Today, hundreds of people at WordCamp US will spend the day making WordPress better, and this year, we’re trying something new.
Contributor Day is the part of WordCamp where the software gets built. A full day set aside for writing code, fixing bugs, improving documentation, translating WordPress into more languages, designing, testing, and supporting the people who use it. Everything in WordPress was made by someone who decided to contribute. Today we invite everyone to be that someone. There’s no development experience required, and no need to have contributed before.
What’s new this year: goals, not teams
Contributor Day has traditionally been organized by team. You’d find the Core table, the Documentation table, the Polyglots table, and join the one matching your skills.
This year, we’re organizing around goals, specific things we want to finish before the day is out. Each has an owner who proposed it, the skills it needs, and a short pitch for why it matters:
- Goal: Beautiful EXIF data on wp.org/photos
- Goal owner: @wpusername
- WordPress skills needed: PHP, HTML, CSS
- Pitch: Celebrate the art of photography. Grow the Openverse. Make the Photo directory as cool as Flickr at exposing EXIF metadata.
Contributors will choose a goal rather than a team. Someone who writes documentation might spend the day working alongside a designer and two developers, because that’s what the work requires. The question shifts from “Which team am I on?” to “What are we building?”
How the day works
- We’ll begin together by taking stock of the skills in the room.
- Thirty minutes to brainstorm, with experienced contributors circulating to help newer ones shape an idea into something achievable in a day.
- Thirty-second pitches. Every goal owner gets thirty seconds to make their case from the stage.
- Then we build. Each goal gets a table, and nobody is locked in. If something else catches your interest, move.
- The day closes with demos of what actually got built, plus a few awards: Most Poetic Code. Most Lines Deleted, and others we’ll announce later today.
Taking part
Come with an idea or come without one. Much of today’s best work will come from people who joined someone else’s goal because the pitch was compelling. If you do have something in mind, propose it here. Proposals are open until pitches begin.
“Real artists ship.” That’s the phrase we kept coming back to while planning this. The measure of a good Contributor Day isn’t how much we discussed. It’s what exists at the end that didn’t exist at the start.
Thank you to everyone contributing today, and to everyone who has before.
WordPress works because contributors show up.
WordPress Executive Director, Mary Hubbard
