Hugh Lashbrooke 11:00 pm on July 23, 2020  

Building community beyond events

The recent discussion around reimagining online events has raised some challenges in bringing WordCamps online and has suggested some really interesting alternatives for WordPress community organisers to try out. This kind of discussion is not unique to the WordPress community — groups all over the world have been struggling to adapt their in-person events to an online platform.

The WordPress community must keep iterating on effective ways to share valuable content that will help people learn to use and contribute to WordPress.

Moving beyond synchronous events

Since the day this team was formed, events have been our primary tool to grow the WordPress community, helping people learn to use and contribute to WordPress. Events can be an effective way to work toward that goal, because learning in a shared space, with like-minded people, can foster a feeling of belonging which helps people stick with WordPress even when things get rough. 

However, building community through events brings limitations. If someone can’t attend our events, due to geography, schedules, or other barriers, then they are left out. We approach this challenge by trying to foster community in as many places and events in as many times and locations as possible (Whew!). Thousands of people contribute to this amazing effort.

Online events greatly reduce how geography limits the reach of our events (yay!), but the limitation of synchronous events remains. If someone can’t attend the hangout or Zoom at 6pm, then they’re mostly out of luck.  Also, our organising work is less efficient than it could be, with multiple speakers/organisers sharing content about the same subjects in different locations all over the globe. 

Currently, if someone wants to learn more about WordPress from WordPress, they have a few options:

  1. Read some documentation.
  2. Find a local 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. 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., and hope the topic that they want to learn shows up in the schedule.
  3. Watch WordPress.tv or YouTube and hope that they understand the presentation on the topic (if there is one). 

What if there was another way?

Proposal: Recorded workshops + synchronous discussion groups

The most efficient way to reach the largest number of people and help them learn how to use and contribute to WordPress, is with recorded workshops that can be viewed whenever someone has the time and interest. Recorded talks or workshops make learning available to everyone in the world, no matter what timezone they’re in, what schedule they follow, or when they discover an interest. 

But as we all know, synchronous discussions are incredibly powerful. They facilitate connection, mutual learning, exchange of ideas, and personal development. 

What if we blended those two elements into a program that provides the flexibility of online content, with the value and sense of community that comes with learning together?

We could publish workshops in a central location (on wordpress.org, for better visibility and reach) and then invite learners to join live discussion groups that cater to different timezones. This “flipped classroom” model allows people to learn at their convenience, and then come together for additional development. 

The workshops could be put together by people who would otherwise be speaking at WordCamps, and we could even use existing content from WordPress.TV or talks that are being given at online meetups. There is also potential for longer courses, composed of multiple workshops, and a group that meets repeatedly over time. 

Once the discussion group or workshop is complete, the discussion group leader could recommend that the learners check out their local community groups for more WordPress learning and camaraderie. 

This approach has the potential to grow WordPress as a platform, and support our mission of helping people learn to use and contribute to WordPress, in an exciting new way. 

Feedback

If you agree that this idea is exciting, or if you have a question or suggestion, please leave a comment on this post! Here are some specific questions to get you started:

  1. Have you seen a workshop in the past year that you’d recommend to be included in a first iteration of this program?
  2. What topics would be important to include in an initial offering of workshops?
  3. Are you interested in helping to develop content for a program like this, or reviewing proposed content for accuracy? 
  4. Would you be interested in leading a discussion group for a workshop, or training discussion group leaders?
Sandy Edwards 6:57 pm on July 28, 2020
Tags: ,   

Recap of the Youth Event Working Group Checkin Chat | Friday 24 July 2020

Attending: @sunsand187 @danilong @kdrewien @carike

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1595599206068900

We Covered

  1. Updates from volunteers.
  2. Goals for the Year
  3. Needs of the Group
  4. Open Floor

Updates from Volunteers

Sandy: So far this year we have been brainstorming what we can do to create a youth platform for online events/async events

Goals for the Year

Our biggest goal this year is to create an online forum/platform that videos can live on for async learning. We also want to create documentation for first time camp leaders to have an easy way to spin up their youth events. We created the handbook last year for KidsCamps but we still need one for Teen events.

