Hello World!

Welcome to the WordPress contributor group updates blog! This blog will feature weekly updates by 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. of each official contributor group. Each update will highlight what has happened in the past week — what progress has been made, what challenges have been faced, if there are new or departing contributors — as well as what’s planned for the week ahead.

Here’s an example of what a theme review team update might look like; imagine that each bulleted item links out to appropriate sites or to posts on the make/themes blog for more detail:

Past Week:

  • Reviewed 43 themes, accepted 31, rejected 3, advised 9 on needed changes.
  • Wrote a section for the theme reviewer’s handbook on the review process.
  • Began our part of the Spring Mentorship Program with 12 mentee theme reviewers. Exciting!

Coming Week:

  • Review incoming theme submissions.
  • Work with coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and 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. teams on plans for new theme APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways..
  • Complete initial training of the mentees, get them started on their first reviews.
  • Kelly Green will start planning the theme review team summit.

Notes:

  • Jack Sprat is taking a break from theme reviewing for the next month while he moves, so Jack B. Nimble will be taking over to post these updates.
  • We need a designer to help us make our team blog awesome looking, and to design some flyers/postcards we can bring to to the web design conference some of us will be attending next month (where we’ll try to recruit new theme reviewers).

Here’s an example of an update that might be longer/have more detail, from an imaginary version of the Events group (my dream of where that group is headed, really):

Past Week:

  • WordCamps occurred in San Diego, Toronto, Tel Aviv, and Cairo, with a total of about 1200 attendees.
  • 64 videos published on wordpress.tv from WCs in LA and Seattle.
  • 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. organizers were approved for Syracuse, Bellingham, Dublin, and Jersey City. 10 other applications were directed to start with 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. group.
  • Mentors checked in with WC organizers from 12 WordCamps in planning: Jackson Hole, Tucson, London, Paris, Johannesburg, Winnipeg, Luxembourg, Perth, Moscow, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Sacramento.
  • New User Workshops were put on by meetup groups in 4 cities: Chicago, New York (Brooklyn), Austin, and Oklahoma City, getting about 150 people started with WordPress.
  • There was a theme developer hackathon in Houston.
  • Andrew Nacin gave a primer on APIs to 9 meetup groups via google hangout.
  • New meetup groups formed in 3 cities: Rome (NY), Rome (GA), and Rome (IA), and New Meetup Starter Packs were sent out.
  • 2 existing meetup groups joined the central meetup.com account: Savannah and Washington, DC.
  • The Gotham City meetup group staffed a “WordPress Clinic” table at the public library and helped 24 WordPress users.
  • Updated the budgeting guidelines on plan.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/
  • Proposal was made for multi-event sponsorships.

Coming Week:

  • WordCamps happening in Detroit, Lisbon, and Mexico City.
  • Ipstenu giving a talk to meetups on Wednesday via hangout on how to help in the forums.
  • New User Workshops in Atlanta, Portland, and Madrid.
  • Respond to incoming meetup and WordCamp organizer applications.
  • Mentor check-ins.
  • Discuss guidelines around WC sponsorships and the proposal for multi-event sponsorships.

Make sense? Enough info to keep the other groups aware of things, but not so much detail that they might as well have done the work themselves. Stats are always awesome, and I’d like to work with each group to identify what stats would be useful so we can work on our infrastructure to start tracking things better when possible.

This blog will also be a place for team reps to raise questions, make suggestions, and discuss issues facing the project as a whole, in a place where it’s publicly visible and doesn’t require searching through mailing list or IRC archives. Welcome to The New Transparency! 🙂