Milana Cap 8:00 am on June 13, 2022  

Onboarding to Documentation team

Here is some quick info you need in order to start contributing to Documentation team.

Accounts:

Places:

  • Blog – for meeting agendas and summaries (and anything related to Docs team).
  • Slack channel #docs – where meetings are happening (and all communication regarding the team itself).
  • GitHub repository – where issues for all documentation are reported, discussed and worked on.
  • Handbook – how to contribute to the Documentation team (it’s a bit out of date).
  • Style guide – for how to write WordPress documentation.

Meetings (alternating every week) on Tuesdays at 2PM UTC:

  • Regular meeting with agenda published on our blog.
  • Issues triage where we discuss issues from the GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository.

Live onboarding sessions

We recorded onboarding sessions for everyone interested in getting started with the Documentation team. We know that our “Getting started” documentation is out of date and getting involved can be very confusing and frustrating so we hope to ease the process with these sessions.

Overview

Recording: https://wordpress.tv/2022/06/21/milana-cap-overview-onboarding-for-wordpress-documentation-team/

A more recent onboarding session, recorded on 28th July 2023, can be found here: https://wordpress.tv/2023/08/01/jenni-mckinnon-milana-cap-wordpress-documentation-team-onboarding-july-2023/

End user documentation

Developer documentation

Developer documentation – PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party handbook

Developer documentation – Common APIs handbook

Developer documentation – Code reference handbook

Developer documentation – BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor handbook

Developer documentation – Themes handbook

Contributor documentation – Documentation team handbook

Github related roles

If you have any questions or you’d like to have an “in more detail” session, feel free to leave the comment below.

Milana Cap 1:38 pm on October 21, 2025
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X-post: Documentation Team Update – October 21, 2025

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Milana Cap 10:01 am on October 14, 2025
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X-post: Documentation Team Update – October 14, 2025

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Milana Cap 12:24 pm on September 29, 2025
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X-post: Documentation Team Update – September 29, 2025

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Milana Cap 12:22 pm on September 22, 2025
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X-post: Documentation Team Update – September 22, 2025

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Milana Cap 9:35 am on September 19, 2025  

The stepping away of a team member

The Documentation team’s leadership has asked Jenni McKinnon to step away from the team.

Recent changes in the structure of the WordPress release squad started a discussion about the role of the Documentation team in documenting the release. While the team was working with the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team, the release squad, and Mary Hubbard to find a solution for this and future releases, Jenni posted comments that were out of alignment with the team, including calls for broad changes across the project and requests to remove certain members from leadership roles.

This ran counter to the Documentation team’s intentions. Docs leadership reached out privately in an effort to de-escalate the situation and asked Jenni to stop posting such comments, but this behaviour did not stop. As a result, the team has decided to ask her to step away for a period of time to reassess her involvement. We will work with her to explore rejoining the team in the future, if it aligns with the best outcomes for both her and the team.

As a team, we apologise to the community and to the individuals mentioned for any inconvenience these comments have caused. These do not reflect the views of the Documentation team, and we are committed to ensuring that they are not perceived as such.

The Documentation team reps: @kenshino, @atachibana, and @milana_cap.

Maruti Mohanty 5:37 am on September 19, 2025
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X-post: Call for Mentors

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/community: Call for Mentors

Estela Rueda 4:59 pm on September 18, 2025
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Summary of Docs Team meeting September 16, 2025

Attendance

@estelaris, @milana_cap, @ninianepress, @sagargurnani, @atachibana, @azharderaiya, @mosescursor, @aialvi, @sirlouen, @rollybueno

Housekeeping

Find the complete Transcript of the meeting on Slack.

Upcoming meetings

Open Floor

@milana_cap and @estelaris attended the #core meeting on September 10 and our conclusion is that coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team wasn’t aware of the tasks of the docs team during a release. For 6.9 release, @estelaris accepted a temporary Docs Liaison, to not interfere with release work and to have a proposal from the docs team on how we want to collaborate in future releases.

The Docs Liaison will attend the release team meetings in the #6.9 release leads channel, review the roadmap to create the 6.9-related user documentation and to support the team during the final release day. DevNotes will be the responsibility of core committers, the 6.9 GH project has been created to track both DevNotes and User documentation.

@estelaris will work with the 6.9 release team on final release day to create/update the release documentation. In order to mentor other documentarians on this workflow, during the next Contributor Day (September 23), docs will have a mentoring session on this topic and record videos to add to the handbook page Documentation process during a major version release day.

Other topic discussed was how #docs team gives props to contributors and we agreed to review our process on this topic.