Dani: HIGH SCHOOL participants – consider working with school districts to show how an event might work meet state standards so students can earn credit for participating. Enlisting teachers in the arts, language arts, and computer science to review sessions/workshops and help define how they meet standards would be one way. (I used to teach and am thinking how this can help students who want to meet graduation credit requirements). If a series of async sessions were put together to teach HS students now to create a site, edit and add photos, write a blog and learn CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. to style it – playlists could be created that enable students to demonstrate competencies and thus submit a request for credit from their school. Getting into some of the CSS and PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. coding = Computer Science. Writing/blogging = English Language Arts. Photography, Digital Art, Blogging to show other manual arts = Arts, Woodshop, Metalshop, FACS (Family & Consumer Sciences [Home Ec to us ancient ones]).

Needs of the Group

There are a few things this group will need to be successful this year. Anyone who has these skills and is looking to contribute in a new way we would appreciate joining the team.

  • Research – laws surrounding minors at events globally
  • Writing – arts and crafts documentation, WordPress basics documentation, Parental Resources Documents
  • Video Creation – how to videos for WordPress, how to videos for Parents to get involved with their kids, Encouraging Videos
  • Editing – grammar, spell check, and general flow proof readers/editors

Dani: “One thing that is really critical is background checks. I’ve been a Girl Scout leader, a FRST Robotics leader, a 4H leader, a Trout Unlimited board member and a parent on field trips –> ANYONE interacting with minors MUST submit paperwork for a background check AND THE BACKGROUND CHECK MUST BE CARRIED OUT.

With respect to asynch/videos – I think shorter, small bites and a variety of playlists is a more manageable way to develop this, both from the point of view of creating them and consuming them.

Also, maybe there could be a color coding and intro/outro system to help categorize:

  1. Age group the video is directed towards  (Younger Elementary, Older Elementary, Middle, High)
  2. Topic (hmmmm…. Creating a site, CSS, PHP (Coding is the bomb!), Adding Images, Writing, Connecting a site to social media…)

By setting up a system that color codes by age group, playlists can be created for specific purposes to make the ‘small bites’ into more comprehensive units.”

Open Floor Discussion

This is when I would normally open the floor to others, but it looks like I am the only one here today. Please reply to this with any thoughts or post on the P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. on Monday. Happy to answer any questions. One thing to keep in mind is that this group does NOT work with the kids directly, but rather creates resources and support for those that do.

No additional Comments were made during this time.

Project Management Information

So I know a lot of people expressed interest but not everyone made it to todays meeting. I am sure more people will be getting involved over time. I did create a TrelloTrello Project 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 so that we have some jumping off points for anyone to just dive in and start on micro pieces.

https://trello.com/invite/b/GryYJ7P9/0a44a78f320c0eb04013fa193b0663ce/wordpress-kids-events-planning

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1595603266078600

Next Meeting is Friday, 07 August 2020, 1400 UTC/ 10am EST. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel.

#kids-events, #youth-events

Hari Shanker R 8:30 am on July 28, 2020
Tags: , ,   

Tuesday Trainings: Supporting Meetup groups during the pandemic

Many members of our community are stressed due to the challenges brought about by the pandemic. In these difficult times, local meetups can offer a great way to bring members of our community together and to help each other. Since in-person events are not happening these days, more and more WordPress Meetups are going online. In many ways, online meetups are easier to organize than in-person meetups, as they are relatively easy to organize. While many 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. groups across the world have embraced the online meetup format, others are still struggling to hold online events. This post offers tips, tricks, and resources for WordPress meetup organizers worldwide to revitalize their meetup groups during the pandemic with the help of online events. 

Reactivating a meetup group

Many meetup groups have not been able to organize meetups this year, due to the pandemic. A great way to reactivate an inactive group is by merely scheduling a check-in call as a meetup event. It need not even be an actual session – it can just be an informal discussion over a call. If you are an organizer of a group that has not had meetups in a while, try scheduling an online meetup as a casual call. You’d be surprised to see the number of attendees for such an event! Please note: Any meetup event with three or more attendees is considered a meetup, so you need not have tens of attendees to organize a successful meetup event. Our handbook page offers guidance on how to schedule and host an online meetup in Meetup.com. Once the group has a scheduled event, we’ve seen that it really improves the morale of both the organizing team and the group members, and that it really gets things going!

