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WordPress.org

Welcome to the official blog of the community/outreach team for the WordPress open source project!

This team oversees official events, mentorship programs, diversity initiatives, contributor outreach, and other ways of growing our community.

If you love WordPress and want to help us do these things, join in!

Getting Involved

We use this blog for policy debates, project announcements, and status reports. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to comment on posts and join the discussion.

You can learn about our current activities on the Team Projects page. These projects are suitable for everyone from newcomers to WordPress community elders.

You can use our contact form to volunteer for one of our projects.

Communication

We have Office Hours four times a week in the #community-events channel on Slack: Mondays & Wednesdays 22:00 UTC, Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 UTC.

We also have regular Community Team meetings on the first and third Thursdays of every month at 11:00 UTC and 20:00 UTC in #community-team on Slack (same agenda).

Events WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.

If you have questions about the Events and News dashboard widget that came out in WordPress 4.8, please read this FAQ!

Make WordPress Communities

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Latest updates on changes to WordCamps

COVID-19 has impacted many WordCamps globally. To help you keep track of the latest changes to WordCamps, we will be updating this list periodically.

Note that “Cancelled” means that the 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. will not happen in 2020, but there may be plans for a 2021 event. “Postponed” indicates that the organizing team is working towards making an event happen later this year.

Last updated April 7, 2020 at 10:00 UTC

  • WordCamp Asia, February 21 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Cebu, February 29, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Lancaster, March 14, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Albuquerque, March 20, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, March 20, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Geneva, March 20, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Kolkata, March 22, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Washington DC, March 27, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Antwerp, March 28, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp San Antonio, March 28, 2020 – Moved to livestream
  • WordCamp Jacksonville, March 28, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Santa Clarita, April 3, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Turin (Torino), April 17, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Paris, April 17, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Atlanta, April 18, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Bilbao, April 24, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Bucharest, April 25, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Kansas City, April 28, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Soltau, April 30, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Chicago, May 2, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp San Diego, May 2, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Houston, May 9, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Buffalo, May 9, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Madrid, May 9, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Athens, May 16, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Košice, May 16, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Plovdiv, May 16, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Kathmandu, May 20, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Irun, May 23, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Calgary, May 29, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Kent, May 30, 2020 – Moved to livestream
  • WordCamp Moscow, May 30, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Montclair, May 30, 2020 – Postponed
  • WordCamp Europe, June 4-6, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Raleigh, June 6, 2020 – Cancelled
  • WordCamp Centroamerica, September 17, 2020 – Cancelled

Are you a WordCamp organizer and unsure of how to proceed? Here are a few helpful links.

New recommendations for event organizers in light of COVID-19

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 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., and procedures for both. This recommendation stands for both meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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. 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.

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, 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, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

Request for feedback: Revising application tracker back-end

Some time ago during a conversation with the 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. 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. team, we found that it would be wise to revise WordCamp and MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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. application tracker back-end.

The goal is to identify which features or fields are not used anymore, if there’s a need for new features and what features or processed would need improvements.

Application trackers are heavily used by Community Team Deputies and making the user experience as good as it’s reasonably possible, will hopefully ease and speed up the use of tracker. Improving the trackers can free up some time used to update Meetup and WordCamp information, allowing deputies to focus on the most important thing – helping the event organizers in worldwide WordPress Community.

After comments and ideas on improving the tracker are gathered, I will review those and write a follow-up proposal with concrete proposals and actionable tasks. After those tasks are reviewed, approved ones will be moved to WordPress.org Github issue tracker and I commit to work on those (help is always welcome!)

Please share your thoughts and ideas before 2020-05-04.

