Core code isn’t the only way to contribute to the WordPress project. We have an active theme review team, support forum volunteers, people writing documentation, plugin managers, community event organizers, translators, and more. The teams have been siloed for too long, so we’ve recently begun the process of bringing them together by having teams elect representatives to facilitate more communication between the contributor groups. These reps will form the nucleus of the contributor summit now being planned for a long weekend at the end of October in Tybee Island, GA. This is completely different from a WordCamp. It will be a combination of co-working, unconference, and discussions among the project leaders, and participation will be by invitation.

In addition to bringing together the active contributor team reps to work together, I think it’s important to include community members who don’t fall into that category (at least not yet!). Successful WordPress-based business, authors of popular plugins and themes, and people using WordPress in unexpected but intriguing ways should have a place at the table, too. That said, part of the magic of the core team meetup is the small size; it allows every voice not only to be heard, but to engage. Since this is my first attempt at bringing together so many groups and points of view, I want to try and keep it small enough to retain that personal atmosphere while at the same time ensuring that the best possible mix of people and businesses in the WordPress ecosystem is represented. This is where you come in!

Taking a cue from events with limited availability like AdaCamp (attendance) and the jQuery conference (speaker roster), I want you to nominate people and/or WordPress-based businesses to participate in the summit. Yes, you can nominate yourself.* You can nominate up to 10 additional people — be prepared to provide URLs and the reason you think they should participate. You can also nominate up to 10 WordPress-based businesses without naming individual people, so if there’s a theme or hosting company (for example) that you think should be there, you don’t need to go looking for employee names. This nomination process will hopefully ensure that we don’t overlook someone who is making a difference in our community when it comes time to issue invitations.

Nominations will be open for a week, after which the survey will be closed and the process of analyzing the results** will begin. The nominations process will lead to invitations in June, confirmations in July, planning in August and September, and the summit itself in October. Hopefully we can stream and/or record some of the activity to share online at WordPress.tv. Additional invitations may be extended up until the event if there are people/businesses that become more active in the community. If you’re thinking to yourself that maybe now’s the perfect time to start contributing time to the WordPress project, good thinking! In the meantime, if you want to weigh in, fill in the community summit nomination form. Thanks, and wish us luck!

* Nominating yourself: Do nominate yourself if you fall into one of the categories described in the post above, or if you believe that you have a unique point of view. Please do not nominate yourself if you just think it would be cool to hang out with this group. This is a working event, and everyone is expected to bring something special to the table.

** I (and/or a helpful community volunteer) will sift through the nominations and compile a shortlist of the most-nominated people/businesses and the most intriguing underdogs. This list will be reviewed by the summit planning committee (made up of team reps) to create the invitation list.

Booth

There will be a WordPress booth at the SXSW trade show March 12-15. Our booth was packed to overflowing last year as we helped people with their blogs and gave away WordPress swag, so this year we’ll have more space to meet as many of you as possible. Stop by if you need a helping hand with your site, or just to say hi. We’ll also have buttons, stickers, and t-shirts again this year.

Party

This year’s WordPress party will be hosted by the WordPress Foundation on Monday, March 12 from 6-9pm. Space is limited, so make sure you RSVP (no SXSW badge is required). The party this year will be at the Buzzmedia Pure Volume House, and the story of how we hooked up with them is pretty cool.

Once upon a time, David Wang had a business called Buzzmedia in Malaysia, with the twitter username @buzzmedia. When David changed gears and started ClickWP, a WordPress support business, he stopped going by the Buzzmedia name. In the U.S., a company also called Buzzmedia wished it had that Twitter username, and asked if they could have it since David wasn’t going to use it anymore.

David, feeling the WordPress community love, said he would give them the name, and suggested they do something in return for the WordPress Foundation. So, everyone talked to everyone else and it worked out that Buzzmedia was willing to donate a fantastic venue for this year’s party as well as covering the bar.

In the end, the Foundation got a great SXSW party, Buzzmedia got their twitter username, and David got the warm glow of having used his power for the good of the WordPress community, and they all lived happily ever after.

Seriously, though, the PureVolume House is always a great SXSW venue, so thank you David and Buzzmedia for your generosity! We’ll have drinks and snacks and a few hundred WordPress-loving partygoers, so you know it will be a good time. Kind of like a WordCamp afterparty without all the work of a WordCamp.

The venue can hold 500 people, and based on last year, we’ll hit that pretty quickly. The one requirement is that you use WordPress. On the RSVP form, you will be asked to enter the URL of your WordPress-powered site (if you have more than one, just pick your main site). If you fill in this field with something other than what’s requested (such as “N/A” or putting in a fake url) your RSVP may be deleted, so please make sure to enter your real site.
RSVP Now!

