Triage Squad GitHubGitHubGitHub 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/ triage: Biweekly on Thursdays 07:00 UTC
Policies and procedures for how the Training team operates are scattered through old blog posts and throughout the website. These tags will identify content that should be in the team handbook.
Kaito Hanamori
4:28 am on January 22, 2024 Tags: procedures
Below is my proposal to kick off the discussion. Let’s discuss this in the comments below until February 5th. Team reps will then summarize the discussion by the team meeting that week.
Prioritize Learning Pathways content
The Learning Pathways project is a priority for the Training Team this year, with a scheduled launch for July 2024. Considering the limited number of content creators we have on the team right now, we do not have enough resources to meet that deadline and create a lot of release-related content at the same time.
Proposal around priorities
Continue to prioritize developing Learning Pathways content.
Identify no more than 3-5 pieces of high-impact content related to the release and clearly list these in the team.
Find opportunities to onboard additional content creators who can assist with this content development work.
Modifying GitHubGitHubGitHub 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/ triaging processes
Historically, Training’s focus during releases has included identifying content needing updates as a result of the release. This has been done by reopening GitHub issues and, if the original assignee is unresponsive, re-assigning issues to new assignees.
As the team has started to track and analyze GitHub data (see Training Team 2023 Year In Review), we’re finding this process of reopening issues and changing assignees skews important metrics that represent team health – such as the “time to close” on an issue. To ensure the team can track and report accurate metrics, I propose the following changes.
Proposal around changes to GitHub triage processes
We should no longer re-open closed GitHub issues to report content needing updates.
Instead, if content needs notable updates, each update should be submitted as a new issue, using the Feedback issue template.
GitHubGitHubGitHub 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/ labels have been reduced from over 120 to just 27.
Issue templates have been reduced from 9 to 5.
3 workflows have been set up to automate tasks:
Anyone can now self-assign issues by typing //assign in a issue comment.
Anyone can send their issue to the relevant project board by typing either //dev, //content, or //handbook when submitting feedback.
Faculty members can add content development checklists to their issues by typing either //tutorial, //online-workshop, //lesson-plan, or //course in either the issue itself or in a comment.
2 new handbook pages have been published to document these changes:
How We Use GitHub and other handbook pages have been updated to reflect these changes.
Learn more at next week’s Online Workshops
@bsanevans will be hosting two Online Workshops next week to demonstrate these changes live, and answer any question folks may have. These Online Workshops are a perfect opportunity for:
Training Team Faculty and contributors who have been contributing to the team and want to get up-to-date with these latest changes.
New contributors interested in contributing to the Training Team and wanting to know how we use GitHub.
Any contributor from other Make WordPress teams interested in implementing GitHub processes to their team, too.
Come sign up to these workshops from the links below. Times are shown in your local timezone. A recording will be published after the event for anyone who could not attend.
While these changes bring much needed refinements to the Training Team’s processes, there’s always room for further improvements. If you have any feedback, feel free to comment below, or bring them up directly in the Training Team any time.
The Training Team is excited to announce a new role to the Faculty Program – Translation Coordinators. If you have experience translating content for the Training Team and are excited about helping even more people get involved, then Apply to Join today!
Background
The Training Team recently concluded the Content Localization Foundations project, which kick-started efforts of translating content for Learn.WordPress.org. During this project, it was noted that renewing the previous “Locale Ambassador” role as a fifth Faculty role, and renaming it to “Translation Coordinators”, would be good next steps as the team iterates on its translation processes. (A full recap of the project can be found on Recap: Content Localization Foundations Project.)
Introducing Translation Coordinators – a new Faculty role
The Faculty Program is a team of dedicated volunteers who work to achieve the goals of the Training Team. The new Translation Coordinator role aims to add to the team those who are experienced with translating content for Learn.WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/, have a strong connection with their local community, and are excited to help others join the team’s translation efforts.
You can read more about the Translation Coordinator role in the handbook page below. If this is something you are interested in, come apply to join today!