#applications

Few things that did come to my mind right away:

  • Improving the “Original application” section and making it friendlier to read
  • Moving the “Add private note” text field from sidebarSidebar A 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. or adding a second one in the main area to make writing long notes, for example, vetting notes easier
  • Removing the “Already a meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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.” field from “Application information” metaboxMetabox A post metabox is a draggable box shown on the post editing screen. Its purpose is to allow the user to select or enter information in addition to the main post content. This information should be related to the post in some way. on Meetup applications, because same data is visible on the original application and all other fields in the metabox are for tracking the steps for application
  • Removing the “Swag notes” text field because swag related information can be added as a private note, which is better because those have always a timestamp and trace of the user who made the note. Existing swag notes would be migrated to log.

Showing online workshops in the Events Widget

This post is similar to @iandunn‘s post, “Showing Online WordCamps in the Events Widget”, but in this case we are talking about Community workshops. The topic has come up because of the Diverse Speaker workshop on April 14-16. Other online global community workshops are likely to follow.

In the second Community Team chat Thursday, we were discussing how to promote this Speaker workshop. I suggested it could be possible to use the Events WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.. Some discussion occurred in #meta-wordcamp as well which parallel’s Ian’s post.

A few differences to note from online WordCamps:

  • This workshop is being organized from Vancouver. I think the location of the organizers should be ignored since a typical radius would exclude potential interested participants.
  • This workshop will be held April 14-16 for one hour each at 1800 UTC / 2pm EDT.
  • This workshop will be offered in English.

I propose similar questions to Ian’s post, with a few modifications.

Questions

  1. Should Community Team online training workshops show up in the widget?
  2. If so, who should they be shown to? Here are a few potential criteria:
    • Everyone within a timezone where the event would occur between 8am – 8pm in the user’s local timezone.
    • Everyone who speaks the same language — or locale? — as the workshop.
    • A combination of the above? Some other criteria entirely?
  3. Should the timezone and/or language of the event be displayed in the dashboard?

+make.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. http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://wordpress.org//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.
+make.wordpress.org/coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

#events-news-widget, #online-events

Hmm, those xposts should have worked since you’re an author on those sites. Let’s see if these work:

+make.wordpress.org/core/
+make.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. http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://wordpress.org//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./

Although I consider the Diverse Speaker workshops very important, I’m not quite sure whether the Events widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. is right place to promote those. It needs to be remembered, that the widget shows only three next events and is originally intended to promote the local community and get more attendees to local events. I really would not want to take place from promoting local events to everyone using WordPress, to promote an workshops that are targeted only for persons having some level of interest speaking in those events.

If the number of events shown can be increased to four, then maybe. Btw is that limited on the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. or in the 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. level?

Or if it would be possible to use the same flagship event banner used for WCUS and WCEU on top of the three local events, then maybe.

Online conference platform concerns

As I mentioned in one of our team meetings yesterday, I made the call to provide support for community events to use Crowdcast as an online event platform a few weeks ago, without testing whether the tool was fully accessible. Unfortunately, Crowdcast doesn’t meet the community team’s needs for 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), and I’m really, really sorry about that mistake. I acted in a hurry, motivated by the desire to make a powerful tool available to event organizers as soon as possible, but should have thought to test the accessibility of the platform before setting our team on that path. I know better, and I apologize.

Since Crowdcast is not currently navigable by keyboard-only users — thank you to Rachel and others for bringing this to our attention! — it’s not a viable option for WordPress community events to use right now. My understanding is that the company is working to resolve those issues quickly, so I hold out hope that we’ll be able to use them in the future.

This does mean that the training material and documentation supporting Crowdcast usage will not be relevant right now, and that a bunch of people pushed hard to work on docs that we can’t currently use. I’m so disappointed that my error might have either wasted our volunteers’ valuable time or delayed the benefits of that hard work. Kudos to @marktimemedia, @kaysweb, @bph, @angelasjin, @nao, @chaion07, @casiepa, @andymci, @camikaos & @hlashbrooke for their efforts, and I hope you’ll all accept my apology.  

Our team is committed to making our offline events as accessible and inclusive as possible, and we will work to meet the same expectations for our online events.

Next steps

Community deputies are working on identifying and vetting other platforms that we might be able to recommend to community organizers.  If you would like to participate in identifying, reviewing, and testing other possible platforms, here is a shared spreadsheet where options can be suggested and feedback can be captured. 

