WordCamp.org 4:00 am on July 26, 2021
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Weekly Updates

Hello to all our DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook., 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 Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. 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!

Hari Shanker R 6:32 am on July 22, 2021
Tags: , sprint   

Join the Community Team for yet another Documentation Editing sprint on August 6

After a successful documentation sprint on May 25 this year, I would like to announce that we are bringing back the Documentation Sprint for Community Team handbooks on August 6  (Friday). All are welcome to contribute to this initiative. This post contains everything you should know about the documentation sprint, along with details on how you can contribute!

What is a documentation editing sprint?

All day on August 6 (Friday), community contributors and deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. work together to audit and edit outdated pages in the Community team handbooks and any related documentation for the Community Team so that they provide accurate and up-to-date information for community members. Check out the original proposal for more details and context.

Please note: This documentation sprint is restricted to the community team handbook pages – we will not be working on the official 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/ documentation as part of this sprint. However, if you wish to contribute to the wordpress.org documentation, please reach out to the documentation team (You can pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” them directly in the #docs channel). They could use all the help they can get!

What documents need editing?

All Community team handbook contents need auditing, reviewing, and updating. This includes (but is not limited to): 

Additionally, updating the following handbook pages will have the highest and most immediate impact: 

How do I participate in the documentation sprint?

Anyone can participate in this initiative! The team will keep track of edits in a Google Sheet. Please log all the changes you make in that sheet. The team will also coordinate together in the #community-team channel.

There are a few ways to contribute to the sprint:

  • Triage: Go through the list of documents, make a note of the pages that need updating (as well as the changes that need to be made), and add them to the tracking sheet.
  • Editing: Editing the documentation pages to keep them clear and up-to-date.
  • Adding new content: This could include adding Tuesday Trainings to handbooks, translating existing content to new languages, or updating our documentation to include resources on the new guidelines in-person events. Alternatively, if you feel that a new page on a specific topic needs to be added to the handbook, now would be an excellent time to contribute!

To track changes, copy the handbook contents over to a shared Google document, propose the changes over there, and link the document to the shared Google tracking Sheet.  Deputies will review and merge those changes later. 

Try your best to follow the docs style guide while creating content, as it helps maintain consistency. This is an all-day event, and there is also no time commitment. Try to spend as much time as possible on August 6 editing documents – even if you only have a few minutes. In short, you can contribute at your own pace, as per your convenience and bandwidth.

Every contribution, however small, is valuable!

What’s next, once the event is over? 

Community deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. will review the contributions and merge all the changes that were proposed. The Community team will publish a recap of this initiative requesting feedback from contributors. We also plan to organize regular docs sprints frequently so that our documentation pages stay updated. 

I warmly welcome you all once again to join us in this initiative and to help us improve our documentation. It will go a long way in supporting the WordPress community!

#documentation-sprint

#sprint

Cami Kaos 5:00 pm on July 20, 2021
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Tuesday Trainings: How do I start a WordPress meetup?

This year we’ve changed the format of Tuesday Trainings to better get directly at the issues that seem to be on the minds of folks in our community. How are we doing that? Great question. We’re either seeking to answer commonly asked questions or address commonly heard complaints, concerns, and confusions.

If there’s a question you’d like to see answered or a topic you’d like to see discussed, please share it in the comments or email me at support@wordcamp.org with the subject line Tuesday Trainings. Now onto this week’s topic.

This week’s question: How do I start a WordPress MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.?

Over the weekend I had the honor and privilege of speaking at and attending WordCamp Santa Clarita. The talk I gave was about growing the leadership of your meetup, but as with any related topic I wanted to cover the basics too. I didn’t have all the time I would have liked to dedicate to starting a meetup but… I do have the time to do that today!

Because thankfully we have all the info already published and ready to share in the Meetup Organizer Handbook!

It’s not a light read, there’s a lot of information there. If you’re interested in becoming an organizer or are an organizer who hasn’t read it yet I’d still encourage you to explore the entire handbook. 

How do I get started?

