Contributor days are a great way to start or continue contributing to the WordPress project.
Like percussionists, contributors are often the unsung heroes of WordPress: vital to its success and smooth running.
Everyone is welcome to play a part – there are no auditions! – so come along, join our friendly company for the day, and be a part of the community that makes and supports WordPress. You don’t have to know how to code, as we have many different roles that need filling.
Essential information
Date and time
Contributor Day is on Friday 13th April 2018. The event starts at 09:00 and finishes at 17:00.
Venue
Contributor Day is held in one of the buildings used for the main conference, London Metropolitan University. We’ll all start in the large upstairs room (GC1-08) for introductions and then separate as teams into this and other rooms in the same building.
The venue’s address is:
Graduate Centre
London Metropolitan University
166-220 Holloway Road
London
N7 8DB
Details about getting to the venue are on our Location page.
Schedule
| Start Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 09:00 | Doors Open, Registration, Tea and Coffee |
| 09:30 | Introductions and Groupings |
| 10:00 | Session 1 |
| 10:30 | New Contributor Session |
| 11:15 | Break |
| 11:30 | Session 1 (continued) + Introduction to WP Coding Standards |
| 13:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 | Session 2 |
| 15:15 | Break |
| 15:30 | Session 2 (continued) |
| 16:30 | Closing Reviews |
| 17:00 | End |
Teams and Team Leads
The following is a list of Team Leads we have on the day. The team name links to a Getting Started page, Handbook, or another reference point for that team.
- New Contributor Session – John Blackbourn
- Accessibility – Rian Rietveld
- BuddyPress – Henry Wright
- Community – Elliot Taylor
- Core – Felix Arntz
- Design – Tammie Lister
- Marketing – Alex Denning
- Meta – Dominik Schilling
- Polyglots – Carme Mias
- Support – Marius Jensen
- Themes – Sarah Semark
- WPCS – Thorsten Frommen
- WP-CLI – Alain Schlesser
The following teams don’t have a Team Lead for the day, but you are still welcome to contribute to these if you wish, though you’ll need to self-organise:
Food and drink
Lunch is provided between 13:00 and 14:00. Please state any dietary requirements when booking your tickets.
Who can take part?
You can! If you’ve worked with WordPress before and know something about it then you can contribute.
There are roles for everyone. It’s easy to think of contributing to WordPress as helping write the core software, but you could help out in the support forums, write some documentation, organise community events, design the interface for a new feature, user test someone else’s improvement, or do some language or video translation. There are lots of options.
What happens at a Contributor Day?
There will be an introduction from the organiser covering how the day will run, followed by introductions from the team leads encouraging contributors to join their team! We’ll then split up into our teams and get to work.
Each team will have a leader who will help you along if needed. Though contributor days are also great places to share knowledge and learn from others.
The day is very friendly and sociable and there are plenty of people to help you. You can contribute as much or as little as you like – all contributions are welcome and celebrated! And you can move between teams if you want to contribute in more than one way.
At the end of the day, the team leads give a wrap up of what happened in their team. The important thing to remember is that it’s a Contributor day, not a Contribution day, so even if you’ve not added any contributions, just improving yourself is a win.
If you want to see what the day is like, check out WPTavern’s photo article about the 2015 contributor day. Pradeep Singh also published photos from the 2016 conference which include the contributor day.
What do I need to bring?
Yourself and a laptop. If you’re coming from outside the UK, then don’t forget your plug adaptors too.
Lunch, snacks, drinks, power, and WiFi are all provided for free.
It sounds great, how do I get involved?
Just head over to the tickets page to pick up a free ticket – be sure to select a Contributor Day ticket from the list.
Note that although the Contributor Day ticket is free, you do need to have a ticket for the rest of the conference to come along.
Also please note that we have no childcare services on this day.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to give back, learn something new and have fun.