Schedule
The 2023 WordPress Community Summit schedule is now published! Please check out the schedule and discussion topics.
How were these topics selected?
At the heart of the Community Summit are 26 discussion topics, which address pressing issues in WordPress that require cross-team and project-wide discourse. Our topic selection process began with an open call for topic suggestions, where anyone could submit their ideas. We also asked team representatives from each Make team to share their topic ideas.
The organizing team then embarked on a review process, asking key questions like: ‘What topics truly necessitate cross-team or project-wide collaboration?’ and ‘What topics require face-to-face dialogue to facilitate progress?’ In some cases, we synthesized multiple submissions into one discussion topic, or divided one submission into multiple topics. The following people contributed to this process: Aaron Campbell, Angela Jin, Chloé Bringmann, Jeff Paul, Jon Desrosiers, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Julia Golomb, Kevin Cristiano.
Please note that the 2023 Community Summit focuses on cross-team and project-wide discussions, not topics that are team-specific. Instead, we encourage Make teams to discuss pressing team-specific topics during Contributor Day. For more on this, please review this post about the Community Summit Purpose.
Discussion format
Discussions will be held over two days, with four discussions running concurrently. Attendees will self-select which discussion sessions they attend.
There are three important roles for each discussion:
- Facilitator: Facilitators guide discussions, maintain focus, and encourage participation. Their goal is to ensure productive conversations with actionable outcomes.
- Stack and timekeeper: This role will track the order in which participants raise their hand to speak – to help ensure that everyone who wants to has a chance to speak. They will also keep track of time, to ensure that there is time for wrap-up at the end of the discussion block – including adequate time to review and clarify action items.
- Notetaker: Notetakers document the key points that come up during the discussion, including areas of agreement and divergence. They will track action items and who is responsible for each follow-up task. The notetaker is a very important role, because after the Summit ends, they are responsible for posting a discussion summary on the Community Summit blog – which is where further, community-wide discussion will be held. Each discussion will have two notetakers.
A forthcoming post will provide more guidance about the stack/timekeeper and notetaker roles.
Discussion guidelines
To encourage a collaborative atmosphere, we ask that participants agree to the following discussion guidelines:
- Leave space for everyone’s voice to be heard
- Seek understanding through questions
- Maintain a collaborative mindset: be tough on the issues, and easy on each other
- Speak from your own perspective and experience; avoid speaking for others unless you’ve been asked to do so
- Maintain non-attribution: While the substance of discussions may be shared outside of the Summit, please refrain from attributing ideas/statements/etc. to specific individuals.
Documenting discussions
After the Community Summit concludes, a comprehensive summary of each discussion will be published on the Community Summit blog by the notetakers for that discussion session. Remember, decisions are not made at the Summit. They are made via the Community Summit blog (https://make.wordpress.org/summit/), to ensure transparency and public participation.
Some practical tips
- Coffee and lunch will be provided during both days. Please make arrangements for your own breakfast and dinner.
- We expect all attendees to fully participate in the two-day Community Summit program. Please avoid scheduling external calls and meetings during the Community Summit program.
Please stay tuned for further updates. We can’t wait to see you at the Community Summit!