Rocio Valdivia 12:01 pm on January 16, 2024
Tags: events ( 29 ), feedback ( 10 ), highlight ( 13 ), homepage ( 2 ), next-gen-events ( 15 )

Share your feedback about the new WordPress Events Page!

As announced in December, we have a new centralized WordPress Events landing page in WordPress.org that aims to give more visibility to all kinds of WordPress events around the globe. It shows next WordPress upcoming events like WordCamps scheduled, MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. and Next Gen WordPress Events (WordPress Events from now on).

For context, that landing page was the result of an initiative that I started with a post back in August 2023 that ended up with a first GitHub issue and a series of other related issues.

What we have now

The first iteration of this project created the following three pages:

Call for feedback!

Those three pages are just the beginning of a vision where we bring WordPress Events closer to our users and visitors of WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.

The most important goal how I envision it, it’s for the Events landing page and the Organizers Landing page to become the main and only pages that anyone would need to check and/or share when want to check for upcoming WordPress events and/or when want to check or share any info about how to become a WordPress event organizer.

We want to keep iterating and your feedback is key to doing it! Please leave your comments with any relevant feedback about how you would improve those pages, and texts… are you missing anything relevant? Any ideas are welcome!

#events-2, #feedback, #highlight, #homepage, #next-gen-events

Taco Verdonschot 12:36 pm on January 16, 2024

Who are we building events.wordpress.org for?

Existing WordPress community
I’d consider everyone who is aware there are events like meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. and conferences around WordPress part of this group. If they are the target audience, the home page should probably focus on highlighting the next events (near them), and on speaking and volunteering opportunities at those events.

WP event organizers
Everyone who is part of an organizing team of a WordPress event, like a meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. or WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more.. Their need is probably more related to tips and tricks on how to organize an event, how to find speakers, etc. If the home page is meant for them, we’d want to highlight blog posts addressing their needs.

New audience
But, most likely, we want to draw a new audience to our event. We want this page to help us grow the attendance of WP events, and raise awareness about the fact that these types of events exist in the WP space.
In that case, we should probably focus on showing what the value of attending such events is, and where to find them (near you).

In any case, I think we should get renowned digital marketers in our space (e.g. @joostdevalk, @jonoaldersonwp, and/or @alexmoss) involved.
- Alex Moss 3:16 pm on January 16, 2024
  
  Would love to input wherever is best 🙂
- Steve Dufresne 1:29 am on January 17, 2024
  In my opinion, we need to focus on getting new users (or users who have stopped attending) to attend a WordPress event — which was the impetus behind this page. We want users to join an event and hopefully tell someone about it. The homepage should be tuned to do that.
  
  With that in mind, what strategy would the experts suggest?
  
  Here are some ideal outcomes:
  
  When someone searches for “WordPress events”, they don’t receive a list of plugins but instead
  - events.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ (or wp.org/events)
  - next event nearest to me
    
    or previous event nearest to me which directs me to something i can join, if there aren’t any events near me, flagship event or online.
  When someone searches for “learn WordPress” they receive the following results:
  - learn.wordpress.org
  - events.wordpress.org (or wp.org/events)
    
    next event nearest to me
  When someone searches for “contribute to WordPress” they receive the following results:
  - make.wordpress.org
  - events.wordpress.org (or wp.org/events)
  - Joost de Valk 1:56 pm on January 19, 2024
    
    I agree with those outcomes.
    
    UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. Changes
    
    The new design is much better than central.wordcamp.org, but we need to decide where this section should be. If we agree that this page is not “just” for community members, it should be its own main nav item.
    
    The sub nav underneath is also very unclear, this improvement would be a great step forward.
    
    And then I have a ton more feedback on what that page actually looks like, best expressed with this image.
    
    Website copy
    
    The second step should be to change the copy to attract different audiences better. So, it’s not about the community; it’s about the events themselves and what you can hear, see, and learn there. If people then become part of the community, that’s awesome. But it shouldn’t be a pre-requisite for coming to the event 🙂
    
    Technical SEO
    
    I think we could truly help with some Schema as well, but I’m honestly not interested in coding that if we don’t use something like Yoast SEO. It’s just too much work to even get the basics right at that point, and that’s just a waste of time. Every event page also needs proper social images and descriptions, something much more easily managed with an SEO 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.
    
