estelaris 11:46 am on January 24, 2023  

New look, new site, new HelpHub

The docs team have been working hard on creating the end-user documentation or HelpHub. It took a very long time, 8 years to be exact since the project kicked-off, and we reached the goal. Follow the journey from these posts Kicking off HelpHub and New design for HelpHub in WordPress.org.

Introduction to the new Documentation site

The look changed to be in harmony with the rest of the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ template. The new features were created with the goal to facilitate search for end-users. Some of these features are:

  • a simplified sitemap divided into 4 categories and each categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. has several subcategories,
  • better definition between end-user and developers documentation, meaning that several articles will be moved into developers.wordpress.org in the next few weeks,
  • change to the menu item to documentation instead of support,
  • a new menu, breadcrumbs and other features

The four categories

The goal of the end-user documentation is to provide information to non-developers or new users so they try resolving their issue by themselves instead of going directly to the Forums.

To improve search, the team worked on reclassifying the articles into 4 main categories:

  • WordPress overview, where users can find general information about WordPress, versions, FAQs and resources.
  • Technical guides to help with installation, maintenance, and security.
  • Support guides to get familiar with the software and its features.
  • Customization where users can find instructions on how to use the BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor and default themes.
Image showing the documentation landing page with its four categories and subcategories.

End-user and developers documentation

When moving the articles from the Codex, there was a separation between developer-focused and end-user-focused documentation. Yet, developer articles were still available within in end-user documentation.

To help make the distinction better, all developer jargon has been removed from end-user documentation and moved to developer.wordpress.org.

Documentation instead of support

The menu item was support, the docs team has been looking into changing the menu item into documentation. Documentation is better description than support.

Features

Breadcrumbs and a submenu

Users can use the breadcrumbs to return to a specific page, category or subcategory without navigating all the way to the landing page.

A new submenu was added for fastest linking to developers documentation, the forums and the docs team make blog.

Sticky table of content for articles

The new TOC in the articles is a sticky item with one link to take the user back to the top.

Video showing how the sticky TOC works within an article.

Props to @milana_cap, @kenshino, and @atachibana for their direction on this project.

Props to @javiarce, @joen and @beafialho for their design guidance, help and commitment on the last stage.

Props to @ryelle for her amazing coding work.

Jenni McKinnon 6:08 pm on January 23, 2023
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Agenda for Docs Team Bi-Weekly Meeting January 24, 2023

The next meeting is scheduled with the following details:

When: Tuesday, 24 January, 2023, 02:00 PM UTC

Where: #docs channel on Slack

Agenda:

  1. Attendance
  2. Note-taker and facilitator selection for next meeting
  3. Facilitator selection for next triage meeting
  4. Projects checks
  5. Status update on DevHub
  6. Status update on HelpHub
  7. Open floor

If there’s anything you’d like to discuss on the open floor, please leave a comment below.

#agenda, #meetings

estelaris 2:20 pm on January 23, 2023
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Support, forums, training or documentation

There are several ways to find information regarding the features or issues in WordPress and each one of them has a function and a time. This is a short explanation of what each means, the difference and when to use them.

What is what?

A good way to differentiate them is to define them and to provide use cases for each. None is better or worst than the other neither is any more or less important. It all depends on when they are used.

  • Support is 1:1, requires interaction and it is used for more urgent issues, whether is a chatbot or person and is immediate.
  • Forums are intended for broader help or best advice on specific topics. Most of the time is asynchronous but is monitored by a team or person, paid or volunteer. Most importantly, forums are community driven.
  • Documentation are basically instructions on how to do things. There is no interaction of any kind for questions. Literally, “what you read is what you get.”
  • Training creates lessons on topics. These can be on video or written form. Can be individual or part of a series. And training can be immediate or in the user’s own time.

Some use cases

Users require information for different reasons and search for it in different ways.

For instance, hosting companies use support, either by chat or call, to resolve a user’s issue. Whether is urgent or not, it usually is something that the user cannot solve by themselves or it has an immediate need for solution.

The forums are topical and in threads. They are very useful for discussions and to provide guidance over an issue or topic. Forums are monitored and conversation are mostly asynchronous. Some of the uses could be a school discussion group, product sales, best practices, product help, product how-to’s, etc.

When a user wants to learn fairly quick how to do something, following the steps in a documentation article is the best way. There are no interactions and the user reads it in their own time.

In opposition to wanting to deeply learn about a subject, then the user would search for a training lesson or course.

What can a user find in WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/

WordPress.org does not provide support. There is no team that will reply to questions 1:1 at any time. Instead there are the Forums that are monitored by contributors, volunteer and paid, that reply to questions posted.

