Create a Contribute page on make.wordpress.org to host the Contributor Orientation Tool

[SeReedMedia]

We need to create a "Contribute" page on make.wordpress.org:

make.wordpress.org/contribute

This will be the landing page for the "Find Your Team" Call to Action from the CONTRIBUTE tab that is being added to the WordPress Admin Dashboard About screen. That tab is slated to be added in 6.3 per this core ticket: ​https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23348

The primary content for this page will be the Contributor Orientation Tool. Code here: ​https://github.com/wceu/contributor-orientation-tool

This tool has been used successfully this year for both this year's WordCamp Asia (​https://wpasia.org/contributor-day-orientation-tool/) and multiple WordCamp Europes. The page for WordCamp Asia also used little or no additional content on the page.

--> We would like to have the code setup up on a draft Contribute page and assess what styles we need to adjust.

--> Additionally, @alexstine is reviewing some (hopefully) minor accessibility issues in the existing code for us to fix prior to going live.

--> We may need to add the newly created Sustainability Team if it has not yet been added (but that should not be a blocker)

Related documentation:

• Get involved or Contribute tab for the About page — structure and the content #217: ​https://github.com/WordPress/Marketing-Team/issues/217

• Draft content for Contribute tab: ​https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F2-75YqtZ2-15DWiNEc0Q6XYg0d-KS7tBFZlpkATbyk/edit

[courane01]

Let's also consider including this in the navigation at ​https://make.wordpress.org/. I anticipate this is also up for redesign, but at least including it in this navigation or prominently above all the teams listed would be beneficial.

[courane01]

Would we want this to just be a page within the top level Make site? We'll need a review of the Contributor orientation tool and to consider how we revise the tool.

Keeping it as a page within top-level Make may be manageable, but we will need to consider as we revise the options that display.

I'd expect teams to have more specific directions for where they want the links to go. I see Training's is broken at the moment.

[SeReedMedia]

Yes, top level page at:

make.wordpress.org/contribute

[courane01]

​https://make.wordpress.org/contribute/ done!

[tobifjellner]

If we put this on make, then we also need to figure out how we'll allow various locale teams to translate this tools to their respective languages, and divert the traffic to the localized version.

So, it might actually be better to eventually put this on the main WordPress site, and replicate it to Rosetta sites.

[dd32]

We need to create a "Contribute" page on make.wordpress.org:

(emphasis mine)

Who is "We" here - it's unclear as to whether this is something that has been "approved" by anyone, or if this is a request from the marketing team / team reps / WordCamp organisers / etc.

"Need" is also a very direct word, 'we need' is highly distinct from something like 'I propose', 'Team X suggests', 'Out of _this_ conversation, we agreed that', etc.

As I'm sure everyone knows, there's a lot of competing ideas within the WordPress community and different teams, sometimes it's hard to distinguish where requests are coming from and how much weight should be given to the requesters high-priority task.
What's High priority to one team may be low to another, etc, and among the Meta team it may be entirely different yet again.

--> We would like to have the code setup up on a draft Contribute page and assess what styles we need to adjust.

The theme running on make.wordpress.org/ is highly limited and not at all appropriate for freeform content, it'll likely require a fair bit of styling work, I don't know how much.

You'll find the theme here: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/browser/sites/trunk/wordpress.org/public_html/wp-content/themes/pub/wporg-makehome

figure out how we'll allow various locale teams to translate this tools to their respective languages, and divert the traffic to the localized version.

We probably wouldn't push this out to the localised domains, instead, localisation would likely be achieved through a language switcher similar to what's on Learn.

I haven't reviewed the code, but as long as it uses gettext variants it shouldn't be hard to get it into GlotPress and have the translations pulled from there.

But that's also also assuming it would be localised at the outset, which it probably wouldn't be a priority to, as contributing to most (all?) teams requires english skillset (even translators need to know english, being the source-language). As part of the MVP for this request, localisation wouldn't be a high priority IMHO.

We would like to have the code setup

Just noting that I haven't reviewed the code, and whomever does set it up on w.org will need to perform a full code review first.

[tobifjellner]

We probably wouldn't push this out to the localised domains, instead, localisation would likely be achieved through a language switcher similar to what's on Learn.