As a summary, the team committed to discuss the following in the next discussion meeting on September 30:

  • Gather all the release-related documentation (from core & docs handbooks) and review the sections that are pertinent to docs. Update what’s needed, change the vocabulary/tone and length. We know people don’t read and sometimes handbooks are written in a difficult English.
  • Create a proposal of how docs wants to work in future releases (@estelaris to write a draft), including tasks and timing.
  • Define which contributors tasks should be recognized (is there an automatization we can add to GH/WP?)  eg. when they submit an issue, submit drafts, publish a new article, etc.
  • Decide what goes for noteworthy and what goes for “regular” release contributor.

Among other handbook workflows we need to review:

  • Define team members vs team contributors
  • Update the team page
  • Documentation team profile badge
  • Add props and ask for peer reviews on meeting notes

Gathering the list of updated files

Thank you to @sirlouen for showing us how to gather the updated files list during a release cycle.

Props to @milana_cap and @ninianepress for reviewing the notes

Jenni McKinnon 3:40 pm on September 18, 2025
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Online monthly Docs Team Contributor Day September 23, 2025

The Documentation Team holds an online, monthly Contributor Day on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Any one may join who wishes to contribute to the team and who follows the Code of Conduct.

The next Docs Team Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.

The next monthly online Docs Team Contributor Day will be:

When: Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC for 3 hours.

Where: #docs channel on Slack, and on Google Meet.

Please also see the ongoing Contributor Day post on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ for onboarding and other important details.

Onboarding

In addition to the details in the GitHub issue for this Contributor Day, folks who are in need of onboarding can ask in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. or on the video call.

If at any time you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the #docs channel on Slack or on the video call throughout the day.

To all contributors

To every contributor and attendee: Thank you. We’re so grateful for your time, care, and dedication. Cookies 🍪🍪🍪 and kudos all around! While no token of appreciation could ever match the depth of your impact on the WordPress project and our community, we hope you know just how seen, valued, and celebrated you truly are – even when words fall short.

We may not be able to thank you enough today – but maybe one day we can, because we’re part of an incredible community that can make it happen. Whatever “it” is, we’ll do it. Together.

#contributor-day, #docs

Jenni McKinnon 3:01 pm on September 16, 2025
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Summary of Docs Team meeting September 9, 2025

Attendance

@estelaris, @milana_cap, @ninianepress, @sagargurnani, @jdy68

Housekeeping

Find the complete Transcript of the meeting on Slack.

Upcoming meetings

Open floor

@estelaris shared these updates about the next release, which was discussed:

  1. “CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. is experimenting with a smaller release team to avoid pitfalls. The experiment will be re-evaluated after this release.
  2. There seems to be no need to have docs team as a named lead in releases, I argued the importance that it has to us, mainly we want to mentor other contributors and releases are like an “extra” benefit for the team.
  3. Also, the release team needs to plan better so they can ask us for someone to update the HelpHub pages – known to us as the WP version pages

For releases, Mary recommended that we name a Docs Liaison person that will commit to update in documentation anything related to the releases (User documentation, WP version pages, etc.).

Docs will not be in charge of wrangling/writing any DevHub articles related to releases. Updating issues that are posted in the Docs Issue Tracker is still on the balance, as I found out that many core committers had no clue that issues were reported to us, so they don’t update anything util someone from docs reports the issue on TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/..

And the biggest issue that we need to decide is the updating of the WP version pages. The last 3 minor releases, I have done it. 1 time I was asked when the release was being planned and the other 2 times, at the last minute. So I mentioned that we need to plan better and find a way to work together and create a process that works for both teams.

The response from core is that we give access to all core committers so they can update the WordPress version pages, that is a list of 40 people. And I said I wasn’t comfortable in giving access to everyone, perhaps a few, my reasons the version pages are in the same site as the rest of the documentation and the docs team is in charge of maintaining the version pages also. Giving access to everyone, means we will be called less and less to help on releases or anything else.

Here is the chat to the main conversation.”

#docs, #meetings, #summary

Milana Cap 12:20 pm on September 16, 2025
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Agenda for Discussion Meeting September 16, 2025

The meeting is scheduled with the following details:

When: Tuesday, September 16, 2025, 14:00 UTC

Where: #docs channel on Slack

Agenda:

  1. Attendance.
  2. Note-taker and facilitator selection for the next docs team meeting.
  3. Project check.
  4. Open floor.

If there’s anything you’d like to discuss on the open floor, please leave a comment.

#agenda, #docs, #meetings