There is documentation for end-users and developers and there are training lessons offered in Learn.

It is a strong recommendation by the documentation team to stop using the word support and instead refer to each instance with their respective name.

Props to @milana_cap and @atachibana for the review of this article.

#docs

estelaris 4:16 pm on January 16, 2023
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Development and design work continues on Helphub

Docs team, please refrain from updating/uploading articles on Helphub still. Work will continue until Friday 20 January.

I will update the team if we need more time.

For questions, pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” @estelaris on docs 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/. channel.

#helphub

Jenni McKinnon 2:16 am on January 13, 2023
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Summary for Docs Team meeting, January 10, 2023

Attendance

@ninianepress @milana_cap @leonnugraha @femkreations @atachibana @thisisyeasin @estelaris @wigno @vanpariyar @kartiks16 @samanthaxmunoz @ninthcoder @daisyo @webtechpooja @onlykawshar

Housekeeping

Find the complete Transcript of the meeting on Slack.

Moving HelpHub to the New Site

@estelaris is working with the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team to replace the /support site with the /documentation site. The new URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org is expected to be ready after January 17, 2023. In the meantime, contributors should refrain from adding, editing, or publishing content on the /support site as they will be lost.

Read this post for more information.

Project Checks

@leonnugraha – Reviewed and published #234 and #314

@milana_cap – Almost completed the Team roles page(s)

@ninianepress – Finishing an update that was supposed to be done by the end of 2022

@wigno – Completed #506, and it’s now ready for review. Will plan to work on #508 and #502 this week

Topics for the 2023 WordPress Community Summit

We should think, as a team, of possible topics for the Community Summit. What are the Documentation team needs that can, in full or partially, be solved in an environment where all other teams are present? 

@estelaris proposed the following topic: How will we collaborate with polyglots to translate the documentation and help them create the new sitemap? We need to push for translations. Otherwise, a lot of our work will stagnate as an English version only

@ninianepress wants to submit a topic that @milana_cap mentioned during last year’s WCEU – about a waterfall solution across teams for everyone to be able to collaborate on projects across all teams. @milana_cap added an example that the Training/Learning team has been discussing for a long time with the Docs team on how to make a tool that would help us all communicate better about release changes.

@atachibana pointed out several workflow issues for the HelpHub that can be improved. Through the discussions, we agreed that we could discuss these issues internally within the Docs team.

Open Floor

@wigno volunteered to review and publish documentation content. @leonnugraha will help him to get going.

@milana_cap has an idea for three little tools that should help with some workflows and will build something to test out:

  • Meeting agenda generator
  • Meeting summary generator
  • New contributor orientation tool/onboarding tool

@estelaris will ask the meta team about the users’ access when the /documentation site is live.

Props to @leonnugraha for writing this meeting summary.

#docs, #meetings, #summary

Jenni McKinnon 6:00 am on January 10, 2023
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Documentation Team Discussion on the 2023 Community Summit Call for Submissions

Summary: The documentation team will discuss topics we want to submit for collaboration at the 2023 WordPress Community Summit. Following the submission guidelines, the team can add their ideas in the comments section below for collaboration at the upcoming meeting.

On August 22-23 in National Harbor, DC, USA, the 2023 WordPress Community Summit will be held. There, the WordPress community will discuss and collaborate on specific challenges and opportunities for clarifying the vision for WordPress and its future.

A call for submissions was posted for topics to discuss during the summit. The lead organizing team is requiring all contributor teams to suggest points of interest.

The documentation team will be discussing topics for submission at our next meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 2 PM UTC.

Please leave your suggestions in the comments section below. But before you do, there are areas that need to be carefully considered.

As @milana_cap mentioned at the last meeting, it’s essential for us to collaborate on possible topics that keep the following in mind:

“What are the Documentation team needs that can, in full or partially, be solved in an environment where all other teams are present?”

Your suggestion in the comments also needs to follow the submission guidelines:

  1. Topic description
  2. Why would this topic benefit from in-person discussion or work at the summit?
  3. Who needs to participate in the discussion above where their absence would render any collaboration incomplete?

For the last point, you could include specific contributor teams, roles, individuals, or similar.

All comments will be reviewed and considered at our upcoming meeting.

#meetings

Milana Cap 3:40 pm on December 22, 2022
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Summary for Docs Team meeting, December 13, 2022

Attendance

@ninianepress @milana_cap @leonnugraha @femkreations @atachibana @thisisyeasin @emmaht @juanmaguitar @estelaris @bph @themiked @psykro

Housekeeping

Find the complete Transcript of the meeting on Slack.

