Presented at WordCamp Portland, September 23, 2017. It’s no secret that one of the WordPress core team’s greatest barriers to entry is contributors feeling like they don’t have anything of value to offer; nothing could be further from the truth. Every potential contributor has something to offer whether they realize it or not, and this session will give them many of the tools and advice they’ll need to succeed in helping to influence the future of WordPress. Topics covered: entry points for contributors of all levels, whether they’re developers, designers, copywriters, or everyday users. We’ll briefly cover the process of joining the “Making WordPress” community, methods to have your voice heard, submitting patches and keeping trac tickets moving, bringing core down to the local community level, and more.

1. How to Win Friends &
Influence WordPress Core
WordCamp Portland, 2017

2. Drew
DrewAPicture
- Est. WP 3.3
- Core Committer
2013-present
- Former Docs Team lead
- Sandhills Development
(EDD, RCP, AffWP)

3. What This Isn’t
“10 Steps to Becoming a Core Committer”
“7 Tips & Tricks to Getting Code into Core”

4. This is a Strategy

5. Who This is For
New Contributors
Jaded Former Contributors
Seasoned Contributors
All the contributors

6. Roadmap to Success
Establish your contributor identity
Do your homework
Respect the process
Get ‘er done

7. Establish Yourself
1. Show Up
core.trac.wordpress.org

8. Show Up
“Do-ocracy”

9. Show Up
Core Trac
“Making WordPress” Slack
Weekly Dev Chats
make/core

10. Establish Yourself
2. Keep Showing Up
(establish reliability)
make.wordpress.org/chat

11. Keep Showing Up
Avoid “drive thru”
contributing

12. Establish Yourself
2b. Seriously, please
keep showing up
make.wordpress.org/great-again/

13. Do Your Homework
3. RTFM
(read the fun manual)
make.wordpress.org/core/handbook

14. Do Your Homework
4. Find Your “Thing”
make.wordpress.org/core/components

15. Respect the Process
5. Be Patient
johnblackbourn.com/wp/stats.html
(drewf.us/wpstats)

16. Respect the Process
6. Be Careful
With Agendas

17. Be Careful With Agendas
Good: Documenting Admin JS (Yoast)
Bad: I want a thing because I want it

18. Respect the Process
6b. Multiple
Maintainership

19. Respect the Process
7. Don’t Take
Anything Personally

20. Respect the Process
7. Don’t Take
Anything Personally
EVER

21. Do It
8. Price Tickets
to Move

22. Price Tickets to Move
“Good First Bugs”

23. Price Tickets to Move
Set Component
and Focuses

24. Do It
9. Be Heard
(respectfully)

25. Be Heard
Decision-makers *expect* to be pinged
Ping on Trac, Slack, make/core (within reason)

26. *Extra Credit
10. Bring Core to
Your Community

27. *Extra Credit
Gutenberg Testing
Beta/New Feature Testing
Give a Meetup or WordCamp Talk!

28. Case Studies

29. Case Studies
#13237 - Absence of alots lowers community morale
#21170 - JavaScript actions and filters
#37128 - Introduce helper function wp_list_sort()
#41730 - The default for the view_mode_post_types filter
is non-hierarchical post types, not hierarchical
#41925 - Bring back, support and document
%1$s support in wpdb->prepare

30. Questions?
@DrewAPicture
Slack: @drew
Slides: drewf.us/wcpdx17