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Jeff Chandler

Insight Into WordPress Communities Around The World

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One of the greatest things about WordPress is its diverse community throughout the world. Kinsta has published a fantastic and inspirational post that looks at up and coming WordPress communities in 5 continents and 17 countries.

My favorite story is Juanfra Aldasoro, co-organizer of WordCamp Buenos Aires, describing how the WordPress community in Argentina was organized. In 2007, Buenos Aires hosted the first WordCamp outside the US. Despite hosting a few more WordCamps, the community lacked organization. Aldasoro explains how celebrating WordPress’ 10th anniversary brought the right group of people together:

When WordPress turned 10, in May of 2013, thanks to a banner in the Codex site we created a celebration meetup. More than 20 people showed up, and the good thing was that we were a bunch of geeks on the same track. We had the people but we were lacking an organization. The ones interested in having an organized community kept in touch, we formed WordPress Argentina (@wpargentina) and during 2014 we started to hold more formal monthly meetups.

One of the things I noticed is that several of the people featured in the article use Facebook groups for communication. Although a number of US based WordPress meetups use Meetup.com, in other countries, Facebook appears to be the dominant way to communicate and organize members.

Meetups are grassroots efforts that help WordPress reach every corner of the globe. As Matt Mullenweg said during his 2014 State of The Word presentation, “Organizing a meetup is one of the hardest things to do in terms of contributing to WordPress. Every single month, you have to come up with new stuff.” Those who help maintain community as a pillar of WordPress’ success are helping to maintain its growth and popularity.

It’s exciting to think about the enormous amount of WordPress education, contributions, and learning that takes place across the world everyday, thanks in large part to people like those featured in the article. It’s wonderful to see so many WordPress communities around the world growing in size to the point of  having their own WordCamps.

If you’re having trouble organizing a WordPress meetup in your area, let us know in the comments. Thousands of people across the world access the Tavern on a daily basis and we might be able to help connect you to others in your area.

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11 responses to “Insight Into WordPress Communities Around The World”

  1. Great Post!

    I would encourage everyone who is a part of the US WordPress community to get out and experience some of the more “off the beaten path” international WordCamps (go to camps other then London, EU, etc). I went to WC Poland last year, and am in Mumbai now for their WordCamp this weekend, and, IMO, these are the most insightful and inspiring events you can attend.

    The future growth of WordPress depends on international communities, and it is amazing to travel the world connecting with people whose livelihoods all depend on the same open source project that yours does.

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    • how do you overcome the language barrier? What if you don’t speak the local language? I am going to assume WordCamps are done in their local language? Like WordCamps in France/Croatia/Germany/Serbia are going to be done in French/Croatian/German/Serbian. I only speak 3 languages (English, Croatian, Spanish).

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      • Good question! I only speak English (and a little bit of Spanish), but I’ve found that most WordCamps will at least have some sessions in English, if not an entire track. While WordPress is an international product, most of the communication around working on core and building sites/plugins/themes happens in English.

        In most of Europe, as you know, most younger people speak English, as it’s a common language between countries (sorry, Esperanto). This is less common in South America and East Asia (I’m told, haven’t been yet). Here in India, everyone speaks English, and many of them speak it better than I do :)

        I’ve never had a problem traveling places where English isn’t the primary language– a smile and some body language can go a long way to bridging the language gap.

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  3. “Organizing a meetup is one of the hardest things to do in terms of contributing to WordPress. Every single month, you have to come up with new stuff.”

    Matt certainly has that correct!

    – http://www.meetup.com/atlanta-wordpress-coders-guild/

    What’s especially hard is asking members when is a good time and what locations are good for them and only hearing crickets from most members. That is until after we schedule a meetup and then they complain that it’s a bad day/date-time/location. ;-)

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    • I’ve seen groups have better luck picking a day/week of the month (3rd Tuesday, for example) and ALWAYS sticking to that day. It takes a little while, but eventually people start scheduling other things around your meetup, rather than complaining that your meetup interferes with their other plans.

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      • I’ve seen groups have better luck picking a day/week of the month (3rd Tuesday, for example) and ALWAYS sticking to that day.

        Yep, best practice #25 of 25:

        – http://mikeschinkel.com/blog/25-best-practices-for-meetup-organizers/

        However, I’m working this one a little differently. We’ve got a very focused meetup (only coders and wanna-be coders, no end-users) and I’m trying to get everyone who is interested in the meetup engaged; setting a day/week of the month will necessarily ensure that certain people will never attend. And that’s what I’m trying to avoid.

        but eventually people start scheduling other things around your meetup, rather than complaining that your meetup interferes with their other plans.

        In my experience running meetups having organized well over 50 meetup since 2007 there are things that simply cannot be scheduled around; for example other meetups that pick the same day/week of the month but that have higher priority in the minds of some members. Or family obligations. Or school courses. Or yoga classes, et, al.

        So I am aware it’s a lot more work to not set a consistent day/week of the month but our objectives require it. Doesn’t mean I can’t vent about human nature though. :)

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  4. Hi Jeff,

    Thank you very much for featuring this guide glad that you like it. So good to see that WordPress is truly global and internationale. You can find active WP communities all around the world from South America to Asia.

    Thank you once again for the contributors, this would’t be possible without their help.

    Cheers,
    To from Kinsta

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