Before you apply to organize a meetup in your area, search for a meetup.com group for WordPress events in your area. The Community Team gets nearly as many applications to organize groups where a group already exists as we do for those in areas where one needs to be started. Just because you don’t know it exists, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

But I want to organize my own group!

Of course you do! I appreciate your enthusiasm and drive. The desire to create a group and a sense of community in your area is admirable and I absolutely think you should do it. And you can make that happen by joining your already existing local WordPress and getting involved.

We don’t want to fragment local communities, we want to help them work together. So if there’s a meetup group in your area and you want to be an organizer join the group. Contribute. Volunteer. Offer to help the organizers. Not everyone realizes this but any trusted member of a WordPress Meetup can organize a meeting. You don’t need to take over what another organizer is already doing, volunteer to take the planning of meetup events that you’re excited about.

This handbook talks a lot about “local” meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.. Does that mean we can gather in person again?

The short answer is that it depends. There is not a clear yes or no answer that will match up with every area, but we do have some new guidelines for communities looking to restart in person meetups. You can read all about that here. If you have any questions about how this applies to your area feel free to comment below or email the community deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. at support@wordcamp.org

Is there anything else I should know?

Yes. There is. Actually there are 5. I never pass up the opportunity to share the 5 good faith rules that apply to all meetups in the WordPress chapter account.

The Five Good Faith Rules 

 

  1. WordPress Meetups are for the benefit of the WordPress community as a whole, not specific businesses or individuals. All actions taken as an event organizer are with the best interest of the community in mind.
  2. Membership in the local Meetup group is open to all who wish to join, regardless of ability, skill, financial status, or any other criteria.
  3. Meetups are volunteer-run with volunteer speakers.
  4. Meetup groups allow events to be organized by any reliable/trusted member of the community.
  5. Meetups are welcoming places where everyone works to foster an accepting environment which is free of discrimination, incitement to violence, promotion of hate, and general jerk-like behavior.

Okay… but it’s also important to know what we ask everyone that organizes WordPress Chapter Meetup 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. This helps protect the user/attendee, who might not realize that by using a non-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. pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or theme, they are giving away the rights that WordPress provides them.

Let’s do this!

Ready to sign up? Complete the application form here

As always if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, or requests for future Tuesday Training posts leave them in the comments or email me at support@wordcamp.org 

#tuesdaytrainings

Angela Jin 2:05 pm on July 19, 2021  

Announcement: Incident Response Training

One of the Community Team’s goals for 2021 included creation of an incident response training course. I am pleased to share that this training now has a first draft, which has been reviewed by @andreamiddleton, @hlashbrooke, @kcristiano, @sippis, @bph, @nao, and @adityakane, all deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. with experience taking reports and responding to incidents. Course assessments and exercises received an extra review from @arasae. Thank you all very much for getting this course to where it is today!

I’m personally very excited about this training. Historically, 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 and deputies are asked to take incident reports if something happens at their events, and a handful of community deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. have actively worked on responding to incident reports in the past. Because of the confidentiality and nature of this work, it is often difficult and invisible. It hasn’t always been clear what to do when something happens, although a recent Tuesday Training on Codes of Conduct and Reporting does an excellent job of summarizing the work.  

With this training, the Community Team makes the complex process of taking and responding to incident reports more transparent in the WordPress space, and will be able to effectively train contributors in responding to reports. This training will eventually be available to everyone, and will be of particular interest to event organizers, team representatives, and anyone interested in making WordPress a safer community. At the moment, the course covers the following four modules: 

  1. Introduction to the Incident Response Team
  2. Overview of Process and Expectations of the Incident Response Team
  3. Taking Incident Reports
  4. Responding to Incident Reports

Call for Volunteers

The training is not yet ready for public release, but feedback is needed! At this time, I would like to invite volunteers to participate in a pre-release version of incident response training, to both learn the content and offer feedback and suggestions for improvement. 

If you are interested in participating, helpful background experience includes participation as a community team deputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. or mentorMentor Someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., or as a WordCamp organizer. I welcome other Making WordPress team reps to participate, if this is of interest. 