Thanks for any support you can give to this effort at a very uncertain time for all of us. 

If it helps, I’ve also already started documentation for Zoom (which is significantly more accessible, and is apparently working to deal with their security issues). If we decide to go with Zoom I could do more here (I’m working on this currently for another organization).

http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EsWWKaIwNmHykiDpgnmOQYqRWVaOZ8u5g_Ygzm8ERL0/edit?usp=sharing

Certain parts of the existing Virtual Events documentation that are not platform-specific, such as Best Practices for speaking and for setting up your equipment, or for hosting an event in general (multiple moderators, monitoring chat, code of conduct, how to promote, etc) can still continue to be worked on 🙂

That really does help, Michelle, thanks! And I agree, online platform selection is no barrier to the progress of the other excellent docs we have going! Your work on this has been so valuable; thanks forever.

I’d like to see us go down the path of using Zoom Webinars to capture the online events. An organizer could be the webinar host and the emcee and speaker(s) could all be panelists. It’s also possible for the emcee to be the host.

The webinar could be streamed to YouTube which already has the chat feature available. Moderators would collect questions from chat into an internal tool such as a Google spreadsheet. During Q&A, the emcee can ask the speaker(s) questions.

The captioner can be a Zoom panelist without sending video, a Zoom attendee, or watch the same public YouTube video. The captioning should be embedded in the page containing the YouTube video and chat. I’d suggest that the captions be embedded above the YouTube embed. When you’re on a tablet or smartphone device in portrait mode, the captions showed up for me below the embedded YouTube chat for WPBlockTalk.

I have Zoom Webinar if anyone would like to test this with me. I’d like to see what can be done to allow a speaker to be seen while showing slides.
Post a message in #community-team and mention @rmarks. I have availability this weekend.

I’ve seen Jitsi come up in different groups as an OSS alternative to Zoom. Not sure if there are a11yAccessibility 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) concerns about it, but that it’s open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. feels pretty WordPress-y.

Jitsi has some 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) concerns: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://community.jitsi.org/t/accessibility-ranking-of-jitsi/27796

@andreamiddleton looks like the spreadsheet you shared is not publicly open.

And hey, don’t worry too much, despite the fact that that community members have worked hard to document the Crowdcast, these things do happen especially when we are in this totally new situation and do want to provide fastly new tools to keep this awesome WordPress community going. The main thing is that a11yAccessibility 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) issues were raised and the team is now pivoting to find a tool that is accessible, rather than sticking to one with known issues just because 🙂

I hope that some parts of the documentation written for Crowdcst can be used with other tools also, like general advice on moderation etc.

Please don’t evaluate possible platforms only for ally but also for privacy issues. I willing to help out on this. Zoom had some headlines in the past few days. As a big open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. community we should also consider to improve OS tools like, but not limited to, Jitsi and setup our own infrastructure driven by open source. This is exactly the right time for this!

@andreamiddleton I’m still deciding on what you should bake me so I can forgive you :-p

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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) issues are a major thing and it’s a real bummer that Crowdcast isn’t accessible, although the service has existed for quite a good time.

It’s good to remember that we probably won’t find a tool/service that fulfills our every need 100% because even tho webinars are an old thing, this situation to us is totally new and our requirements for the platform are different than “regular” webinar organizer might have. With this in mind, we should try to find the best platform instead of perfect.

Hey all, I started a new document that only contains the non-tool-specific best practices for virtual events that we can use to update the documentation, until we’ve selected a set of tools that we think meet our needs:
http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OOrK-Im-fLeqKozdp0sd2wqi9r2Fdi6rsdsP5ZPyEPk/edit?usp=sharing

Call for Participants: Diverse Speaker Workshop Online April 14-16

During this time of online events, the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) would like to facilitate more diverse voices sharing knowledge and stories in the virtual space. We are going to hold a 3-part workshop, one hour each day, to help people with:

  • Dispelling some myths about speakers/speaking (Overcoming the thought, “But I’m not an expert in anything”)
  • Coming up with topics and choosing one (Answering the question, “I wouldn’t know what to talk about!”)
  • Writing a meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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. description or 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. pitch
  • Online stage presence (new!)