While applications for the Translation Coordinators role are open to those who have a strong record of being leaders in their communities, the Content Translators role is available for anyone to join at any time!
Content Translators translate content that has been published on Learn.WordPress.org into their own locale. If you’re interested in joining the Training Team as a Content Translator, come walk through the Training Team’s onboarding program.
I’m pleased to announce that the two new GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 boards discussed in this proposal have been created. Read on to see what’s new.
Streamlined processes to vet content topic ideas
A new project board titled LearnWP Topic Vetting has been created specifically for vetting content topic ideas. This is in response to feedback submitted by Faculty SMEs earlier this year about how it was difficult to sift through submitted ideas to find those related to their area of expertise.
With the new project board, content ideas are now filtered by topic, allowing SMEs to find items related to their area of expertise easier. Below is a list of topics, linked to their respective view:
A new handbook page has been created, detailing how this project board works, and listing steps SMEs can take to vet topic ideas. We invite all SMEs to read through Vetting Topic Ideas, and in particular, the section “Vetting topic ideas”.
While the new project board doesn’t introduce major changes to content localization processes, it should make identifying and tracking localization issues much easier. We invite all Faculty Admin to read through the new handbook page:
Summary: This post outlines the details of creating a new onboarding experience for those who join the Training Team. The need for a more effective onboarding experience was raised in recent sprint retrospectives (June & July Sprint, August Sprint), and discussed in [Discussion] Reimagining the Training Team contributor roles. This proposal brings clarity to documentation and in-person guidance used in onboarding, by focusing on four areas of expertise within the team.
Next Steps: The plan is to start building out the proposed onboarding flows from mid-November. Let’s discuss ideas and specifics in the comment section below, and come up with a concrete plan by November 18th.
Summary of Previous Discussions
The Training Team has identified that the current onboarding process for new contributors in the Training Team is confusing and in need of improvement. Points of improvement raised in recent discussions include:
Easing the onboarding process for new contributors.
Assign a point of contact for new contributors to reach out to in each role.
Prepare onboarding videos/lesson plans for each role.
Continue building the handbook so contributors have more precise guidance.
Clear guidelines for new joiners, especially for basic and Intermediate-level contributors.
The team also raised points we’d want to keep in mind as we build out a new onboarding experience:
The current list of team roles should remain, but categorized appropriately.
Opportunities should remain for contributors who only have 30-60 minutes to contribute to get involved, without having to go through a lengthy onboarding process.
Documentation regarding who is in each role would be desirable.
Proposal: Four onboarding paths
Here is a proposal that reimagines the onboarding process to the Training Team, while also incorporating all the points listed above.
Step 1: First contact
A Welcome Wrangler asking a new contributor what area of contribution would excite them
When someone joins the #training channel, or submits a contact form, Welcome Wranglers send a personal message to the new contributor. In this message, we would include the question, “Of these 4, which are you most interested in?”
Creating/translating content
Reviewing/editing content
Vetting content ideas and being a sounding board to people creating new content
Focusing on the administration that keeps the Training Team running smoothly
Notice, the answer to this question will tell us which of the 4 areas of expertise in the team the contributor is interested in:
Content Creator
Editor
Subject Matter Expert
Administrator
Step 2: Onboarding pages
Depending on their answer, folks are navigated to one of four onboarding pages in the Training Team handbook. Each page has a similar format, but includes information specific to that area of expertise.
Example of what the “Editor Onboarding” handbook page would look like
Page title: “area_of_expertise Onboarding”
Welcome Video with script
A quick overview of how this area of expertise functions in the content creation flow within the Training Team.
List of faculty members with this expertise
Introduce the faculty members as the new contributor’s mentors. Mention how to use the at-mention feature in SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. to reach all these folks at once in the #training channel.
Walkthrough of how to complete a first contribution
Ideally, this first contribution should be something people can complete in 30-60 minutes.
