Help Improve the Make/Community Contributor Day Onboarding

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Look familiar? You’re right; this is similar to the other post!

However, the goal of this one is to focus on onboarding experiences had at or around Contributor Days.

As we grow, it’s important to reflect on where we can make our processes smoother for everyone. So this post is gathering feedback specifically related to Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/..

Any blockers you’ve found to participating in a Contributor Day
Any blockers you’ve found to helping others participate in a Contributor Day
Anything you think it would be useful to share

That’s it. Short and sweet. Please leave feedback in the comments.

#feedback #ContributorDay #onboarding

Megan 12:52 am on October 5, 2022
Thanks for posting this, @mysweetcate! I’m really interested in seeing what folks think should be adjusted.
For me, this was my second Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. and first that I’ve been a table lead for. I chatted with my partner, who is new to WP events (and found Contributor Day overwhelming) and came up with these ideas from that conversation:
- Having signs at tables that lists projects the team works on, or more importantly, specifically lists the things new contributors can help with. Should be easily legible for folks wandering trying to find a table to join. (I know we have the handout at the check-in table but it’s not very specific since space is limited.)
- If the table leads could get a list of attendees prior, including if it’s their first time contributing, that would be helpful. I realize there are probably privacy reasons we don’t currently do this, but if we could find a solution where leads/team members could communicate directly with new contributors before the event, it would help ease them in if we can build relationships beforehand. Maybe on the posts leading up (like this one) we could put links to the table lead’s WP.org profiles or something, prompting new contributors to reach out to them prior? (Ideally I’d like to also get folks into SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. prior to the day of, but they’re overloaded with emails as it is and there will always be people day-of that aren’t on Slack.)
- Maybe cross-team (here on the blogs and/or in a Zoom call or something), we could have a table leads training of some sort? One of the odd things that happens at Contributor Day in my opinion is that new folks sit down and might make themselves look busy due to the social pressures but not know what they’re doing, meanwhile table leads look around for folks who don’t have things to work on and won’t notice these people because they look busy. 😅 I realized after that I should have been more direct and periodically announced that folks could come to me if they needed something to work on.
- Would be nice to have some print outs at the check-in table with instructions on joining Slack/WP.org.
- Internally (not on the WC orgs) I think teams should/could also have print outs (even if just one per table) with the pre-defined list of projects to work on (unless we do signs, of course) and maybe a QR code to the post on their blog, along with some team member contact info/pics.
Some of these can be accomplished within or across teams (versus having the WC organizing team be responsible for!), like having internal training/support for new table leads, some of the materials we could provide, etc.

A less serious but fun idea I had was to make a shirt that says “New to Contributing? Ask Me Anything!” 😄

Sorry this is incredibly long! I’ve been thinking about it so much lately.
- Cate DeRosia 1:39 pm on October 7, 2022
  
  I really appreciate this, particularly it’s length. The more information we have and share, the stronger we all are. Thanks for taking the time to comment!!

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