Without knowing a word English, you can still contribute to support in your own language, organize meetups, perform training events, etc.
This means that localization would probably need to offer more flexibility than just translation.

Or we could have some limited hints about "Contributing in your own language", linking to the Rosetta site for your language. Then it would be up to the local community to hook into this. (Which probably Japanese, Spanish, and some other languages gladly will do.)

[dd32]

Without knowing a word English,

I would argue that most of those still require a level of English comprehension at present.
All of the WordPress documentation is in english, and although some teams have translated some, it's not exactly ideal to rely upon possibly outdated documentation or machine translated documents.

Those organising events under the WordPress umbrella (which is what we primarily focus on) do need to be able to communicate with the team reps, understand the ​(AFAIK english-only) CoC, etc.

The one I will give you, is contributing to localised forums, although they still need to be able to understand the above CoC and other .org policies.

I'm not denying that there's not space within the WordPress contribution landscape for those who do not read/speak a word of English, mostly that right now it's definitely not ideal and shouldn't be a blocker/high-priority task for an MVP - although we're an inclusive community, we're limited by our lack of translated policies and documentation.

[alexstine]

Accessibility issues logged here:

1. ​https://github.com/wceu/contributor-orientation-tool/issues/66
2. ​https://github.com/wceu/contributor-orientation-tool/issues/65
3. ​https://github.com/wceu/contributor-orientation-tool/issues/64

Thanks.

[SeReedMedia]

Okay, ALL great points @dd32! Thank you for taking the time to explain them.

WE was actually meant to refer to the Meta team (I think I qualify now lol)! But I understand how that was unclear and that I did not demonstrate a clear line of "need".

Regarding "need" ... the Contribute tab is BLESSED and barring any last minute problems, it will be including in the 6.3 release!

However, there is currently no landing page that is sufficient for the "Contribute" Call to Action! So when I say "need" ... the 6.3 Release Squad really does need it to be created, so that the Contribute Tab can be implemented properly.

It is especially important because this is a brand new tab and if people click it, even just out of curiosity, we don't want to have them reach a dead end (aka the Make home page). We need those interested people to have a way to come participate.

So for a more appropriate request:

The 6.3 Release Squad in collaboration with the Make Marketing Team requests that the Meta Team create a "Contribute" page on make.wordpress.org (make.wordpress.org/contribute) to hold the Contributor Orientation Tool, which will then be used as the landing page for the primary Call to Action from the Blessed Task ​https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23348#comment:76 that is the new Contribute Tab in the WordPress Admin Dashboard About page.

Replying to dd32:

We need to create a "Contribute" page on make.wordpress.org:

(emphasis mine)

Who is "We" here - it's unclear as to whether this is something that has been "approved" by anyone, or if this is a request from the marketing team / team reps / WordCamp organisers / etc.

"Need" is also a very direct word, 'we need' is highly distinct from something like 'I propose', 'Team X suggests', 'Out of _this_ conversation, we agreed that', etc.

As I'm sure everyone knows, there's a lot of competing ideas within the WordPress community and different teams, sometimes it's hard to distinguish where requests are coming from and how much weight should be given to the requesters high-priority task.
What's High priority to one team may be low to another, etc, and among the Meta team it may be entirely different yet again.

[SeReedMedia]

Replying to dd32:

--> We would like to have the code setup up on a draft Contribute page and assess what styles we need to adjust.

The theme running on make.wordpress.org/ is highly limited and not at all appropriate for freeform content, it'll likely require a fair bit of styling work, I don't know how much.

You'll find the theme here: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/browser/sites/trunk/wordpress.org/public_html/wp-content/themes/pub/wporg-makehome

I am going to try to test this out on a temp site and see if I can't figure out the style needs. I can create CSS for this, but I do not know how I would go about applying those styles. Perhaps we fork the existing contributor tool code into a MakeWP repo and we could add the styles and fix the accessibility issues @alexstine has highlighted there? @dd32 if you could let me know what the best way to proceed with both styles and accessibility fixes, I'd greatly appreciate it!

[SeReedMedia]

Replying to dd32:

Just noting that I haven't reviewed the code, and whomever does set it up on w.org will need to perform a full code review first.