Playing around with Meetup Formats

In our first-ever Tuesday Trainings post, we discussed different online event formats that organizers can try out. The online meetup format offers a lot of possibilities for Meetup organizers. Apart from the suggestions listed in that post, here are a few types of events that you can try with your group: 

  • Organize routine catch-up/check-in calls with the meetup group
    While these calls (with no agenda other than to check-in) can be a great way to reactivate the group, it can also help to provide the kind of social camaraderie that we’ve been missing out on due to COVID-19. Such calls can offer an excellent opportunity to unwind and discuss everything non-work related, and might work well if you schedule them as recurring events (e.g., every third Friday of the month). For example, The WordPress Pune Meetup group has a recurring social call every Friday, that regularly gets a lot of attendees. 
  • Games and fun activities
    You can consider setting some time aside after every meetup to organize some fun activities. It could be anything from collaborating together on an online game, or having a quiz. You could take it a step further to organize an occasional dedicated meetup event (or events) to have these games. While it’s good to have casual games and fun activities for your meetup, please note that the focus your meetup group should still be on WordPress. 🙂 
  • Recurring event series
    Many meetup groups organize recurring event series for their meetup groups. It could be related to specific topics (e.g. Narnia 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. development event series) or interest groups (Narnia Bloggers Meetup series). As an example, The WordPress NYC Meetup Group has a regular Women of WordPress NYC event series, which holds monthly meetups, providing resources and support for women members.

We recently published a blog post to call for ideas on reimagining online events. Even though the blog post talks about online 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., you can find many ideas for meetup events in that post.

Finding a topic and a speaker

Many organizers struggle with finding speakers and topics for their online meetups. Posting surveys for your Meetup group to find topics that your members would like will help a lot with event planning. You can put up a survey to get suggestions from members, OR you could list topics, and ask members to vote. Similarly, setting up a poll in your meetup group to get potential speakers is also a good idea to get a list of people that would like to speak at your meetup group. You could ask newer speakers to start with Lightning talks of 10 minutes or super lightning talks (flash talks) of five minutes. It’s also a great way to engage members in your local community and to promote local talent.

Online meetups eliminate geographical restrictions, so you can now get anyone from any part of the world to speak at your meetup! If your Meetup group members want to listen to a session or a workshop on a particular topic, you could reach out to other WordCamp speakers or experts on that topic and invite them to speak at your local meetup. In case you face difficulty finding a speaker for one of your events, you could simply select a talk from WordPress.tv and organize a watch party!

With all that said, you don’t need an expert speaker to speak on a specific topic. Sometimes, experimenting with different event formats such as a panel discussion or merely an informal discussion based on a particular topic, or setting up a co-working session is a great way to engage with your meetup group members. 

Keeping Meetups going

Reactivating a group by organizing online meetup group is only a part of the journey. Organizers would need put in a little more effort to keep the momentum going. The following tips will be helpful:

  • Onboard more co-organizers: Having more members in your organizing team is a great way to help your meetups stay active. Sometimes, existing members of the organizing team may feel fatigued. Newer organizers can step in, when members of the existing organizing team feel tired, so as to keep meetups going.
  • Work with other meetup groups to organize joint events: If there are other meetup groups in your area, you could work with them to jointly organize events. By joining forces with other groups in your area, you tap into a wider audience, thus expanding your community.
  • Bring your community to social media: Feel free to extend your community beyond your Meetup.com page. You can achieve this by aving a presence for your group in other social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. Some meetup groups even have corresponding groups in messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. If you are comfortable creating and maintaining such groups, you can build connections within your community, and facilitate asynchronous discussions even!
  • Community initiatives: As they stay, communities that work together stay together. Doing recurring activities as a community – such as contributor days and hackathons could be very helpful in engaging members of your community. 

Are you looking for more training content? 

Check these out!

The WordPress Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) has several workshops to help you in your journey to public speaking at online WordPress events, or for WordPress event organizers to support more diverse speakers at your events: 

Tuesday, July 28 & Tuesday, August 18: Who am I to be speaking? & Finding a topic that people would love to hear  

Wednesday, July 29 & Wednesday, August 19: Creating a great pitch
Wednesday

Thursday, July 30: (new!) What if someone asks me a difficult question?

Thursday, August 20: Workshop: Online Stage Presence

Tuesday, August 25, and Thursday, August 26: Open practice sessions.

#meetups, #tuesdaytrainings

Timi Wahalahti 7:08 pm on July 27, 2020  

In-person events in rest of year 2020

After the global health crisis emerged, the Community Team strongly recommended events to move online. All meetups, WordCamps and other community events were switched to an online format.