Documentation team holiday schedule

It has been decided that the Documentation team will have a 3 weeks long time off for the holidays. This means that no meetings will happen during this time, as well as the response in 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/. channel can be slower.

The time of is starting on Monday, December 19th 2022; and ends on Sunday, January 8th, 2023. The first meeting in 2023 will be on Tuesday, January 10th, at 2PM UTC. The format will be regular biweekly meeting.

Projects checks

@themiked – all the security related stuff is rewritten and consolidated now (#622, #623)

@femkreations – Reviewed, updated and closed 8 tasks for 6.1 Project and 9 tasks for 6.0 Project

@leonnugraha – Closed and published one high-prio 5.9 issue.

@atachibana – Tackling opened issues from the bottom (the oldest). Closed two issues and working #13.

@estelaris – working with metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. on the redesign for HelpHub and DevHub. We are testing the breadcrumbs and waiting on a resolution from coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. on next steps to do the reclassification of the articles, title changing and lots of 301s. May not have a holiday break.

@milana_cap – started working on Estela’s issue, did some reviewing of dev blog posts, a bit of onboarding docs (really hope to get that done before the next meeting).

Open floor

@estelaris – we need to add props for meeting facilitators and note takers so that everyone gets acknowledge.

@femkreations – saw this posting in the Make blog. Anything we can come up with for the Docs team?

Topics for the WordPress Community Summit 2023

We should think, as a team, of possible topics for Community Summit. What are the Documentation team needs that can, in full or partially, be solved in an environment where all other teams are present? This should be the first agenda item at the next meeting. Format:

  • Topic description
  • Why would this topic particularly benefit from in-person discussion/work at the Community Summit?
  • Who needs to participate in the discussion described above?(In other words, without these people in the room, the discussion may be incomplete. This may include specific Contributor Teams, roles, individuals, etc.)

Have a wonderful holidays and a good rest, team. See you in 2023.

#summary

Jenni McKinnon 1:05 pm on December 13, 2022
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Agenda for Docs Team Bi-Weekly December 13, 2022

The next meeting is scheduled with the following details:

When: Tuesday, 13 December, 2022, 02:00 PM UTC

Where: #docs channel on Slack

Agenda:

  1. Attendance
  2. Projects checks
  3. Documentation team holiday schedule
  4. Note-taker and facilitator selection for next meeting
  5. Open floor

If there’s anything you’d like to discuss on the open floor, please leave the comment below.

#agenda, #meetings

JuanMa Garrido 7:39 am on November 30, 2022  

Summary for Docs Team Meeting November 29, 2022

Attendance

@estelaris @milana_cap @leonnugraha @femkreations @ninianepress @juanmaguitar @emmaht @samanthaxmunoz @malcolm

Housekeeping

Find the complete Transcript of the meeting on Slack.

Projects checks

@milana_cap has been mostly working on onboarding and roles docs, also handing out badges for docs contributors.

@leonnugraha reviewed and published #295 and #494 

@femkreations reviewed and closed 16 tasks for 6.1 Project and 1 task for 6.0 Project

@estelaris shares that HelpHub redesign is on the works but the reclassification part, meaning the new site map is on hold. The changelog as newly proposed is under review because it requires a new blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. and meta will work on that further.

It seems that all design changes will happen in the next 4-6 months and after that meta will look into structural changes.

DevHub redesign

@estelaris  wrote a post that has received very good feedback. The design worked out a second iteration, which she updated on the post. Call for feedback will finish this Friday.

There was a discussion about the resources that should be displayed in the new design. 

Structure of the Homepage

The conclusion of the conversations was that the resources shared from the landing page of developer.wordpress.org should be distributed in the following way:

< help yourself >

Documentation (left)

APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. Reference  (right)

< help yourself more + get other’s help >

More Resources

< read what’s new >

Developer Blog

  • 3 latest posts w/ their categories
  • Links to most popular categories in the blog

<  get involved >

Get Involved

#meeting-notes

estelaris 10:47 am on November 28, 2022  

Agenda for Docs Team Bi-Weekly November 29, 2022

The next meeting is scheduled with the following details:

When: Tuesday, 29 November, 2022, 02:00 PM GMT+1

Where: #docs channel on Slack

Agenda:

  1. Attendance
  2. Note-taker & Facilitator selection for Next Meeting
  3. Projects checks
  4. Second iteration for DevHub new design
    • Content review (landing page: what goes, what stays?)
  5. Open floor

If there’s anything you’d like to discuss on the open floor, please leave the comment below.

#agenda, #meetings