How to Get Involved with WordPress

WordPress software is open source. As the WordPress.org About Page says, “Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community.”

So how do you become one of those who help out? How do you find out what’s going on and where you might fit in?

Well, that’s just gotten a little easier with the creation of a “new collaboration space,” as WordPress Co-founder Matt Mullenweg calls it.

Even if you’ve been to the wordpress.org website in the last few days, you may not have noticed that there’s a new top-level navigation tab labeled “Get Involved.” It’s there that you’ll find your entrance to this swirling world of code and creativity.

To Click or Not to Click

Clicking on this “Get Involved” menu item or one of its sub-menus could lead you into a rabbit hole that may end up changing your life, for what lies down each of those little silos is the heart and soul of a software being created, the factory where the WordPress sausage gets made.

In each section you’ll find a blog (what else?) that details the issues of the day for that little part of the WordPress world. You’ll find discussions, announcements, instructions, and questions.

Follow these discussion. Get involved in them. Begin dipping your toe in here and there.

 

Where to Begin?

Obviously if you already have a strong preference for one of the eight major sections that currently reside in the “collaboration space,” then you may want to begin there. However, no matter which section you lean toward, you may want to check out the Core Contributor Handbook found under the Core tab.

While still a work in progress, this handbook should prove to be an invaluable resource for getting an overview of how WordPress gets made.

And on a related note, and as an example of the fruit that following these internal blogs can produce, it just so happens that WordPress needs someone to be “a lead” for the handbook. They are looking for someone to oversee the project, helping to expand it, edit it, work with contributors and developers, and even see it into print.

How would you like that on your resume? It could be. That or something like it.

Just follow the blogs. … Follow the blogs. … Follow the blogs. … Follow the blogs. …

 

Tags:

• developers
• open source