To understand the Community Summit selection process, it is important to understand the Purpose of the Community Summit. If you have not read that post, we encourage you to read it first.
Between now and the end of June, the organizing team is reviewing applications and extending Community Summit invitations on a rolling basis. In determining which applicants to invite to the Summit, the organizing team is focused on bringing together diverse representation from across the project. This includes a balance of new and experienced contributors from across geographies, organizations, and Make Teams. Our goal is to have a diverse and inclusive summit that provides a safe and encouraging space for contributors. In particular, the organizing team seeks to create space for voices that are not regularly heard within the project. This includes voices that are underrepresented in WordPress; newer contributors; and people who bring fresh perspectives, such as from other open source communities. The Community Summit is currently raising funds for a travel assistance program, to ensure that finances are not a barrier to attendance.
The Summit aims to gather a diverse group of people who can do one or more of the following:
- Represent the needs of each Make team *
- Bring fresh perspectives, ideas, and solutions; especially from other arenas, such as other fields or other open source projects **
- Bring insight into how WordPress is used in various areas (such as hosting, plugin companies, search engines, the public sector, specific business sectors, small business, enterprise, etc.) and what struggles are associated with using WordPress in those different contexts
- Speak to specific struggles affecting various regions
- Bring historical knowledge of various parts of the WordPress project
- Be able to help enact changes in various parts of the project (existing leaders)
* To inform application review and selection, the organizing team consulted the team reps for each Make team for their recommendations of who should represent their team at the Community Summit.
** The organizing team also asked WordPress Community Mentors to encourage promising new voices in WordPress from their respective regions to apply to participate in the Summit.
In reviewing applications, the organizing team continually considers what voices and perspectives are missing or underrepresented among Summit participants, and strives to prioritize filling those gaps. Every team from across the project must be represented at the Summit. It’s important to note that the organizing team received a tremendous number of applications from Community team and Core team contributors. In order to ensure balanced representation, many of these applicants will not be invited to attend. This includes numerous deeply valued contributors to WordPress. We truly believe that this balance, as difficult as it might be to achieve, will help to ensure all voices are heard.
While the Community Summit is one forum in which to discuss the future of WordPress, it is by no means the only forum. Fortunately, there are established pathways to provide input and shape the WordPress project, including through Contributor Day discussions, Make team participation, and sharing ideas on Make WordPress blogs. Those forums are where the important, ongoing, sometimes challenging, and often rewarding work of shaping and sustaining the WordPress project happens.