Onboarding for Make.WordPress.org

[bridgetwillard]

Why the need?

There is a clear base of WordPress users who want to contribute to making WordPress better. The process of onboarding new volunteer developers and contributors should be clear and efficient. If the process of getting involved in volunteering for WordPress seems difficult or cumbersome, it is counter productive to recruiting efforts and reflects poorly on the WordPress Brand as a whole.

What’s the solution?

The Marketing team is proposing a clear Call to Action (CTA) on the first page of every official wordpress.org URL that is directly related to volunteer work.

This CTA can lead to a signup form where we can help determine the user’s current involvement level with WordPress and the WordPress Community and quickly help the user increase their level of volunteer participation.

Making volunteer CTA’s more prevalent will also reinforce that WordPress.org is open-source and community based, built completely by volunteer efforts.

Proposed spec:

We propose a clear, highly visible link or button CTA at the top of make.wordpress.org that says “New here? Click here to get started!” or “VOLUNTEER” or “JOIN THE TEAM” or some such simple language to direct new contributors quickly and easily to the appropriate tools and resources needed to begin contributing in a meaningful way.

The contents behind the link / form would explain how to sign up for WordPress Slack, set up a profile at wordpress.org, Trello account, Google, etc.

Proposed Copy

Welcome to the WordPress Project. We’re so happy that you’re part of the growing number of contributors. As you can see from the front page of our community Make.WordPress.Org there are many teams where you can join in and add value. It does not matter what your experience level is. Even if you have just installed WordPress for the first time, your voice is valuable and we need your input and help.

No matter what team you want to explore and contribute to, the process for getting started is the same for all. Getting a WordPress.Org account and connecting with Slack to the community.

Creating a WordPress.Org account

The WordPress community relies on contributions from people all over the world. We all identify ourselves by our WordPress.Org account name. If you have several accounts, please pick the one you want to use for contributing moving ahead. If you have never signed up for one before, it is free and only takes a few minutes, you can sign up here: ​https://login.wordpress.org/register

Creating a Slack Account

While we use our WordPress.org accounts to track our contributions to Core, Meta, or Polyglots and the rest, we use the communication tool Slack to coordinate our efforts. Each team you will find on Make.WordPress.Org has it’s own Slack channel and meetings are held there on a regular basis to move projects ahead and update team members on status. You can belong to as many teams as you would like and your teams allow.

Login with your wordpress.org account on this link (​https://make.wordpress.org/chat/).
Scroll on that page to “Joining the WordPress team on Slack” and enter your email address.
Check your email and you will have a “user@…” account.
Activate your account. (wordpress.slack.com)
Find the channel you’d like to contribute to and join.

It’s a lot of setup. We know.

We want you to have a wordpress.org account so that you have access to resources on wordpress.org.
Having a “@chat.wordpress.org” account protects you from others seeing your real email address in Slack.

Have Fun

We’re all volunteers who love WordPress, both the software and the community. Remember to keep in mind the Code of Conduct, be friendly, helpful, and disagree in a productive way.

Google Doc: ​https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wx0_QlB9vJM0wAlEAH8Z2GLJsFKKTmQoT1c8rsZVAJ0/edit#

[casiepa]

@bridgetwillard I added some small remarks about slack that I normally share with my public when I present at contributor days or in meetups.

Just thinking... slack is where we have our discussions, but should you not also mention trac where we report bugs and discuss enhancements?

Great idea anyway to have this centralized for make.w.org ! Count me in if you want to explore this further.

[bridgetwillard]

Thank you so much, friend.

We are also starting to write an onboarding doc for Trac. However, we think it should be separate (but linked) to make it easier. Though, we're up for ideas, too.

Thank you so much.

Replying to casiepa:

@bridgetwillard I added some small remarks about slack that I normally share with my public when I present at contributor days or in meetups.

Just thinking... slack is where we have our discussions, but should you not also mention trac where we report bugs and discuss enhancements?

Great idea anyway to have this centralized for make.w.org ! Count me in if you want to explore this further.

[iandunn]

a clear Call to Action (CTA) on the first page of every official wordpress.org URL that is directly related to volunteer work.

Can you put together a list of the sites you'd like it on? That'll be helpful, since many of them have different stakeholders that will need to sign off on it.

[bridgetwillard]

Thank you. We will.

I think we imagined that it would go on make.wordpress.org as a parent and each of the teams.

We'll add the list to this ticket and the google doc.

Replying to iandunn:

a clear Call to Action (CTA) on the first page of every official wordpress.org URL that is directly related to volunteer work.

Can you put together a list of the sites you'd like it on? That'll be helpful, since many of them have different stakeholders that will need to sign off on it.

[bridgetwillard]

This link will appear on:
​https://make.wordpress.org/
​https://make.wordpress.org/updates/
​https://make.wordpress.org/core/
​https://make.wordpress.org/design/
​https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/
​https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/
​https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/
​https://make.wordpress.org/support/
​https://make.wordpress.org/themes/
​https://make.wordpress.org/docs/
​https://make.wordpress.org/community/
​https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/
​https://make.wordpress.org/training/
​https://make.wordpress.org/meta/
​https://make.wordpress.org/tv/
​https://make.wordpress.org/test/
​https://make.wordpress.org/cli/
​https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/
​https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/
​https://make.wordpress.org/test/

[iandunn]

Replying to bridgetwillard:

This link will appear on:
​https://make.wordpress.org/
​https://make.wordpress.org/updates/
​https://make.wordpress.org/core/
...

Oh, nevermind, I thought you wanted it to appear on all official sites, like the main WordPress.org site, WordCamp.org, translate.wordpress.org, etc.

If it's just the Make sites, then we probably just need input from whoever is the stakeholder for that these days.

[laryswan]

Love this idea! One questions re: the labeling of the CTAs. Do we have a way to do A/B split testing to see which works best?

Replying to bridgetwillard:

We propose a clear, highly visible link or button CTA at the top of make.wordpress.org that says “New here? Click here to get started!” or “VOLUNTEER” or “JOIN THE TEAM” or some such simple language to direct new contributors quickly and easily to the appropriate tools and resources needed to begin contributing in a meaningful way.