Would this be something that could be done more easily if it was forked? @dd32 could you outline what the steps are to get the code reviewed, and who could be the person/people to do that review?

[ryelle]

There was some ​feedback back in 2019 which I think is still relevant:

If we decide to build v1 for make.wordpress.org, then we could reuse some of the current code, but I think we may want to mostly start fresh, since a lot of the fundamental architecture would be different.

It’d be good to build it in React, using Gutenberg’s component library, similar to how Compassionate Comments was built. We can pull a lot of the data on Make teams from the w.org database, instead of hard-coding it. W.org code conventions are typically a lot leaner than the prototype, following the YAGNI principle; so, just namespaced PHP files instead of OOP that isn’t really using polymorphism or other OOP concepts, no factories, etc. I don’t think we’ll need the wp-admin stuff at all.

Making the steps container into a block that can be put onto that page would probably be a good approach, and could be (in the future) used on wp.org & rosetta.

[SeReedMedia]

Replying to ryelle:

There was some [​https://make.wordpress.org/community/2019/06/17/contributor-orientation-
Making the steps container into a block that can be put onto that page would probably be a good approach, and could be (in the future) used on wp.org & rosetta.

I don't know how long that would take, can you provide any more information on that? This page is something we should build as a MVP so that the About page can launch with an actual Call to Action in 6.3.

If we launch with the existing version, we can upgrade as we go, but if we do not launch it, we will either lose an incredible opportunity to convert potential contributors who click on this brand-new Contribute tab _OR_ we will have to keep it out of 6.3 altogether.

(If we do not have an appropriate landing page, I will recommend/advocate/beg that we to keep it out of 6.3.)

[SeReedMedia]

Fun fact: The Make theme is throwing a critical error on my test site, so ... not sure what to do about that!

[alexstine]

Replying to SeReedMedia:

Fun fact: The Make theme is throwing a critical error on my test site, so ... not sure what to do about that!

Looks like that theme might not be in GitHub yet so you will likely need these mu-plugins.

​https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-mu-plugins

Having the exact error would be helpful. What is your local environment like? In general, it is not easy to test .org sites locally. :( Feel free to reach out on Slack and I can try to assist. Avoid spamming the ticket.

[lakshmananphp]

The current version of the plugin renders via shortcode.
[contributor-orientation-tool]

We can fix the accessibility issues and any other critical bugs and start using the plugin for 6.3.

If time permits, we can improvise or rewrite it with React and Gutenberg's component library for future versions like 6.3.x.

My first comment on a trac thread. I am still new to the Make WP world workflow, so ignore my comment if not relevant.

[SeReedMedia]

I want to flag this page for page copy reference:
​https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/contributor-day/

[SeReedMedia]

I forked the Contributor Orientation Tool to the Make Marketing team repo: ​https://github.com/wpmarketingteam/contributor-orientation-tool

I figured it belonged either with Marketing or with Meta, but I don't have access to Meta, so Marketing it is! I think it'd be great to work from this "in-house" version so we can manage the pull requests quickly, shape it to Meta's requirements and make.wordpress.org's needs, and manage the accessibility component fully. This will also give the Marketing Team access for ongoing copy updates, etc.

I got a working Contributor Tool plugin file from @lakshmananphp, who commented above and was working on the tool for WC Asia. I tested it on a temp site here: ​https://oud-plover-bivo.instawp.xyz/sample-page/ (available until ~8:00 UTC, Sunday, July 2)

It works. It needs a few copy revisions and the noted accessibility edits to be MVP, but it is very close to being shippable, if not perfect.

Since we don't yet have vetted code that we can test on Make, I will implement @alexstine's suggestions regarding the Make theme above and continue to try to get the Make theme working on a temp site so we can determine what will need to be updated style-wise.

[ryelle]

I went down a rabbit hole last weekend and tried building this from scratch as a block. My result is in a personal github repo: ​https://github.com/ryelle/wporg-contributor-orientation/, the readme there has some screenshots of how it could look on make.w.org (using the new theme for this page so that it has better block style support).