Volunteers for this alpha release of the training will be asked to do the following:

  • Complete two surveys to assess before and after levels of knowledge/familiarity with incident response processes
  • Complete an estimated 6 hours of reading material and quizzes
  • Offer feedback to improve or clarify course content 

At the moment, the training is in Learn WordPress as a text only course, but the final version will include recorded content. In total, I am estimating that volunteers for this round will be asked for no more than 12 hours over the next month. 

To keep this round of feedback manageable, it may be necessary to cap how many volunteers participate, prioritizing those with relevant experience and availability. However, the final course will be made publicly available, and edits can always be made in the future. If you are interested in participating, or have any questions, please comment below by Monday, July 26, 2021. You can also reach out to me in the Making WordPress Slack (@angelasjin), or email at support@wordcamp.org.

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on July 19, 2021
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook., 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 Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. 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!

Hari Shanker R 5:45 pm on July 16, 2021
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Meetup Organizer Newsletter: July 2021

Hello friends,

Welcome to the July 2021 edition of the MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. Organizer newsletter! We have some exciting announcements for you in this edition – read on to find out more! 

Newsletter contents:

  • New guidelines for returning to in-person meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.
  • Online event updates
  • Tuesday Trainings
  • News from the WordPress world

📣🎪 [Announcement] New guidelines for returning to in-person meetups

The Community Team has announced new guidelines for returning to in-person WordPress events. You can now organize an in-person event if your local public health authority allows in-person events and your region passes the in-person safety checklist. Additionally, if your area does not pass the in-person safety checklist (but if your local public health authorities allow in-person events), you can organize in-person meetup events for fully vaccinated, recently tested negative, or recently recovered folks (in the last 3 months). If your region does not meet these guidelines, please keep organizing online events until the situation improves. Check out our 2021: Returning to in-person meetups handbook for more information.

This image shows a flow chart of the conditions that would support local community organizers holding in-person meetup events. If there are vaccines or testing available to all, then organizers can hold in-person meetups for those who are fully vaccinates, recently tested negative, or recently recovered from COVID-19. If vaccines and testing are not freely available, then online meetups should continue. If the region passes the in-person safety checklist, then in-person meetups for everyone are ok!

That sounds great! How do I organize in-person events for my group?
Does your region meet guidelines in our safety checklist? If not, does your location have vaccinations or testing freely available? If your answer to both questions is “yes,” fill up the safety checklist (you need not wait for a reply from us) and organize an in-person meetup for your group! If not, keep organizing online events until the situation improves in your area.

❤️ Share WordPress 5.8 with your Meetup group

WordPress 5.8 is all set to go out in a few days on July 20th, with RC1, RC2, and RC3 available already! Help us build excitement for the release by organizing an online discussion or sending a simple email to your group on version 5.8!

Looking for some resources on WordPress 5.8?
Check out this blog post on talking points for WordPress 5.8, along with the release field guide and release testing instructions.

Want some inspiration? The following meetup groups have already planned/organized events on WordPress 5.8!

🌍🎪 Online event updates

Reminder: You can attend online WordPress meetups from across the world. Are you looking for a Zoom Pro account to facilitate your online meetup? Community Zoom Pro accounts are available for you – just send us a request through this form!

Upcoming WordPress events 

Check out these upcoming WordCamps:

Past WordPress Events

Catch recordings of these past WordCamps by visiting their websites. 

🛠 Tuesday Trainings

Through Tuesday Trainings (#TuesdayTrainings), the Community Team publishes a different topic on the WordPress Community Blog to help organizers and interested community members learn various skills. Meetup organizers will find our Tuesday Training on: “How can I bring more energy to an online event?” extremely helpful! The post shares some useful tips that organizers can use to make their online events engaging and exciting! Don’t forget to check out our other Tuesday Training posts this month:

🗞 News from the WordPress world

If you have any questions, Community Team deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events 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. Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community. Let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions! 

We will see you online soon!

