Quarterly Updates | Q1 2018

To keep everyone aware of big projects and efforts across WordPress volunteer teams, I’ve reached out each team’s listed representatives. I asked each of them to share their top priority (and when they hope for it to be completed), as well as their biggest Wins and Worries. Have questions? I’ve included a link to each team’s site in the headings.

Accessibility

  • Contacted: @rianrietveld, @joedolson, @afercia
  • Priority: Getting the minimum 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) requirements for GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ done prior to merge. ETA is before 5.0
  • Struggle: Would like better accessibility knowledge/awareness in the project (here are a few training options for those who want to learn more)
  • Big Win: A lot of support from the community to make WordPress as accessible as it can be. All the designers, testers, a lot of developers and team leads are making an effort.

CLI

  • Contacted: @danielbachhuber, @schlessera
  • Priority: New major version v2.0.0 which restructures the packaging system to improve the developer experience (especially contributor on-boarding). ETA is beginning of July.
  • Struggle: Assembling a larger team of regular contributors/committers (which informed the team’s priority).
  • Big Win: Version 1.5.0 released at the end of January was full of useful new features and bug fixes.

Community

Core

  • Contacted: @jeffpaul
  • Priority: Gutenberg polishing and GDPR preparations
  • Struggle: Timelines are in flux, but the new editor is getting into refinement phases. GDPR is being coordinated among a number of teams, so that’s taking significant time, but the next steps are clear.
  • Big Win: Got a number of new contributors to help lead releases. A few debrief posts about learnings and possible improvements are coming.

Design

  • Contacted: @melchoyce, @karmatosed, @boemedia, @joshuawold, @mizejewski
  • PriorityTeam building, empowering designers to contribute, and continued focus on supporting CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..
  • StruggleMaking the path to contribution clearer (no designated tasks for designers to perform and contributing through TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets is very technical/can be overwhelming).
  • Big Win: A bit of new involvement on the Design team and some partnering with people on other teams as well.

Documentation

  • Contacted: @kenshino
    Priority: Releasing HelpHub (background: https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2018/02/26/state-of-helphub-february-2018/) by May 30.
    Struggle: A lot of work is short term or project-based, so it’s hard to keep volunteer engaged over long periods of time

Hosting

  • Contacted: @mikeschroder
  • Priority: Expand on current best-practice documentation (ETA is not firm), and coordinating Gutenberg plugin compatibility testing (ETA is before 5.0)
  • Struggle: This is a newer team without a lot of dedicated time to put to it.
  • Big Win: Grew list of hosts running distributed automated tests to 9. This now also keeps track of the 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/ TravisCI setup, and automatically emails hosts if tests fail on their setup but are passing on WordPress.org’s Core TravisCI.
    Read more here: https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/test-results/

Marketing

  • Contacted: @bridgetwillard
  • Priority: Top priority is finishing the handbook, ETA June 2018
  • Struggle: Need a more streamlined onboarding process for Contributor Days
  • Big Win: We’re proud of quite a bit but the Trac onboarding Guide, jargon glossary, and keywords for new landing pages for wordpress.org.

Meta (WordPress.org Site)

  • Contacted: @coffee2code
  • Priority: GDPR, Council-requested updates, supporting teams where we can.
  • Struggle: 2 people on leave at the moment
  • Big Win: Got the About Page launched

Mobile

  • Contacted: @astralbodies, @catehstn
  • Priority: Getting Gutenberg on mobile.
  • Big Win: Nailed what they hoped to ship in Q1, and excited to see what 2018 brings

Plugins

  • Contacted: @ipstenu
  • Priority: Getting off SupportPress so that more nuanced access is easy to give.
  • Big Win: Have moved to a new review system (even though it has some weird quirks).

Polyglots

  • Contacted: @petya, @ocean90, @nao, @chantalc, @deconf, @casiepa
  • Priority: Translate WP to 100% and then concentrate on the top 100 plugins and themes
  • Struggle: Getting new PTEs fast enough, and complex tools/systems. Overall, the volume of strings awaiting approval.

Support

  • Contacted: @clorith
  • Priority: Preparing for an increase in Gutenberg support (due to the potential callout, and 5.0 itself)
  • Big Win: Have been providing new workshops recently, focusing on various parts of support, as seen from various pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and theme related perspectives and roles.

Theme Review

  • Contacted: @acosmin, @rabmalin, @thinkupthemes, @williampatton
  • Priority: Reducing theme review queue and ensuring themes still meet a minimum level of acceptable quality control.
  • Struggle: Finding new reviewers and keeping new reviewers interested in contributing their time.
  • Big Win: Reduced theme review queue from several months to 2 weeks.

Training

  • Contacted: @bethsoderberg, @juliek
  • Priority: Finish audit and updates to lesson plans. ETA is May 2018
  • Struggle: Onboarding to new systems, but there are some trainings planned in the near future.
  • Big Win: Moved lessons to GitHubGitHub GitHub 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/

Interested in updates for all of 2018? You can find those here https://wordpress.org/news/2018/07/quarterly-updates-q2-2018/ and here https://wordpress.org/news/2018/11/quarterly-updates-q3-2018/.

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