These will all be held at 6-7pm UTC / 2-3pm ET:

  • Tuesday, April 14: Who am I to be speaking? & Finding a topic that people would love to hear (No prerequisite)
  • Wednesday, April 15: Creating a great pitch (Prerequisite: Please come with an idea for a talk. If you don’t have one, then please make sure you attend Tuesday!)
  • Thursday, April 16: Online stage presence (No prerequisite)

You are encouraged to attend all sessions, but you are also welcome to attend only the sessions you wish.

Please note! This training is intended to train speakers who are members of a marginalized or underrepresented group in terms of gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, age, etc.

If this is you, please sign up in the Registration form!

Everyone, please help us spread the word.

Register for the workshop session(s) now

P.S. Others who like to attend these sessions because you want to learn how to be good allies, please note that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion material is not covered in these workshops. If there is enough interest, we could hold a different workshop for you in the future.

Also, we have two documents for you: Building A Diverse Speaker Roster and Inclusive and Welcoming Events.

Community Team Chat Agenda | 02 April 2020

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 2nd of April 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly: Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 11:00 AM UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 08:00 PM UTC

Deputy/Mentor check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going?

P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://make.wordpress.org/. posts needing review/feedback

Highlighted P2 posts

Please add any additional items to this agenda by commenting on this post as needed.

#team-chat

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, 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, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

I’m talking about WordCamps in Japan as a mentor. They are still planned, but are considering going online or postponed next year due to the effects of covid-19.
We have started do_action Japan online planning.

Meetup Organiser Newsletter: Online Events Edition

Hi there folks!

Welcome to another meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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. organiser newsletter – in this edition we’ll be highlighting some upcoming virtual events and providing you with more info about taking your events online!

Upcoming Online Events

With much of the world either on lockdown or in recommended self-isolation, organizers all over the world are taking their events online. The WordPress community is no exception to this trend as many meetups, WordCamps, and other events in the community are being streamed online for the whole world to enjoy.

WordCamp San Antonio

As WordCamps begin to move online, the first to do so is 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. San Antonio taking place this weekend – March 28-29. You can see the full schedule on their site (all times in the local time zone of UTC-5) and book your free ticket here. Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll start to see many more WordCamps be presented as live streams. If you are an organizer who would like to get started with this for your community, then keep an eye on the Community Team blog as more info about online events will be published very soon.

WPBlockTalk

On Thursday, April 2 a virtual event all about the WordPress blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor will be broadcast live. WPBlockTalk includes speakers from all over the world and, after the live event, will be published on WordPress.tv for you to watch (or re-watch) whenever you’d like.

Online Meetups

It’s not only WordCamps and all-day conferences that are streaming online, but local WordPress meetup groups are also doing it too! You can find all the upcoming online events from WordPress meetup groups all over the world on this page – times will be shown in your local time zone unless otherwise noted. 

Resources for Online Events

If you would like to take your meetup online, we have some resources available to help you get started with streaming your expertly-crafted content to the world. First off, we need to note that for the time being, we won’t be approving or paying venue-related costs for meetup groups, even if it is in advance for when you do ultimately start meeting in person again. We don’t know what the situation will be once in-person meetings are possible once more and it is safer to only pay for those venues once we know how it will work.

In order to assist you with bringing your meetup events online, we have put together a page of resources and tips to provide with ideas and software options for this move. Additionally, Meetup.com has published information on how to indicate that your event is taking place online. If you follow their guide then your events will be listed in the online meetup events page that is mentioned above.

During this time, when everyone is connecting virtually with each other, people are joining forces with other local communities that speak the same language. The Global Community Team has removed location limitations and reduced the planning process to a minimum. WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. will provide Crowdcast accounts for these longer online events (more info coming soon!) and they will have free tickets for everyone around the globe to be able to join without any financial limitation.