My aim was an MVP, so it only handles showing the questions & results, there's no team management. I also did not do anything more than the bare minimum for styles :)

Let me know what you think - if it looks good, we can move it over to the WordPress org and iterate there, or you could continue with wpmarketingteam/contributor-orientation-tool.

[SeReedMedia]

This is amazing. Is there any reason we CAN'T move this to a draft page and see what we have? We don't need any fancy features, just a MVP works perfectly for this stage!

Replying to ryelle:

I went down a rabbit hole last weekend and tried building this from scratch as a block. My result is in a personal github repo: ​https://github.com/ryelle/wporg-contributor-orientation/, the readme there has some screenshots of how it could look on make.w.org (using the new theme for this page so that it has better block style support).

My aim was an MVP, so it only handles showing the questions & results, there's no team management. I also did not do anything more than the bare minimum for styles :)

Let me know what you think - if it looks good, we can move it over to the WordPress org and iterate there, or you could continue with wpmarketingteam/contributor-orientation-tool.

[lakshmananphp]

@SeReedMedia I've added a demo of the block version here. ​https://ious-eagle-kimo.instawp.xyz/contribute/

great work @ryelle

P.S
It is a sandbox and expires in the next 6 days

[ryelle]

The new block is now up at ​https://make.wordpress.org/contribute/ 🎉

I know we still have some copy changes incoming, and likely want to update the look of it too. The code lives on github, so anyone is welcome to make PRs or issues for things to improve.

​https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-contributor-orientation

I think we can leave this ticket open until we're satisfied with the initial version to launch, just so everyone involved can stay notified. Then future iteration discussions can happen directly in github.

[alexstine]

@ryelle Initial thoughts. These might be already tracked in GitHub, but about to leave the office for the weekend and want to get these in on a stable connection.

1. Instead of "Contribute", maybe "Contribute Survey" or "Make WordPress Team Matcher"? Contribute feels really vague.
2. These symbols do not work for screen readers.

"Iʼm a developer"
Please replace with actual "'" symbols.

3. On the last step, could we please do away with the "Learn more about X »" links? The titles are clickable and that should be good enough. If the links must stay, let's rewrite them to say: "Support: learn more" or similar as repeated learn more is an anti-pattern for accessibility. The icon also needs to go.

Thanks.

[lakshmananphp]

I agree with @alexstine's comments.

I also think that we can change the step titles too.

I am not a copywriter or marketer, but these suggestions are some examples.

Let's find the right Make Team for you to contribute.
Step 1:
How do you use WordPress?
Step 2:
What are you passionate about?
Step 3:
What is your experience?
Step 4:
Start contributing

[ryelle]

I've fixed the apostrophes & removed the learn more links, but haven't made any content changes. @SeReedMedia and the marketing team recently reviewed the content, so there will be updates soon.

[SeReedMedia]

WOW. So sorry for the delay in a content update. I didn't realize this had been published.

It looks AMAZING. I've taken it to draft for now, so that we can get the content updated. The content from that test is NOT the final or proposed content.

@alexstine and @lakshmananphp you can view the new text from the Marketing team here: ​https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ljozcs3jTY2b9JgfuRF7fwtjozn596HTptGp2E_SI9I/edit

If you have any immediate changes, please let me know, but I am currently doing a PR for the content using the revised text from that doc. Once that is updated, we can re-publish and review.

And THANK YOU again @ryelle! This is truly an amazing feat.

[SeReedMedia]

I created the Pull Request for the content update!

​https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-contributor-orientation/pull/2

[lakshmananphp]

@SeReedMedia Can we add Patterns to the design and/or content creator section?

I think Patterns can be a good choice for first time contributors who don't code.

The content update looks great!

[huzaifaalmesbah]

I agree with @lakshmananphp Patterns are a good choice for first-time contributors. And also, @SeReedMedia I'm glad you the content updates appealing.

[ryelle]

I've merged the content updates from @SeReedMedia, and added the block back to ​https://make.wordpress.org/contribute/ — I also tidied that page up a little so the typography, spacing, etc was more consistent with the redesign.

There's an issue with the contributor tool where some teams are not possible results, I've outlined that in ​this issue on github. Future work on the contributor block should take place on github.

Are there any other changes needed for this page, or can we close this issue?