I’m sure that WordPress community organizers all over the world are keeping a watchful eye on the news related to COVID-19. Many organizers have received questions and recommendations from their communities about whether to continue meeting in person, in the absence of direct instructions from the public health authorities in their towns or countries.
We are a team of people dedicated to bringing people together, and our community events are a labor (much labor!) of love. WordPress community organizers have carved out time from their busy schedules, sacrificed time with family/friends or that would have been dedicated to other causes, and taken on very challenging work (we make it look easy, but it’s not!) in order to plan community events. Naturally, we approach the topic of postponing or cancelling our events with deep reluctance and sadness.
That said, one of our fundamental priorities must be to preserve the health and well-being of our attendees and communities. Making decisions that support the effort to “flatten the curve” — slowing the rate of infection so that health care systems are not overwhelmed — is both responsible and prudent.
In cities or countries where the public health officials have restricted public gatherings, I trust that organizers will follow the advice of authorities. For organizers with events planned in cities or states that have not yet made public health recommendations, the decision is much more difficult. We have not trained organizers to assess risks like these, because our program has never had to adapt to a global epidemic of this scale. To support organizers in this difficult decision, here is the recommendation:
If you are planning an event scheduled between now and June 1, and there is any evidence of community transmission of COVID-19 in your area, we strongly recommend that you postpone the event until later in the year or 2021 and/or adapt to an online event.
Please review this handbook page for recommendations on postponement vs cancellation of a WordCamp, and procedures for both. This recommendation stands for both meetup events and WordCamps.
If your community has not yet seen evidence of community transmission of COVID-19, please take extra precautions with attendee health:
- Discuss event details with local health officials and prepare to implement an emergency contingency plan based on their specific guidance.
- Share and provide COVID-19 updates on your WordCamp site, and promote preventive health messages to your attendees and volunteers, such as:
- Stay home when you are sick, except to get medical care.
- Cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue or sleeve, then put the tissue a the garbage bin.
- Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Clean frequently touched surfaces and objects daily.
- Recommend that attendees minimize close contact (e.g., recommending no handshaking or hugging)
- Encourage participants who are experiencing any symptoms consistent with COVID-19 to refrain from attending the conference.
- Make sure that every attendee has registered via purchasing the ticket or marking their attendance in meetup.com so that if someone gets sick, it will be easier for public health authorities to identify those at risk of infection.
- Create refund policies or remote participation capability (such as arranging to live stream the event, if possible) that permit participants the flexibility to stay home when they are sick, need to care for sick household members, or are at high risk for complications from COVID-19.
It’s possible we will extend this recommendation past June, depending on what happens in April and May. Please expect updates on a monthly basis, if not more frequently.
Support and training for online event planning is in the works. Next week I hope we can publish a handbook page with advice for temporarily adapting monthly meetup events so they can be held online, and the infrastructure and documentation to support organizers interested in holding WordCamps online are targeted for publication by the end of March.
I recognize that this is a terribly difficult time for many, and community deputies are available to help. Please email support@wordcamp.org with any questions or concerns, or share your concerns in a comment on this post.
Much needed information and guidelines for the WP Community. Indeed expecting updates more frequently. Much love to all of you from Bangladesh. My prayers and best wishes are with everyone involved!
It’s come to my attention that some people don’t know the term “community transmission.” With that term, I mean that infections in your area are not imported from another virus-hit area.
As described here this source**:
[EDIT:] A variation on this term is “local transmission.” The WHO has a report dated March 7 indicating what countries have reported local transmission. Please check for the latest reports from reliable health organizations such as WHO. [end EDIT]
That said, if you are in doubt whether to encourage people to meet in person, the global community team supports you in making decisions that are motivated by caution. I strongly encourage organizers in areas affected by this outbreak to look into online gatherings for the next few months, and check back here frequently for more resources and recommendations in the weeks to come.
**this article seems to have a typo, using “community transition” instead of “transmission“. Based on my reading however, the information in the article matches that of other creditable sources.
Should a link to this be sent out to Meetup chapter organizers? There may be some who are not monitoring this site.
Probably should, since one I just talked to minutes ago was unaware of this post.
P.S. @andreamiddleton great work on this post.
Good idea, @rmarks — I’ll add that to the list of tasks we can invite help on, from deputies, with a goal to send out an email via meetup.com in the next 6-8 hours.
Just got that meetup email! Thanks.
Thanks a lot @andreamiddleton for sharing all these advice. It’s a really complex time to get together even if the local authorities guidelines put the WordCamp out of scope because these guidelines can be updated at any time. In France for example gathering more than 1000 people is not allowed, but we have no idea if this will be extended to less people gatherings or any of them.
Moreover we can’t avoid people to be very worried whatever the local authorities guidelines are. Some people just prefer not to buy tickets at all or ask for reimbursement. I’d suggest to add 2 advices to your list :
The 2 WordCamps I’m mentoring (Paris & Antwerp) decided to postpone. It’s a really tough decision and it brings a lot of complexity about how to communicate the right way to attendees, speakers, volunteers, sponsors & vendors. I’d like to thank the organization teams for the great work they have done dealing with this crisis and I wish them a lot of courage to deal with all the tasks postponing involves. You’re great, organizers 💪👍
Thanks for supporting the Paris and Antwerp teams during this difficult time, @imath! I agree that communication around cancellations or postponement are really difficult to manage right. I believe some deputies are working on some email templates that WordCamp organizers can use — please check the #community-team slack channel if you’re interested in collaborating on the templates or translating the templates. 🙂
Fantastic, you can count on me for the translations 👌
Note. A major problem with mask and glove wearing is that folks aren’t trained to use them properly.
In the case of non-trained food servers/prep folks it’s just as easy to contaminate their gloves as it is their hands, by putting the gloves on with unwashed hands, or touching contaminated surface after putting them on.
More important would be food servers wearing masks, just in case they expel respiratory droplets (coughing and breathing), and that any open food also be protected from attendees doing the same via food sneeze guards. These are all pretty standard in the US in a commercial setting.
Perhaps the best added advice is simply “make sure your food vendors are professional and taking strong precautions for preparing and serving food”.
Updated information from the WHO, including that they now classify this as a pandemic and sharing current data on what countries have reported cases of local transmission.
I updated the above comment with the link to the correct report, number 51. Originally, I had linked to report 50, which was not the report that classified the situation as a pandemic.
Thank you Andrea for this much needed statement. We started in march to hold our local Meetup in Düsseldorf exclusively online. This will affect all upcoming events in our local community until further notice.
Thanks for this Andrea, it’s appreciated. It’s looking like we’ll need to cancel our first Meetup. I’ll look at hosting a Zoom call (or similar) instead. Has anyone else had any joy with this?
Yes, we just switched to online via Zoom, worked like a charm. If you need further advise. We have some pointers on what to look out for if going to an Online Conference. What rules apply and so on…
Hi Mario – I’d love to hear your recommendations for hosting meetups via Zoom. Do you have a blog post or something you can link to?
Earlier this week, the facility we used informed us we could not meet there for the time being, so we had our first virtual Meetup last night. We used Zoom and it went pretty well. The hardest part was getting the message out that we had switched from physical to online. I recommend having someone act as the meeting facilitator to keep attendees on subject and ensure people don’t get cut off or talked over. It’s not as engaging as meeting in person, but it’s better than not meeting at all. An added benefit is screen sharing.
Thank you for posting these guidelines. I was very worried about how to proceed with my local meetup, and I appreciate the clear guidance and being able to link to this reference. We’ll be trying to set up an online gathering.
We just published a handbook page with tools and tips and tricks for meetup organizers for virtual events.