This would be a link to another page in the handbook titled “A first contribution as an area_of_expertise“. The page would include short videos for each process, accompanied by text explanations.
It would be nice if each page had a “Thank you video” at the end folks would watch where they see the face of a real human thanking them for their contribution.
Invitation to have the contributor add themselves to a list of contributors available to continue contributing in that area of expertise
By walking a contributor through adding themselves to a list, we give them a sense of empowerment, and a touch of responsibility. They’d be free to come back and remove themselves from the list whenever they become unavailable to contribute.
A list of roles in this expertise for the contributor to explore further
This would be a link to another page in the handbook titled “area_of_expertise roles”. It would Include video walkthroughs and step-by-step instructions for all roles currently listed in the handbook that pertain to that particular area of expertise.
Invitation to join team meetings
Step 3: Continued mentorship
This proposal stops here for the moment. But I can see the team building out additional processes for those who want to continue growing to move up the contributor ladder and/or become Faculty Members.
Other considerations
What about casual contributors who only have 30-60 minutes?
In the above proposal, we would have created a page for each expertise walking folks through a first contribution in that expertise. These would be ideal pages to share with folks who want to make a quick contribution. Making one handbook page that links to those 4 pages would make sharing easier.
Page title: “Quick contributions you can make now!”
Welcome video with script
In this video, the speaker will still ask the same question as step 1 above. This will help the contributor decide which of the 4 links below they should follow.
We could also use a similar survey to https://orientation.wp-europe.org/ to pair a contributor up with an area of expertise.
List of four “first contribution” pages
Pages are reused from the flow above, and conclude with a “Thank you video”.
Invitation to work through the official onboarding flow above to contribute even more!
How would we make sure the list of contributors is accurate?
Administrators could keep an eye on the list and send a “Hi!” message to anyone who adds themselves, just to make sure the contributor is aware of the purpose of the list. Then, every 6 months or so, administrators could touch base with all who have added their names to confirm they’re still interested in contributing for another 6 months.
How are we ensuring the contributor ladder is applied to this idea?
The current contributor ladder model is a great start, but will need to be updated as this onboarding flow is created and implemented. For example, there are currently no Content Creator roles in the very first rung of the ladder. However, there should be something a new volunteer with a passion for creating content should be able to do without having to experience other areas of expertise first. We would work out which of the Content Creator related roles could be moved down the ladder and introduced as a first contribution to those with a passion to create content.
Could we get, say, Matt or Josepha to record the Thank You videos? 😃
That is definitely something we could consider. Another idea is to record multiple Thank You videos from multiple contributors, and then show a random video each time the page is loaded.
Next Steps: The plan is to start building out the proposed onboarding flows from mid-November. Please leave any other ideas, questions or comments you have below. We will come up with a concrete plan by November 18th.
Erica, Angela, and Hari gave us a look at how workshops have been vetted so far. This is shifting to a Training Team role, so learning how this has been handled was fantastic. If you missed the meeting, catch the replay above.
Below you will find many links mentioned during the meeting.
The Training Team proposes the following criteria for their profile badges:
Team On-boarding (Required): You have joined the #training channel in SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., been added to the TrelloTrelloProject management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. board and the GitHubGitHubGitHub 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/ organization. You have read through the Getting Started information (https://make.wordpress.org/training/handbook/getting-started/) and are familiar with the lesson plan template, the team’s workflow, and the teams tools (GitHub, ZenHub, and Trello). You understand the various channels of communication and know when and how they should be used.
Training Contributor:
Writing – You have developed an approved lesson plan from scratch or completely rewritten one that was out of date. Your efforts have moved a lesson plan from the “Drafts in Progress” stage to the “Instructional Review” stage in Trello.
Copyediting/Reviewing – You have contributed five (5) pull requests in GitHub. Or you have successfully moved a lesson plan from the “Copyediting in Progress” stage to the “Style Guide Review” stage OR from the “Style Guide Review” stage to the “Ready for Final Review” stage in Trello.