If your community is interested, you can submit the WordCamp Organizer Application now!

Running Charity Hackathons Online

For the last few years, we have included the do_action Charity Hackathon event series in the WordPress community program, and there are some handy recap posts on the WordPress Foundation site all about how these events have been going. In order to keep these going, we have opened the event format up a bit to allow them to be run online. You can find more information about that in the announcement, and if you would like to organize a do_action event, you can apply for one here.

If you have any questions or concerns, Community Team deputies are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Please note that our Meetup.com inbox is not monitored, so please don’t reach out by replying directly to this message.

Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community, let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring our Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. Community! 

We’ll see you online soon!

Thanks! Hugh,

We look forward to 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. San Antonio in 2020 to learn more about Online WordCamp.

FYI: Crowdcast has great functionality but is highly inaccessible. If you can’t use a mouse, you can’t even join the events much less use the tool itself. There is also a lot of issues for users dependent on screen readers as well as concerns with low color contrast. They also lack caption ingestion.

Please do not use Crowdcast for online WordCamps until the issues have been addressed.

Thanks for this feedback @bamadesigner.

Full disclosure – this is the first time we’re hearing about this and we’re already very far into the process for getting Crowdcast ready for WordCamps to use, but we’ll do some more investigation here and see what we can find out.

For research purposes, do you know of any live streaming services with similar functionality that are accessible?

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of accessible “out of the box” options.

Vimeo has a “showcase” option which might be nice, but I’ve never had access to test it for 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility). I was in talks with them to use their showcase for a different conference but they didn’t have captions. I’m told caption ingestion was recently added.

Zoom has a commitment to accessibility, but you can’t embed its service on your website.

Building an accessible option isn’t that challenging. We do it for WPCampus. We stream through YouTube and embed their player and chat on our website. The caption ingestion goes through the YouTube player and we embed the captions separately and provide a link to the captions so users can open in separate windows if desired.

If YouTube isnt an option, there are accessible video players you can embed on your website. You would then need to find an accessible chat option.

YouTube doesn’t have the question functionality but you might find another tool OR have moderators round-up questions and share them with the speakers at the end. There are some workarounds. We built our own tool for questions.

I would talk to the Accessibility team, especially their Events group who has been doing research for a virtual Accessibility day.

But I must say: I’m disheartened by your “but we’ve already spent so much time on it” response. This feels like an excuse. The Community team either prioritizes 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) or they don’t. And CrowdCast is not accessible. Not at all. I hope the Community team will show the WordPress community how important accessibility is and implement another option.

Thank you for your additional input here @bamadesigner.

For full clarity, I didn’t use a “but” in that phrase 🙂 It wasn’t an excuse – I was just noting a fact since it’s relevant to the discussion. We already have captioning covered by embedding it in the site separately (as the 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. San Antonio live stream from this weekend showed), but this is the first time we’re hearing of other a11yAccessibility 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) issues with Crowdcast.

As I said – we’ll investigate our options here and see what can be done – thank you for bringing this to our attention!

Thanks for your work, Hugh. I know a lot is going on.

Going forward, talk to the 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). (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) team before you choose a tool. If they had been consulted, they would have told you the same thing. They also would’ve shared all the research they’ve put together for hosting accessible online events.

Youth Event Office Hours

In light of everything going on with COVID-19 and needing to move events to a remote status. We are changing our Youth Events Working Group meetings to be Office Hours. This is so that anyone can come to #community-events channel and ask any questions about how to help the kids at home during this time.

If you want to start a virtual meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200407152912/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., get resources for your own family or just talk about things kids can do safely online our group is here to support it.

This will happen weekly on Thursdays at 2100UTC/5pm EST.

If anyone wants to help with more International Friendly times please reach out and let either @camikaos or myself (@sunsand187) know.

#kids-events, #youth-events

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