WordPress 4.0 – the latest version of the world’s most popular blogging and CMS platform dropped earlier this month. So what’s next?
If you’re a user or developer who loves working with WordPress, then this is a great time to get involved in the community that builds it! Planning and preparations for the 4.1 release are already underway, but are still in the early stages – so if you have an idea that you’d like to see in the next version of WordPress, this is the perfect time to make a suggestion!
Even if you’re not the next prodigy developer looking to build an amazing new feature, there are plenty of ways to get involved with the community and make a big impact. Just take a look at http://make.wordpress.org to see what I mean.
When most people think about contributing to WordPress, they’re thinking about writing code or testing for Core, but there are a lot more ways to get involved. Whether you’re a user or developer, here are some great ways to get involved with WordPress community projects:
- Got an idea for a new feature in WordPress?
If you’re interested in leading development on a new feature, you should join the Feature Plugin Chat on September 23rd at 4pm EST. More details at: http://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/09/16/feature-plugin-chat-on-september-23/ - Are you a developer, but don’t know where to start?
The majority of the work on contributing code to WordPress involves investigating and submitting patches for bug reports. There’s even a special area for new contributors called Good First Bugs for New Contributors you can look through here – https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/good-first-bugs - Do you want to make it easier to find information for developers?
There’s a great handbooks initiative happening at: http://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/tutorials-and-guides/handbooks/ that’s slated to be finished this fall. Their team meets on Wednesdays at 5pm – just go to: http://chat.freenode.net and type in #wordpress-sfd to join - Are you passionate about WordPress themes?
All of the themes on WordPress.org are reviewed by community volunteers to ensure they meet community standards before they go live, and there’s always a huge number of themes that need to be reviewed. If you’d like to help out with theme reviews and, the theme review team is starting a mentoring program for new theme reviewers. More information can be found at: http://wptavern.com/wordpress-theme-review-team-to-launch-mentoring-program
These are only a few of the ways to get involved with WordPress. You can find a full list at http://make.wordpress.org. From personal experience, I can tell you that contributing to the community is a great experience that will make you a better user/developer/community member and you will absolutely benefit personally and professionally from getting involved.
If you’re still not sure where to start, but want to get involved with the community, we’re hosting a WordPress Contributors night in Portland (Maine) on October 2nd, where we’ll be covering all of this in more detail and start contributing right away. Details for the event can be found at: http://www.meetup.com/Southern-Maine-WordPress-Meetup/events/205391932/
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