3.3 Hackathon

WordPress 3.3 is about to hit feature freeze. This means it’s the last chance to squeeze in features that haven’t quite been finished, and enhancements and fixes that no one has had time to address yet. Around this time, there are often dozens of tickets that have patches, but the patches have not been tested enough to be committed to core. Then the contributors who worked hard on the patches are disappointed that their code doesn’t make it into the current release. You can help us prevent this!

This weekend, we’ll be running a has-patch needs-testing marathon for the 3.3 milestone. Basically, we’re looking for people who can help test patches and/or refresh patches that need updating. Lead developers and core contributors will be hanging around in the #wordpress-dev channel on irc.freenode.net to answer questions as needed, and will be committing patches as they get enough verification. As you test the patches, report your findings on the trac tickets in question. If all developers who make a living working with WordPress helped out for even an hour or two this weekend, we could clear the 200 tickets or so that are in this situation. To make it fun, why not get together with other WordPress devs and have an in-person hackathon meetup?

WordCamp Portland

At WordCamp Portland this weekend, some of the WordPress core team will be in attendance, including me, Nacin, and Koop. In addition to giving presentations and participating in the unconference sessions, we’ll be involved with a couple of other cool things at WCPDX:

• Hacker Room. There will be room set aside for people to work on core bugs and features slated for the 3.3 release. Hopefully PDX developers will hang out in here some of the time helping with the marathon.
• Welcome Free Software Projects! Normally WordCamps are 100% focused on WordPress, but in light of Software Freedom Day, the WC PDX organizers, in conjunction with the WordPress Foundation, would like to extend an invitation to all free software projects to participate in WordCamp Portland. There are a couple of rooms set aside that can be used for unconference sessions and/or hacker rooms for other projects. It would be great to have local representatives from a bunch of projects there — almost a micro version of OS Bridge or OSCON — to maximize the free software love and cross-pollinate ideas. Developers from other projects are also welcome in the WP hackathon room if they’d like to pitch in. Saturday will also feature the Software Freedom Day Happy Hour at the end of sessions. For more information or to get your project involved, contact the event organizers via the WordCamp Portland website or email support at wordcamp dot org.
• Usability Testing of 3.3 Alpha. As mentioned, we’re about to hit freeze, so we’ll be giving WordCamp Portland attendees a sneak peek at 3.3, seeing how they adjust to the new features, and getting feedback to help us with our last round of fixes before we get to Beta. There will be a signup sheet to participate.

So, if you live it the Portland/Seattle area and haven’t already bought a ticket to attend WordCamp Portland, hurry up, as it’s going to be a great celebration of Software Freedom Day and WordPress.

Is there a WordCamp coming up near you? Let’s find out!

Sep 15: WordCamp Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa

Sep 16-18: WordCamp Albuquerque Albuquerque, NM

Sep 17-18: WordCamp Portland Portland, OR

Sep 24: WordCamp Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal

Sep 24: WordCamp Germany Koln, Germany

Sep 25: WordCamp Sofia Sofia, Bulgaria

Oct 1: WordCamp Louisville Louisville, Kentucky

Oct 8-9: WordCamp Sevilla Seville, Spain

April 16: WordCamp Seattle in Seattle, WA. This weekend! After taking a year off, WordCamp Seattle is back with tracks for bloggers, designers, and developers. This year they’ll feature a lineup including presentations by both local speakers and visitors like core committer Andrew Nacin, as well as an Ignite session of lightning talks at the end of the day.

May 5: WordCamp Vancouver (Developer Edition) in Vancouver, BC. This one-day WordCamp is aimed purely at developers working on the WordPress platform, and will not have content aimed at bloggers (as previous Vancouver WordCamps have). I predict we will start seeing more of these types of niche WordCamps moving forward, because they will mean smaller, more intimate events that allow more collaboration (and make it easier to find venues!). Note that we’re working with the organizers to get the tickets to a more reasonable price, so keep your eyes open this week if you’ve held off on buying a ticket because of the price tag.

May 7: WordCamp Switzerland in Brugg, Switzerland. This one will cover a wide range of topics, including getting started with WordPress, advanced development topics, BuddyPress, and an inside look at running a WordPress-based business.

May 14: WordCamp Orange County in Orange, CA. Already sold out! Orange County had their first WordCamp last year, and the organizers have put together another great event this time around.