    Now, I’m no longer connected to Yoast other than being its founder, but I much prefer to use that because it has a decent Schema API.
    - Alex Moss 9:06 am on January 20, 2024
      
      Chiming in to contribute as part of Yoast wherever applicable, but Joost’s comments are spot on.
Joost de Valk 3:25 pm on January 16, 2024
I have quite a few questions, but let’s start with:

Strategy
- How did we decide on the main heading? “Meet the community behind WordPress” – if someone goes to an event page, they might not be interested in that at all. They might just want to learn about WordPress, or what’s new with WordPress, or just “go to an event”. Why do they have to meet the community? They probably don’t even know that the WordPress community is a thing. Ties back to Taco’s question above: who are the audiences for this site and did we think through what they’d want to do on this site?
- Do we keep https://central.wordcamp.org/ alive when we also have this? Why? Seems like double work to me 🙂 If not, what’s the timeline for closing the other one down?
- If we’re going to close central.wordcamp.org, will we also slowly be moving WordCamps to this site, or will we keep on using wordcamp.org for that?
- What’s the difference between a WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. and an event like this – does it even matter?
- What will the WordPress dashboard events feed contain, and where will people clicking those events land? Will this replace links to meetup.com?
Design
- This event I linked above – how do I get back from this page to the main events.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ page?
- A question I asked elsewhere too: why is the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. a new color when I switch from wordpress.org to here?
- Why isn’t Events a main menu item? (There’s an issue for that, I know)
Website copy
- On this page there’s an “Organizers note” visible on a published page.
- This event I linked above – it’s already happened, right? Why isn’t that clear from the page?
Technical / SEO
- Why is it on events.wordpress.org and not wordpress.org/events/ – basically, this is a new site, instead of using the “power” that wordpress.org already has.
- What am I meant to be doing when I land on this page? It’s indexed in Google, but I don’t think it “is” anything.
- Why don’t we have any event schema on these pages? (See here)
- Ian Dunn 6:59 pm on January 16, 2024
  What am I meant to be doing when I land on this page? It’s indexed in Google, but I don’t think it “is” anything.
  
  Why don’t we have any event schema on these pages?
  Thanks for pointing those out. I created https://github.com/WordPress/wordcamp.org/issues/1204 and https://github.com/WordPress/wordcamp.org/issues/1205 to track them.
  - Ian Dunn 7:03 pm on January 22, 2024
    Those are both done now. Here’s a few examples of the structured event data:
    
    Jakarta Web Challenge:
    
    https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=W55XW0bxATLEGbXvmqO7WA
    
    https://validator.schema.org/#url=https%3A%2F%2Fevents.wordpress.org%2Fjakarta%2F2024%2Fweb-challenge%2F
    
    WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Phoenix:
    
    https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=-jBwrVg-DefKqu2260eOkQs
    
    https://validator.schema.org/#url=https%3A%2F%2Fphoenix.wordcamp.org%2F2024%2F
    
    I added them on WordCamp/NextGen homepages only, because Google recommends putting it there instead of pages that list multiple events.
Patricia BT 9:23 am on January 17, 2024

I’d like to see a page with past events.
And the map of meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups like on https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/

Because some people may be interested to join a group, but if there is no next meetup listed, it’s not on the map, as if the group didn’t even exist (often a meetup event is created after the last one has passed)
A newcomer may look at the map and think “oh, there’s nothing in my area”.

Note: I just saw that a “Past events” page is in the works
Juan Hernando 9:24 am on January 18, 2024

The problem I see with “getting rid” of Central is that there are so many parts of the event program that are automated and depend on that site. Internally with the tracker, creation of WordCamps sites, sponsors, budgets, payments… And externally with very important (but I guess little used) pages like the reporting and transparency area.

