?”.

Let’s get to know her.

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Can you briefly introduce yourself and share a bit about your background?

Hi! I’m Margherita, born and raised in a small town in Italy, where the landscape is made up of hills dotted with wheat fields, sunflowers, vineyards, and olive groves. There is no traffic noise and that is good, but the downside is that I often struggle with a bad internet signal. 

A freelance web designer since 2013, Margherita is active across the community, contributing to several teams:

• A Translation Coordinator for the Training Team.
• A Project Translation Editor (PTE) of the 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. Learn WordPress Project in Italian.
• A coordinator of the DEIB working group in the Italian 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/..
• An editor of the Italian Rosetta website and a manager of the Italian Community’s social channels.
• 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. co-organizer and speaker.

What do you do outside of WordPress (professionally or in your spare time)?

I share my life with Lorenzo, my husband since 1996. I have two sons, Filippo (28) and Pietro (17), and a cat named Dori.

I enjoy traveling and learning about places, people, foods, cultures, and traditions. I have also been singing in a choir since 1991.

I collect lipsticks (or other make-up) and stationary—pens, colored pencils, and notebooks (can you see why I love going to WordCamps?!). And I’m always up for pizza night.

How did you first discover WordPress, and when did you decide to use it for your projects?

I started to work as a web designer in 2012, after taking a professional course. In that course, they taught us how to use Joomla, so for a year I worked in a small agency churning out, on average, a classic 5-page site a week. One day, a client showed up with a very specific list of requests for her site. Searching the various marketplaces, I managed to find a WordPress theme that matched all those requests; I didn’t even know WordPress existed before then. And so, with a good dose of audacity, I said “Why not?” and launched into installing WordPress. 

I was surprised to find that there were already plenty of resources and tutorials in Italian on various tech blogs.

The second thing I was amazed at was how fast the installation was. At that time, we used to upload the files via FTPFTP FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol which is a way of moving computer files from one computer to another via the Internet. You can use software, known as a FTP client, to upload files to a server for a WordPress website. https://codex.wordpress.org/FTP_Clients.. We did this manually for each client. With WordPress, I uploaded half (or maybe less) of the files compared to Joomla, so I was already saving time. And then, once the files were uploaded, it took only three clicks to complete the installation.

Since that day, I have never gone back.

What was your first contribution?

I started contributing in 2016, organizing the meetup in the small capital city of my province, Ancona. I toyed with the idea in my head for a long time. It seemed strange that no one had done it before, and it took me a year to convince myself to do it.

With time, I realized that organizing a 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. was a way of contributing, as much as writing code.

 What motivated you to start contributing to the open-source project?

One reason was to avoid feeling lonely when working at home, which is typical among freelancers living in remote areas. In my neck of the woods, going to work in a coworking space with other people, just to not be alone, means driving 30 kilometers (~19 miles) of curves to get to “civilization.” This would not be sustainable in either ecological or economic terms. But once a month, for the meetup, it can be done 😃

How did you feel seeing your work reach so many people?

I wrote to various local online news outlets to publish the first meeting, and about 40 people showed up, mostly out of curiosity. I had never attended any WordCamps or Contributor Days, nor had I spoken in public, but now I had to—I was the “hostess.” I am, and always will be, grateful to WordPress and the community for enabling me to evolve, grow, and empower myself as a person and as a professional.

Perhaps only recently, after so many years of contributing, do I really get the sense that those extra hours I spend at the PC translating strings, writing posts, or posting on social media reach many people. Now and then, I am filled with giddiness, thinking about both the “responsibility” and the collective usefulness of what I do. And I am deeply grateful for that.

What drew you to the Training Team?

On this, too, we could write a book. Heavens, I do not have the gift of brevity! In 2022, I participated, without any expectation about the outcome, in the selection for the WordPress Foundation’s Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship. I ended up being one of three recipients.

It was a dream come true: Me, embarking on a 16-hour intercontinental flight almost solo at 46 years old, with very poor English-speaking skills, to attend WordCamp US in San Diego. I felt like I was in a fairytale.

Of course, when I was there, I attended the 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 sat at the Training table. The Training Team is relatively young, and their activities exploded during the pandemic.

I may have already seen something online about Learn WordPress, but I didn’t really know what the team was doing. The only certainty I had was that no one else in Italy was working with them. And since I was living my “American dream,” I once again thought, “Why not?”. Why not try to get other people in Italy involved in translating existing training material and producing tutorials in Italian?

Finding training content in your own language is one of the best ways to democratize publishing: Language is a great tool for bringing people together, and not knowing English well is an insurmountable obstacle. With this in mind, I came home from WCUS 2022 set on doing something—even just a first step—to ensure as many people as possible can enjoy Learn WordPress.

Could you share any challenges or obstacles you faced when starting to contribute and how you overcame them?

I don’t think I faced any particular obstacles in the beginning. These came later. First, during the pandemic. Carrying on with the meetup was difficult. While everyone was connected online, giving webinars and workshops, I felt overwhelmed by too much content being offered online. It was difficult to resume meeting in person, just getting out of the house and meeting in groups with people. 

The other obstacle I face now is just a lack of resources—both in terms of people involved and time. There are so many things I would like to do, but the Italian community, as active as it is, is very small and almost 100% volunteers; there are very few people sponsored. So I often find myself doing boring, repetitive yet paid activities, when I would much rather be working on WordPress projects.

Were there any specific resources that helped you along your journey as a contributor?

More than tools or documentation, it was the people I met who made a difference in my contribution journey. Without them, who have been a source of stimulation, inspiration, and empowerment for me, I would not still be here. I would like to name names, but the list would be very long, and I would risk forgetting someone. To them, I often dedicate thoughts of love.

Can you share any memorable moments or achievements while contributing to WordPress?

Well, receiving the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship was one of the unforgettable moments of my life. Another was being able to start a small “chapter” of the Training Team in Italy. We are slowly beginning to get organized to produce content in Italian.

What advice would you give to someone interested in contributing to WordPress?

Get started: no matter which team you pick, the important thing is to get started. And if you have any doubts, always ask because you can always find someone willing to sit, even virtually, and explain how things work. A good way to do this is to participate in the Contributor Mentorship Program.

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Thank you, Margherita, for all your dedication and contributions to the Training Team and the WordPress Open-Source Project!

#contributor-spotlight