May 14: WordCamp Paris in Paris, France. One of the last true unconference-style WordCamps, the Paris group will plan their schedule the morning of the event like they do at BarCamps. WordCamp Paris had one of the best WordCamp t-shirts ever a couple of years ago. And it’s in Paris in the spring.

May 21–22: WordCamp Raleigh in Raleigh, NC. Repeat organizers from the Raleigh WordPress Meetup Group are just starting to select speakers and put together their plans, but if it is anything like last year, the venue will be packed with WordPress professionals (and maybe there will be cookies). I’ll be attending this one, as will Nacin.

June 4–5: WordCamp Reno-Lake Tahoe in Reno, NV. Organized by a WordPress core UI group contributor, WordCamp Reno-Lake Tahoe is taking place in Reno and has a packed schedule full of visiting experts.

June 11–12: WordCamp Kansas City in Overland Park, KS. With publisher, designer, and developer tracks, Kansas City’s WordCamp will have a little something for everyone, presented in large part by local speakers.

June 17–19: WordCamp Columbus in Columbus, OH. WordCamp Columbus has a new organizer this year and is bringing the focus more firmly onto WordPress (and less on social media). Their 3-day event includes an entire day for newbies, and another for non-profits, a nice addition to the usual blogger/developer tracks.

July 9–10: WordCamp Montreal in Montreal, Quebec. This group consistently puts on a great every year. If you register now, you can still get a $10 discount and get both days for only $30 (with sessions in both English and French to reflect the bilingual nature of the city). Montreal plays host to a number of festivals throughout the year, and this weekend is no different, including festivals for the arts, comedy, tango, and even circus arts.

July 16: WordCamp San Diego in San Diego, CA. First WordCamp in San Diego! They have talking about this for over a year, and are now starting to really ramp up the planning. They’re finalizing their venue right now, and I would expect a great roster of speakers.

July 16-17: WordCamp Portsmouth in Portsmouth, UK. The annual WordCamp UK that moves from city to city each year alights this year in Portsmouth. This one is notable because Mike Little, co-founder of WordPress, is part of the organizing team.

July 23–24: WordCamp Boston in Boston, MA. Another one just about to lock down some details and get starting with speaker selection, etc. An easy train ride from so many places, and not in the middle of winter this year!

July 30-31: WordCamp Chicago has new organizers and is a new venue this year. A call for speakers, supporters, and volunteers will likely be posted sometime next week.

WordCamp Portland is looking for a venue before deciding on a date this year, as it has outgrown the space it’s used the past two years, but hopes to happen in September. If you would be interested in donating a venue to this popular event, please contact them.

We’ll hold off on posting fall events until later in the summer since there a lot in the planning stages now. To get the most up-to-date information, visit WordCamp Central.

Hope to see you at a WordCamp soon!

If you’re unfamiliar with WordCamps, here’s the skinny: the San Francisco event is the flagship, put together each year under the direction of WordPress co-founder and lead developer Matt Mullenweg, who traditionally reports on the “State of the Word” and assembles a lineup of speakers that have inspired him over the past year. This year’s lineup includes luminaries such as Richard Stallman, the father of Free Software, best-selling author Scott Berkun, and Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg. As the final speaker list is finalized, the remaining speakers will be added to the WordCamp SF website, but a surprise or two is still possible.

Though the main event is on Saturday, May 1, there are additional days of WordPress goodness in store. Saturday, May 1 will be the main conference with scheduled speakers. There will be keynotes, session tracks for both bloggers/end-users and developers, and lightning talks to provide a broad mix of content, followed by a raging afterparty. Sunday, May 2 will shift location and tone, with a low-key developers’ unconference for the super-code-focused attendees. May 3 and 4 are conference-free, but a WordPress core contributor in-person code sprint will span those two days, bringing together core contributors old and new from around the globe for two days of intense hacking (and let’s face it, 3.0 bug fixes).

If you’re in the Bay Area, or can be, and want to attend WordCamp San Francisco, go get your ticket today!

*     *      *      *     *

Other Upcoming WordCamps

It’s definitely WordCamp season; just check out the growing list of upcoming WordCamps over the next couple of months! If you don’t see a WordCamp near you listed here, check the rest of the schedule at WordCamp.org. In the meantime, don’t forget that many WordCamps post video of their presentations on WordPress.tv.