Testing – You have completed a testing feedback form after using a lesson plan in an event and have created GitHub issues for any suggested changes.
Auditing – You have audited three (3) lesson plans or surveyed the team’s GitHub reposreposThe Training Team uses GitHub for working copies of lesson plans. You can find them at https://github.com/wptrainingteam. and created GitHub issues for any needed changes.
Connecting – You have made three (3) workshop recommendations by combining existing lesson plans and submitting your ideas through the https://learn.wordpress.org/ site (when ready).
Other – the team may choose to award the badge for other contributions at the team’s discretion.
Training Team: You have admin rights on GitHub, Trello, ZenHub, and/or the https://make.wordpress.org/training/ site. You assist with final reviews of lesson plans. You regularly contribute to meetings or the maintenance and management of the team. You have been involved within the past twelve months.
Awarding of profile badges: There will be a monthly review of contributions, and badges will be awarded at that time. A list of the new profile badges awarded will then be posted on the https://make.wordpress.org/training/ site. If you feel that you have earned the badge but were not listed, please leave a comment on that month’s blog post and include your GitHub username and your WordPress.org username.
In last week’s team meeting, I brought up a few common styling issues that copy editors have noticed while editing lesson plans. As promised, I’m expanding that list here. For more details on many of the items referenced in this list, please refer to the style guide.
Issues we’ve seen frequently include:
Lots of different kinds of quiz formatting. The quiz formatting is outlined in the style guide, so take a look at that when writing out quiz questions.
Random horizontal rules. We don’t need these to separate major sections (e.g. “Teacher Notes” from the “Hands-On Walkthrough”), but watch out for them because they are included in some plan drafts that were created a long time ago. Please DO use horizontal rules if they make sense to separate sections of content within the hands-on walkthrough section.
Capitalizing WordPress specific terms and phrases like “Posts,” for example. Unless a word is a proper noun in general, we don’t need to capitalize it.
Absence of punctuation. Sentences should always end with the appropriate punctuation!
Misspelling of WordPress. WordPress has a capital “P” and should never ever be spelled with a lower case “p.”
Inclusion of random notes. Once you’re done with your lesson plan, make sure you’ve deleted any notes you wrote to yourself as you were working!
Absent quizzes. Be sure to include 1-3 quiz questions for your lesson plan. If you’re not sure what the questions should be, that’s ok. In this case, flag that the quizzes are absent before sending the plan to copyediting.
Absent exercises. Be sure to include an exercise that would take approximately 5-10 minutes to accomplish. As with quizzes, if you’re not sure what the exercise should be, flag that an exercise is absent before sending the plan to copyediting.
We’ll be using this list to create a checklist for lesson plan authors to go through before submitting their plans for copyediting and for copy editors to use while editing, so please list any additional items you’ve noticed in the comments!
@jillbinder‘s speaker lesson plans are nearly done. Once they are done, this will be our first complete “workshop” series.
Testing updates
Expect testing feedback on the lesson plan “The LoopLoopThe Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop.” from @torlowski. There were some challenges while testing this recently, causing a delay in the meetupMeetupAll 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. and change in testing plans. They will try again in January.
Quarterly lesson plan audit
User Lessons – Any plans that are on this list that I don’t hear back from anyone on by next Tuesday will be opened up for others to work on. managing menus @wpnzach what can you do with WordPress @meaganhanes
maintain sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. navigation for the lesson plans
all documentation and all lesson plans stored in one content type
can remediate some of the content type sameness through custom menus, but then URLURLA specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org structures may not be consistent
@courane01 has gone through all posts on our team site to organize tags and categories. Descriptions of each tag and categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. will be documented in the upcoming team handbook.
@linnifred would like a “Get Started” category as well.
@jillbinder “So I have two versions and I’m not a detail-oriented person. I need some help from someone who is to create the master plans to submit to your team.”
WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. NYC Contributor Day – how would it be useful for volunteers to contribute?