To help online event organizers, guidelines were updated in May to better facilitate the change in format and ease the work of organizers. When these guideline changes were made, the global impacts of the coronavirus and development of the situation were still unclear to some extent. The Community Team had set a deadline to Q3 2020 for reviewing the changes, with the hope to have a better understanding of the situation by then. We are now in Q3.

After some assessment, the Community Team has decided to keep updated guidelines in place and continue with online-only events until the end of the year 2020. These guidelines will be reevaluated in Q1 2021.

The team acknowledges that this is not easy for the community that has been heavily based on in-person events and encounters. Unfortunately, the global coronavirus situation does not seem to be slowing down to a level that would allow us organizing in-person events safely at this time.

Luckily, our community is rising to the challenge of adapting to new circumstances and discussion on how to create the best experience for attendees and sponsors in online events is very active. It’s heartening to see how community members create and explore new event format ideas in the midst of all this.

There’s an ongoing discussion about moving forward with online events, where changes in online 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. program and new event formats are explored. The first new event format proposal is already posted as well. These new ideas are very exciting and I suggest everyone read and comment on those posts!

I’m sure when we get to organize in-person events again, those will be very warm and emotional experiences for all. But for the time being, let’s make the most of online events to keep this awesome community going.

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on July 27, 2020
Tags:   

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 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 https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

jillbinder 4:00 pm on July 24, 2020
Tags: ,   

Call for participants: Diverse Speaker Workshops July & August

The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) is holding workshops this summer to support diverse voices to share knowledge and stories at online WordPress meetups and WordCamps.

This is a reminder about the July workshops next week and an announcement about the workshops in August.

Workshop: Who am I to be speaking? & Finding a topic that people would love to hear

Tuesday, July 28 @ 5-6pm UTC
Tuesday, August 18 @ 5-6pm UTC

Do you identify as part of a marginalized or underrepresented group in WordPress? Are you intrigued at the thought of speaking at a WordPress event online but are thinking things like, “What would I talk about?” “I’m not an expert, who would want to hear from me?”

In this workshop, we will dispel some myths about being a speaker and answer your questions about speaking. Together we will work on overcoming the thought, “But I’m not an expert in anything”.

Via hands-on exercises and small group discussions, we will help you come up with topics and show you how to choose one. Everyone has something they can talk about – let’s find yours.

Workshop: Creating a great pitch

Wednesday, July 29 @ 5-6pm UTC
Wednesday, August 19 @ 5-6pm UTC

Do you identify as part of a marginalized or underrepresented group in WordPress? Do you want to submit a talk to a WordPress 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. 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. but aren’t sure how? Or you know how and want to work on writing a pitch that has a better chance of being accepted?

Together we will write a meetup description or WordCamp pitch for your talk. This also doubles as helping you start to write your talk!

Prerequisite: Please come with an idea for a talk. If you don’t have one, then please make sure you attend the workshop on Tuesday!

Workshop: What if someone asks me a difficult question? (new!)

Thursday, July 30 @ 5-6pm UTC

This addition to our series is by request!

Do you identify as part of a marginalized or underrepresented group in WordPress? Do you feel nervous about being asked tricky questions at your WordPress talk?

With events moving online, there has been a wider audience. As a result, some of the questions during the Question and Answer (Q&A) period at online meetups and WordCamps have been harder for presenters to answer or even off-topic.

We will discuss strategies for answering and give you scripts you can use for these and other tricky questions. We may also practise, if there is time.

Workshop: Online Stage Presence

Thursday, August 20 @ 5-6pm UTC

Do you identify as part of a marginalized or underrepresented group in WordPress? We would like to help you with public speaking online.

Speaking online is not the same as speaking on stage! Some important items cross over, and there are also differences. We will give you tips for public speaking and being on camera. We will be making the improvements together in the call.

Open Practise Sessions

Tuesday, August 25 @ 5-6pm UTC
Thursday, August 26 @ 5-6pm UTC

This is open practise time for you! There will be no prepared lessons.

Examples of what you can use this time for:

  • Practise parts of your presentation in a supportive space
  • Get feedback on your topic, pitch, or any other part of your presentation
  • Ask your questions about public speaking, applying to speak, etc.

Attending previous workshops are recommended but not required to attend these practise sessions.

—

You are encouraged to attend all 3 workshops in a week and one practise session, but you are also welcome to attend only the events you wish.

—

Tickets for July: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wordpress-diverse-speaker-workshops-july-2020-tickets-111846987350

Tickets for August: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wordpress-diverse-speaker-workshops-august-2020-tickets-114603750904

—

P.S. Others who like to attend these sessions because you want to learn how to be a good ally, please note that this is a closed workshop for members of marginalized or underrepresented groups only. 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.

