Our company, DigitalCube is composed of members who are passionate about contributing to the WordPress core, creating plugins, themes, WordPress-related books, translation and working with the community.
Through the years of contributing to WordPress, we saw the benefit in our profession, our business and how it impacts the local and overall community. That’s why it’s a big honor sharing this at WCEU 2016!
The series of talks on “Building a WordPress Community” includes topics focused on the community such as Sergey Biryukov’s “Managing a Local WordPress Community”, Dee Teal’s “Keys to Growing & Developing your WordPress Meetup”, Naoko Takano’s “The Story of the Japanese WordPress Community” and “Contributing to WordPress for Business, Profession and the Community” by Kel Santiago.
WCEU 2016: Contributing to WordPress
To some, the question they might have are, “Do I have what it takes to contribute to WordPress?” Or some might think, “I’m not a developer and I don’t code”.
There’s something for everybody, and each one can benefit from their contributions.
Something u do on your coffee break can have impact on people's lives around the world #WCEU https://t.co/OtDsTXLdKJ pic.twitter.com/teaUDMKnSi
— Kel_S (@i_Monkey_Robot) June 28, 2016
Core
Contributing to core will allow you to become familiar with the core code, coding standards and processes.
It’s a great feeling to know that you were able to help with WordPress development and seeing your name on the contributor list is a great motivation, and we all need motivation to help us move forward.
For new contributors, there are tickets marked as “good first bugs”, you can also help out in patch testing.
Plugins
Plugins help extend the functionality of WordPress. They’re created by users all over the world. Currently, there are over 44,000 total plugins in WordPress repository.
Besides writing plugins, you can also help the Plugin Review Team. In Mika Epstein’s Q&A session in WordCamp Tokyo 2015, she said that there are about 30 plugin submissions per day and each plugin review takes about 5 – 10 minutes.
The review team is there to read all the codes and make sure there are no errors.
Takayuki Miyoshi, Contact Form 7 Creator said “We should contribute to WP plugins because we learn from one of the most important things: Feedback.”
Feedback has a huge role in developers’ growth and learning. Developers can learn from other developers’ code, the more great codes are available, the better our developers become.
Training & Education
Recently, we’ve seen WordPress in education. There are workshops teaching kids how to blog, we see WordPress in the university and in higher education.
Getting involved in WordPress training can be by creating lesson plans and testing them for accuracy with the current version of WordPress.
There are also existing contributions our there on training worth checking out like:
Accessibility
There are a lot of struggles that people with disabilities face when using the web.
When we contribute to accessibility, it helps increase engagement and broaden audience.
There are various contributions in making WordPress accessible, such as Joe Dolson’s
WP accessibility plugin that helps fix common accessibility issues in your WordPress site.
Speech to text transcription like in the recent WordCamp London and in WCEU. Another contribution to accessibility is sign language interpretation.
“Accessibility is not only making the web accessible for people with disabilities, it can also mean being accessible to everybody by using accessible media & plain language.”
Translation
When WordPress is in the language that you speak, you understand it deeper. So when WordPress was translated into Japanese, there was an increase in Japanese users and developers.
Our Community
WordCamp is a conference that highlights WordPress. It is organized by the community and put together by WordPress users.
Every year it becomes bigger and bigger. WordCamps start from local meetups that develop the community.
Our local meetup in Japan, “WordBench” is distributed in different cities all over Japan. Each one is unique.
For instance, there’s WordBash in Kyoto with a bash at the end of the talks, there’s WordFes that’s a fusion of WordPress and a fiesta. And something perfect this summer, WordBeach!
Contributing to community and events can range from organizing face-to-face events that bring people together.
Those with experience in organizing and building communities should not lock the knowledge to themselves. Instead, welcome new members and pass the torch to the next community leaders.
Why Contribute?
Contributing is a continuation of one’s education. It can help in keeping you up-to-date with the latest trends.
It helps sharpen your skills, as everything happens fast in tech, we need to be flexible. We don’t know what the skills are required tomorrow.
Contributing not only gives back, but it’s also a rewarding experience. So ask yourself how you want to contribute, and what kind of impact you want to have.
Contributing to WordPress takes dedication. We all have lives outside contributing. We need to be with our family, friends and being able to harmonize our work and life. Being able to balance and manage all that are the qualities of a great contributor.
Contributing is an enriched learning environment & continuation of one’s education & growth, it prepares your skills and gets you ready for what tomorrow may bring.