If you’re running a WordPress Theme Shop then you’re in the enviable position of having a free platform that you can build your business around. The hard work of building the CMS is taken care of for you by a dedicated group of volunteers from all over the world. But since you do get WordPress for free, and are able to do so much with it, have you ever thought of contributing back to the community?
Why Contribute?
Contributing to WordPress is a great way to give back to the product that you’ve built a whole business on. However, if you aren’t feeling particularly altruistic, there are other reasons for contributing:
- keeps you close to the WordPress codebase – you’ll know what’s changing and why it’s changing.
- keeps you on top of WordPress best practices and coding standards.
- gives you an opportunity to learn from some of the best developers in the world.
- provides a supportive community that will help you to learn things you are unfamiliar with.
- it will improve your business’s reputation and community members will be inclined to promote you.
- you’ll make new business contacts.
Now that you’re convinced, let’s take a look at some of the ways you can do it.
Core
Contributing to WordPress core means helping to develop and build WordPress itself. You can help out with core by testing for bugs and beta testing. If you want to contribute patches you’ll need to learn how to use Subversion, or you can develop using the WordPress repository on Github (this is synced with Subversion every 15 minutes). If you have no idea what any of that means, check out the WordPress core contributor handbook. It is currently a work in progress but does have information about creating patches and coding standards.
You don’t necessarily have to write PHP to contribute to WordPress, you could also write JavaScript or CSS, you could help with writing content or developing user experience. To learn more about it check out the WordPress core development P2, or stop by the IRC Chatroom on freenode #wordpress-dev.
Theme Review
If you’re running your theme business then you know quite a lot about WordPress themes. That means the theme review team could be the perfect place for you to help out. This team reviews every theme that is submitted to the WordPress theme repository. It checks each theme against its review guidelines and carries out unit tests to make sure that it is suitable and working. There is a guide to joining the theme review team on their blog.
If you do want to get involved you should already be proficient with coding and CSS, as you’ll be spending a lot of time looking at source code and making recommendations as to how people can fix things. This process will give you a better understanding of how code works – you’ll learn how to spot things are are bad practices and gain a better critical eye for your own work.
Support
The WordPress.org support forums are staffed entirely by volunteers. These volunteers answer the thousands of questions generated by WordPress users all over the world. Helping out on support forums can be a really good way to stay in touch with issues that WordPress users are currently facing. You don’t need to be an expert to help out, you just need to know the answer to one question – this could be anything from simply pointing a user to the right place in their Admin Screens to providing a CSS fix.
Just answering a few questions every day is a big contribution to the community. There’s no learning curve – all you need to do is to stop by the WordPress.org support forums, pick a question and answer it. That’s it – you’ve contributed to WordPress.
Translation
Around 40% of WordPress downloads aren’t in the English language. This means that WordPress translations have to be maintained in multiple languages. The main home for translators is the Polyglots blog, where issues and features relating to translation are discussed. Each language has its own translation team that translates the strings to make WordPress accessible to non-English speakers across the world.
If you’re fluent in more than one language and are interested in translating, check the Polyglots blog to see if there is a team that you can get involved with.
Documentation
The docs team is responsible for the Codex and other documentation tasks around WordPress. The Codex needs to be regularly updated, especially around new releases of WordPress. It’s important that documentation stays up-to-date as this creates a better overall experience for users.
Anyone can edit the Codex – all that you need is a WordPress.org username. Go to the Codex and you’ll find an edit link on the right hand side where you can edit the pages. You could do anything from fixing a typo to creating a whole new page. The docs team also runs other projects on WordPress.org. A major project that is running right now is the creation of WordPress contributor handbooks which will help people contribute to WordPress.
Organise an Event
You could organise a WordPress event in your local area. There are two main types of WordPress events – WordCamps and Meetups. WordCamps are one to two day annual conferences at which WordPress users gather together to share knowledge, listen to presentations, and socialise. They are sometimes followed by a hack day at which developers work on WordPress.org core tickets or related projects. Meetups are regular events that usually last a few hours and happen more regularly, once a month for example. They often are focused on a presentation, or groups of WordPress users will get together to work on a project together.
If you’d like to plan a WordCamp it’s a good idea to get started with a Meetup. This helps to grow the community in your local area. WordCamps are usually more successful in areas that have a vibrant community. You can learn more about organizing WordCamps at WordCamp Central.
There are also new contributor groups forming, with new projects. Keep up with the WordPress updates blog or check out the Contributing to WordPress page on the WordPress Codex.
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