We do have a few resources available for you: Building A Diverse Speaker Roster, Inclusive and Welcoming Events, and (new!) Encouraging Diversity in Meetups and WordCamps.

#wpdiversity, #wpdiversityworkshops

Andrea Middleton 10:10 pm on July 23, 2020  

Moving forward with online events

Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion about reimagining online events last week! It’s inspiring to see so many people willing to embrace the opportunity that this global crisis brings, and diving in to find better ways for the Community Team to succeed at our mission. 

Discussion summary

Some of the ideas shared included: WordPress video watch/discussion parties, panels, workshops, trainings, language-specific events, topic or vertical based events, television program or news formats, events for underrepresented groups, online contributor days or contributor team events, social events, and Q&As.

There was general consensus on the question of length, with a suggested limit of 2-3 hours per day, as well as support for not using the term “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.” to describe our online events any longer. We think these are both smart moves, though of course we’ll need to figure out what to do about naming the events currently being organized. But that’s probably another post. 

Our foundational mission and nonessential expenses

It’s important to respond to uncertainty or change from a point of stability, so we want to highlight that the mission of the Community Team is to help people learn to use and contribute to WordPress. We further this mission by connecting WordPress enthusiasts and inspiring people to do more with WordPress.

As WordPress community organizers, all of our work should support this mission. When we’re considering whether to spend money on something, we make wiser decisions when we consider whether that expense is necessary to achieve the mission. 

As we move away from all-day online events, there is less need to pay professional vendors to help produce our content. Considering the program’s financial situation, it seems wise to end programmatic support for online AV vendor expenses. 

WordCamps with a date on the schedule or under budget review, that planned their events with the understanding that they’d be working with a professional vendor should be able to go forward as planned. Those that have not yet reached the budget stage, and have no signed contracts with vendors, should pause and reconsider whether they really, really need a professional AV vendor to effectively share content with an online audience. 

If it’s necessary to hire a professional vendor for an online event component that furthers the mission, then opening a call for sponsor(s) is the best way to cover that cost. 

Likewise, we have paused plans to spend money on sending swag, T-shirts, or other typical WordCamp collateral.  It’s important to change our frame of reference for what’s necessary to make online events, away from the WordCamp model. Just because we did things a certain way for WordCamps, doesn’t mean it’s a high priority for online events.

Sponsorship

We are in an experimental event space for the first time in many years.

Our sponsors have been with us every step of the way in this challenging year, and it’s important not to ask their financial support for nonessential expenses. The value proposition of online sponsor booths is shaky, and we’ve always prided ourselves in partnering with our sponsors. Looking ahead, we must examine how much funding we need to create events that meet the goals of the team, and let that determine how to best coordinate with our community sponsors to deliver value and further our mission.

It’s also impossible to provide the kind of stability that underpins Global Community Sponsorship right now.  The 2020 program will be suspended for now, and later this year there will be a call for a working group to re-examine its potential for 2021. We’ll work with global sponsors to manage the transition gracefully. 

Experiments and measuring success

Experiments are exciting and important, because they help us go beyond what we thought was possible. But if we’re going to try new things, it’s equally important to identify whether or not the experiment was a success. We’ve used a standard attendee survey for a while now in WordCamps, which is probably too long for shorter online events and doesn’t do much to help us identify whether or not participants learned what they hoped to learn, in a session or workshop. 

Since learning is part of our coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. mission, it seems wise to create a different survey for online event organizers to use in assessing an event’s success. The pre- and post-workshop surveys used by the Diverse Speakers Workshop could be a very successful template.  If you’re interested in helping with the effort to create a survey template that any WordPress community organizer can use, please leave a comment on this post! 

It’s also great when organizers share their observations about what’s compelling and what didn’t work as expected, so we can all learn from each other. If you have a story of a success or failure you’d like to highlight for the broader community, please join our bi-weekly team chat or, for longer-form shares, request an author’s role on this blog from a community deputy.

Feedback

It’s exciting to see WordPress community organizers rising to the challenge of adapting to new circumstances, even with circumstances as unpleasant as these. If you have any questions or feedback on this post, please share them in a comment below!

Please also comment if you are interested in working on a new attendee survey that online events can share, to compare the success of different event types.