April 24 (today!) – WordCamp Orange County
Irvine, CA USA

April 29 – WordCamp Nashville
Nashville, TN USA

May 1 – WordCamp San Francisco
San Francisco, CA USA

May 8 – WordCamp Paris
Paris, France

May 8 – WordCamp Argentina
Buenos Aires, Argentina

May 8 – WordCamp Chile
Santiago, Chile

May 15–16 – WordCamp Denmark
Copenhagen, Denmark

May 15 – WordCamp Victoria
Victoria, BC Canada

May 21–22 – WordCamp Italy
Milan, Italy

May 22 – WordCamp Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

May 22–23 – WordCamp Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina USA

May 29–30 – WordCamp Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA

May 29 – WordCamp Yokohama
Yokohama, Japan

June 5–6 – WordCamp Chicago
Chicago, Illinois USA

June 12 – WordCamp Reno-Tahoe
Reno, Nevada USA

June 12 – WordCamp Vancouver
Vancouver, Canada

June 18 – WordCamp Catania
Catania, Italy

June 19 – WordCamp Columbus
Columbus, Ohio USA

If you’re a WordPress fan attending SxSW (or you just happen to be in Austin), please join us for lunch after 12pm* tomorrow, Sunday March 14. We’re getting the BBQ from Rudy’s and the red velvet cake from Central Market. Yum! Come, eat, talk about the cool things you’re doing with WordPress, let us know what we can do better, gossip about Mark Jaquith’s new hairstyle, whatever. Think of it like a WordCamp without presentations. I’ll be there, lead developers Mark Jaquith and Ryan Boren will be there, core contributors will be there, plugin and theme developers will be there, and basically all the most intelligent and attractive people from SxSW will be there. You should be, too!

Location: Conjunctured coworking space, 1309 East 7th St., Austin, TX 78702. From the convention center, walk up to 7th Street, hang a right, and walk until you get to #1309. If you’re tired of walking, taking a cab is a decent option. Note that this is on the other side of I-35 from the convention center.

View WordPress BBQ at SxSW in a larger map

* We’ll keep serving until we run out of food, so probably until around 2 or 3? We’ll have a hundred pounds of bbq meat, a bunch of sides, and dozens of gallons of iced tea, so come hungry.

#1 – The first bug hunt of 2.9 will be Thursday through Saturday, November 5-7, 2009. This should give people a few days to plan for it, upgrade their dev environments if they haven’t been following trunk, and figure out how to allot their time. We’re stretching over both weekdays and weekend to try and accommodate everyone’s schedule.

#2 - The second bug hunt will be a week later, Saturday through Monday, November 14-16, 2009. This should make it possible for anyone who needs more than a week to set some time aside to participate. This bug hunt will coincide with WordCamp NYC, where a special Hacker Room will be set aside for people to go and work on 2.9 bug tickets alongside regular core contributors including Mark Jaquith and Matt Martz (sivel from IRC).

The Goals

Test, test, test existing patches! You can see all tickets with patches that need testing by checking this report. When you’ve tested a patch, report your results in the ticket comments, so core committers can see how the patch is faring.

Fix known bugs! You can see the bugs that need patches by checking this report. Look for the ones that seem that they’ll affect the most people or have the biggest impact by being fixed. Edge case bugs should be lower priority.

Report new bugs! As you’re testing out the development version, if you come across a bug, search trac to see if someone has reported it yet. If so, add a comment with your experience to the ticket so we’ll know it’s affecting more than one person. If no ticket exists yet, create one.

Core committers will be around (in the #wordpress-dev channel at irc.freenode.com) both weekends to review patches that have been thoroughly tested, answer questions as needed, and give feedback on patches that need more work before being commit-worthy.

If you’ve never participated in a WordPress bug hunt before, but you’d like to get involved, we’d love to have you join us! To prepare, you’ll want to set up a test environment, start using the current development version/maybe install the beta testing plugin, join us in the #wordpress-dev IRC channel, and read up on automated testing.

To celebrate we’re throwing a party in San Francisco at 111 Minna, starting at 9PM. You can get the full details and RSVP on Upcoming.org or on Facebook.

I hope you see some of you there, should be a fun time.

If you host a party in your area for WordPress’ 5th, let us know and we’ll post it here.

Update: Party in Sydney! Blog post, Facebook.

WordCamp San Francisco will be August 16 at the Mission Bay Conference Center.

WordCamp Paris will be on May 3rd. Here’s their official site.

WordCamp Italy in Milan will be May 10th. (And I believe I’ll be there.)

WordCamp Birmingham UK will be July 19-20.

WordCamp Toronto will be October 4th.

There are people in the planning stages in Australia, Philippines, Beijing, Utah, Hawaii, UK, NYC, and possibly others, so if you live in one of those areas and would like to help set up a WordCamp in your area Google around or connect with bloggers in your area.

You can always find out more at WordCamp Central.