Standalone Contributor Days: Help Make WordPress with your Community

Hi! I am Francesca

WordPress Community Manager at SiteGround, Global WordPress Community Team

The situation in Italy before 2015

Not so great

Only 2 meetups, not a lot of activity in any front.

In 2015 eveything changed

Italy Today

BOOM! What happened?

Overall rise of WordPress usage

It’s popular! Everyone wants in

Foundation of WordCamp Europe

2013, Leiden first edition 2015, Seville, the Italians get together and start organising themselves

The Italian Slack

Let’s talk in our language and get to know each other.

Standalone Contributor Day

Let’s meet for a day to learn how to contribute

Some numbers

People from all over Italy We focused on some teams for which we had mentors to help us out.

What is a contributor Day?

Who can attend? What do we expect? Do I need to be a developer?

Contributor Days are for everyone

How did we organise it

Important steps

Room with WiFi
Refreshments (keep it simple)
Inform as many people as possible, we did through https://it.wordpress.org/news/ - It feeds directly into people’s dashboards
Find someone that has contributed before. Doesn’t need to be a super expert, but it helps if they know where to find stuff.

Italy Today

A culture of contribution

Support - Italy Today

Support is now integrated in https://it.wordpress.org/support/

Polyglots - Italy Today

Over 2000 contributors. A structure in place to onboard new contributors and encourage continuity

We came full circle

3 Italian at WordCamp Europe 2013 Not many more at WordCamp Europe 2015 Over 100 at WordCamp Europe 2017 and 2018.

Mantra

Taking part in a Contributor Day helped us become a community and as a community we are making WordPress.

Thanks

If you need any help with kickstarting your community, please do not hesitate to contact me Twitter: @FrancescaMarano Slack: @francina Email: francesca.marano@siteground.com

Standalone Contributor Days: Help Make WordPress with your Community