Thank you to those who gave feedback on this post: @angelasjin, @courtneypk, @kcristiano, @hlashbrooke

Naoko Takano 6:54 am on July 21, 2020
Tags: ,   

Tuesday Trainings: Open-source and the GPL in Community Events

It’s #trainingtuesday!

As a local event organizer, you are expected to learn and share the correct knowledge of the WordPress license. While we (or at least most of us) are not lawyers, it’s important to understand the basic rules and philosophy behind the license, because they are closely tied to how we vet anyone for anyone representing WordPress, like speakers, sponsors, and volunteers.

In this document, we’ll explore the ways you and your local 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./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. participants can deepen your understanding of the WordPress license to build a stronger community together.

What is the GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples.?

The GPL is an acronym of General Public License. The source code of the software licensed under the GPL is free for anyone to run, study, share/copy, and modify.

Why does WordPress use the GPL?

The short answer is: the license of its predecessor software b2 was also GPL. It’s a “copyleft license” – that means all contributions must also be open sourced.

The WordPress community has fully embraced the GPL not only because it had to, but also because it has benefited from the freedoms the license provides to all users.

Just like how community events are organized by volunteers, WordPress software itself is written and maintained by a team of volunteers. Plugins and themes in 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/ directory are also 100% GPL, allowing authors the freedom to learn from each other’s code and collaborate. This is similar to the way we share how we organize community events and build upon each other’s experience.

WordPress Community’s 100% GPL Rule

One of the requirements for WordCamp organizers is to embrace the WordPress license. Products they distribute or promote need to be 100% GPL or compatible when WordPress-derivative works are involved. This goes the same for the speakers, sponsors, and volunteers at WordCamp.

Meetup organizers are also asked to uphold the principles of the WordPress 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. project, including the GPL. They should keep it in mind when considering co-organizers, sponsors, and hosted venues.

Helping Others Understand the GPL

If anyone asks you for a quick explanation of the GPL, you can always point them to the Bill of Rights section of wordpress.org/about page and explain these “four freedoms”.

Four Freedoms

If they want to learn more, the GPL Primer page in our WordCamp Organizer Handbook is a great resource. The links within the page are also very helpful.

Community Deputy Handbook also has a great resource called “Frequently asked questions about the GPL”.

Some people can get a better grasp of an idea when the information is delivered in a medium other than writing. You can assist them by explaining things using slides and story-telling (e.g. some meetup communities use a short presentation to open every meetup, which includes the four freedoms and how they affect the WordPress ecosystem). Or you can share this video: Matt Mullenweg: WordPress and the GPL.

Misinterpretation happens

It is common to see individuals and businesses make mistakes in understanding the principles of the WordPress community’s 100% GPL rule, such as:

  • Stating their derivative product is under the GPL but add extra clause(s) that limit the four freedoms
  • Choosing a split license and think that complies with the 100% GPL rule
  • Not explicitly indicating any license

It’s wise to have a conversation with them and try to sort out their misunderstandings, instead of seeing them as an enemy or calling it out in public. This may sound surprising, but more often than not, they’ll appreciate your help in correcting their wrong interpretations.

If you are not sure how to confront with others about the license violation, reach out to your mentor or Community Team deputies for assistance.

Translating Resources

If you are involved in a community where many of the members don’t speak English, consider translating the existing resources to communicate the idea.

#gpl, #tuesdaytrainings

Sandy Edwards 1:33 pm on July 20, 2020  

Youth Event Working Group Chat Agenda | Friday 24 July

Our next Youth Events Working Group chat is happening Friday, 24 July 2020 at 1400 UTC/ 10am EST. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team Slackchannel.

Agenda

  1. Updates from the year
  2. Goals for this year
  3. Needs of the Group
  4. Open Floor Discussion

Come and discuss how you can be involved. We need people to:

  • Research – laws surrounding minors at events globally
  • Writing – arts and crafts documentation, WordPress basics documentation, Parental Resources Documents
  • Video Creation – how to videos for WordPress, how to videos for Parents to get involved with their kids, Encouraging Videos
  • Editing – grammar, spell check, and general flow proof readers/editors

Everyone is welcome. Please attend even if you are not sure how to participate.

If for any reason you can not attend the meeting live but still want to be involved please comment on the post to introduce yourself. Share a bit about your WP background and what area you want to help with.

Please leave a comment of anything else that should be added to the agenda for discussion.

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on July 20, 2020
Tags:   

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 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 https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!