#meetup-organizer-newsletter
#newsletter

jillbinder 6:44 pm on July 14, 2021
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Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on July 14, 2021

Attending: @jillbinder @evarlese @katiejrichards @tantienhime

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1626282057071800

We talked about:

  1. Reminders of what our 3 upcoming programs are.
  2. Thinking about potential better names for “Speaker Placement Program”.
    – It looks like our current favorite may be “Diverse Speaker Support.” We would love more thoughts.
  3. Can we match up a Diverse Speaker workshop in August with upcoming WordCamps?
    – The current thought is to possibly aim for one that would be directed to Spain, Kolkata, and WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. 2022. TBD!

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1626285693117000

#wpdiversity

Kevin Cristiano 11:32 pm on July 13, 2021
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Community Team Meeting Agenda for 2021-07-15

The Community Team bi-weekly meeting is happening this week. The meeting is meant for all contributors on the team and everyone who is interested in taking part in some of the things our team does. Feel free to join us, even if you are not currently active in the team!

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly meeting: 2021-07-15 12:00
Americas friendly meeting: 2021-07-15 21:00

Below is a preliminary agenda for the meeting. If you wish to add things you’d like bring to into discussion, comment below or reach out to team reps @sippis or @kcristiano. It does not need to be a blog post yet, the topic can be discussed during the meeting nevertheless. We use the same agenda for both meetings.

DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. / MentorMentor Someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. / Contributor check-ins

What have you been doing and how is it going? What you got accomplished after the last meeting? Are there any blockers? Can other team members help you in some way

Tuesday Trainings:

Updates:

Open floor

Opportunity to bring things into discussions that weren’t on the meeting agenda and if anyone has something they would like to share with the team. If you have a topic in mind before the meeting, please add it into the comments of this post.

Hope to see you on Thursday, either on Asia-Pacific / EMEA or Americas friendly version of the meeting!

#team-meeting

Cami Kaos 10:40 pm on July 13, 2021
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Tuesday Trainings: Why is it so important that contributors use GPL?

This year we’ve changed the format of Tuesday Trainings to better get directly at the issues that seem to be on the minds of folks in our community. How are we doing that? Great question. We’re either seeking to answer commonly asked questions or address commonly heard complaints, concerns, and confusions.

If there’s a question you’d like to see answered or a topic you’d like to see discussed, please share it in the comments or email me at support@wordcamp.org with the subject line Tuesday Trainings. Now onto this week’s topic.

Before this week’s question, an important clarifying question: What is 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.?

GPL or General Public License is “a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software.” WordPress is released under the GPL v2 license. This is important because the license gives software users what is commonly referred to as the “Four Freedoms”, detailed on the GNU Philosophy Page, which allow users to use the software in any way they wish, to modify the software (if desired) for their purpose, to redistribute the original software to help others, and to redistribute modified versions. 

This week’s question: Why is it so important that contributors use GPL for their derivatives?

We talk a lot about the technical end of GPL. How to determine if a license is true to the GPL, and how to talk with sponsors, speakers, and organizers, about bringing their license up to expectations. If you’re curious about that, check out this great past post on the topic.  

Recently I realized that we haven’t talked much lately about the why of it all. ANd sometimes the why really matters. In this case it really really matters to me so I’ll share.

We ask any involved in an official capacity with 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 in an official capacity –especially at events like WordCamps and MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.– to uphold the principles of the WordPress open source project, including the GPL. This helps protect the user/attendee, who might not realize that by using a non-GPL pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or theme, they are giving away the rights that WordPress provides them.

I want to repeat that because in all the years I’ve been doing this work, this line has stuck with me when other things seemed to fade away.

We ask anyone involved with WordPress to release their derivatives as GPL because it ensures users the same rights that WordPress itself provides them. 

Wait that’s it?

Yes. That is in fact that. I know these posts tend to be longer and more drawn out. And I can certainly babble with the best of them, but in this case that’s all there is to it. 

If you have additional questions about GPL, either the why, the how, or any other question please share it in the comments. And as always if you have a question you’d like to see answered in a future Tuesday Training let me know here or at support@wordcamp.org

#tuesdaytrainings

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on July 12, 2021
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook., 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 Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. 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!