Maybe the purpose of Central’s frontend could be changed so that it doesn’t compete with the Events page in terms of “announcing events”, which has its logic. Maybe a more detailed explanation of the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. format (which is still the predominant one), requirements, how the community team and WPCSWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation, created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. help you to organise it, the transparency part, info for potential sponsors…

Without going into detail about everything the handbook says, but informing anyone who hears about “WordCamp” without knowing very well what it is.
- Patricia BT 2:28 pm on January 18, 2024
  
  Perfectly said, I totally share the same point of view!
- Ian Dunn 2:05 am on January 19, 2024
  
  +1
  
  I think no matter what we do with the front end, we’ll have to keep the back-end of Central running.
  
  events.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ is a separate network on the wordcamp.org multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network., rather than being part of the main wordpress.org multi-network WP. It was built that way so that we could centralize and reuse all of the back-end tools that already exist.
  
  So, the back-end of Central is still essential for events.w.org.
Néstor Brito 6:25 pm on January 18, 2024

Regarding to design, I totally agree with Joost: Why the colors of the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. are different front this site: https://make.wordpress.org/ for example, it seems like there are no design standards between sites.

Another design aspect that I think doesn’t add any value and distract user attention is the giant map at the top of the home page, I think that a well structured and filtered events list it’s much better and usable, maybe the map could be in a tab alonside the list to change view type and see the event on a map view, but I think that the events list should have the main focus on this page

Also regarding to the events showed in the home page, maybe will be more accurate to show by default “events near you”, simply detecting the geolocation of the user, since it’s more useful first view events near to me that I could attend easily in person.

Regarding to WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each., I also agree that could be a duplication of information between both sites. If the WordCamp Central page is needed for another tasks like Juan Hernando has said, maybe it could be a good idea to hide the public or visible part, or all the pages that duplicates information about events to the public in general, keeping the private parts for the rest of the use cases pointed by Juan.
- Ian Dunn 2:07 am on January 19, 2024
  
  I agree about adding nearby events, that’s being worked on in https://github.com/WordPress/wordcamp.org/issues/1160
Steve 11:25 am on January 23, 2024

I’m finding this difficult to use and understand – so for example on 26 January there’s an event called ‘Regular Meeting – Online via Zoom‘ – it doesn’t specify where or what this is a regular meeting of!

Central obviously holds more information about specific WordCamps, whereas this new page looks like it’s for more general meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. etc – some of the descriptions are therefore in different languages and as someone external to WordPress it could look more confusing to them not knowing what each ‘meeting’ is for.

Only other comment is pagination – there’s currently 423 events, so it’s a very very large page!
- Nilo Velez 12:48 pm on February 1, 2024
  
  Agreed. Having a “Community” column would help a lot to make it clearer.
  
  It would also help to navigate to all the events from that community.
  - Cate DeRosia 3:15 pm on March 15, 2024
    
    Update to this: Add a column to the Upcoming Events list that shows the Community’s name. Mock up to follow:
  - Cate DeRosia 3:18 pm on March 15, 2024
Nilo Velez 12:51 pm on February 1, 2024

I just wanted to note that this specific URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org is awesowe:
https://events.wordpress.org/upcoming-events/filtered/format/online/

It shows all the upcoming online events, in you local timezone. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Francisco 3:30 pm on February 1, 2024

We collected great feedback in the design table in WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Zaragoza. Here we shared the insights.
luk4 5:57 pm on February 3, 2024

That’s cool! Two observations, though:
I’m really surprised that Google Maps was chosen over an OSM-based map. As it stands, I’m not even sure the map is GDPR compliant. See: https://www.cookiebox.pro/en/cookiepedia/google-maps-gdpr/
It would be nice if the Upcoming Events page advertised an RSS feedRSS Feed RSS is an acronym for Real Simple Syndication which is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format. This is the feed., including for the different filters available. The default URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org /feed/ is empty at the moment.
alexcu21 4:22 pm on March 11, 2024

Perhaps someone has already mentioned this, but I would like to suggest having a section where all events occurring in the current day could be displayed.
Rocio Valdivia 5:07 pm on March 19, 2024

Thank you everyone! We’re going to work on gathering all the feedback, making a summary and order it by high impact and effort level.

I’ll share here the recap when ready!
Cate DeRosia 5:24 pm on April 5, 2024

The feedback has been consolidated in this post.