Podcast With Hari Shanker: Nurturing WordPress Contributors

Our latest guest within the Hostinger Academy podcast is Hari Shanker, an open-source program manager at Automattic. We sat down with him to debate his role in fostering community contributions, which is crucial for WordPress sustainability.

The Background

WordPress is open-source software developed and maintained by a vibrant community. This community comprises developers, agencies, and freelancers who leverage the WordPress content management system for his or her needs while contributing to its code, bug fixes, and release cycles.

Given the critical role of community contributions to WordPress’s long-term success, we were keen to explore Hari Shanker’s efforts in nurturing this ecosystem.

Hari’s WordPress journey began in college when he discovered the platform’s extensive customizability. By 2016, he was deeply involved in India’s local WordPress community and started organizing Meetups. 

In 2020, Hari became a full-time WordPress contributor. Now, as an open-source program manager, he focuses on boosting community participation through initiatives like Five for the Future and the Contributor Mentorship Program.

On this special episode recorded during WordCamp US 2023, Emma Young, Hostinger’s Head of Content, delves into the Five for the Future initiative, the Mentorship Program, and the potential advantages for corporations contributing to WordPress.

Watch the Full Podcast

Watch the total podcast on the Hostinger Academy YouTube channel.

How Five for the Future Was Began

Matt Mullenweg wrote an easy blog post – that’s all it took to start out the Five for the Future initiative. It was then formalized through the 2017 WordPress Community Summit. Just a few years later, its dedicated page was launched. 

Currently, the page serves as a pledge platform, but Hari goals to evolve it right into a more structured program offering clear guidance for contributors.

“It’s a program where folks can enroll. But for brand spanking new corporations signing up, it’s possible you’ll not have a ton of direction on what to contribute, where to contribute, and what areas WordPress teams need assistance with. So I’m trying to unravel that problem.” says Hari.

Luckily for Hari, he’s not working on this alone. The WordPress Community Team fully supports him, especially after this 12 months’s Community Summit. “I believe you’ll see some excellent changes coming up in the following couple of years,” guarantees Hari.

For instance, the Make WordPress project has just launched a brand new page, make.wordpress.org/contribute. It’s a contributor orientation tool where users can get a listing of teams which might be suitable for his or her contributions.

“We’ve 22 teams – again, you don’t want to know easy methods to code to start out contributing. There are a bunch of no-code ways to contribute to WordPress as well. So this tool will assist you to discover some teams,” Hari explains.

Inviting Organizations to Contribute Together

WordPress is a major economic force – a 2021 study estimated that the combined global economy for WordPress is price half a trillion dollars. While the platform has enabled countless organizations to thrive, Hari envisions more corporations actively supporting WordPress itself.

“My ideal future is where all these corporations work together, and all of the needs of the project are met, and the project moves from maintaining to going to the following frontier,” explains Hari. 

He acknowledges that there could also be concerns when an organization puts many resources into WordPress and takes control of the project. But he emphasizes that it’s not like that in an open-source environment. 

“Everybody works together – that’s the longer term that I envision. Regardless that they might be competitors in business, all of them work together hand in hand. And it’s already happening.”

But why should corporations contribute in the primary place? While not every business might profit from it, Hari gives a couple of examples.

Let’s say you might be being profitable by developing plugins. You’ll be able to try to affix the WordPress Plugin Team, where you’ll learn plugin standards while contributing to the team. It could possibly assist you to get up to the mark with the coding standards and make a greater plugin for the WordPress ecosystem.

One other example is agencies that may join the Core Team and have their clients’ voices heard in the event environment, especially in the case of bugs to repair or features to develop.

In essence, contributing to WordPress provides a deeper understanding of what’s happening under the hood, allowing you to align your goals with the direction of WordPress development.

The Birth of the Contributor Mentorship Program

When working on the Five for the Future initiative, Hari did numerous research to draw more contributors. One in all his key findings was that WordPress has an onboarding issue for contributors. 

“The issue isn’t the shortage of resources. It’s like there’s an excessive amount of information. When anyone desires to contribute to WordPress, they usually go to the Make WordPress site and pick whatever teams they need, they can’t find their way,” he reveals.

This led Hari to post a proposal concerning the Contributor Mentorship Program, which received positive feedback. Plus, a mentorship program can also be one in all the project’s important priorities for 2023.

The project kicked off in March 2022 when the working group, consisting of contributors from the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific, had the primary chat. 

Long story short, the team decided to select eight teams for the mentorship program. When this system was launched, it received a fantastic response, with 50 people applying to be mentees. The primary mentorship cohort began on July 12 with 13 mentees and 13 mentors – where they worked together closely for 4 weeks.

The inaugural cohort was successful. “Of the 13 folks that we joined that joined, 11 graduated. In order that’s even greater than we expected. And these persons are making ongoing contributions. A few them are literally here in WordCamp US,” shares Hari.

The success encouraged Hari and the working group to proceed this system. The subsequent cohort is planned for January 2024, even though it’s not set in stone yet.

Advice for Starters and Recent Contributors

Despite how popular WordPress is, some beginners have just began their journey with it. If you happen to’re one in all those people, Hari has some advice for you.

Initially, he suggests trying some easy ways to check the platform, comparable to WordPress Playground, to see how it really works and the way you’ll be able to create a web site in minutes. You can too enroll for a hosting service and learn to establish WordPress yourself.

“Check out one in all those tools, see how it really works, enjoy the great thing about WordPress, and slowly try learning it,“ recommends Hari.

When you’re diving deeper into WordPress, it is advisable to see how you’ll be able to contribute to the software. Hari’s first advice is to make use of the tool in make.wordpress.org/contribute to seek out which team most accurately fits you.

There are easy ways to contribute, comparable to uploading photos to the WordPress photo directory and translating WordPress with the Polyglots Team. Whatever team and contribution you select, consistency is the important thing.

“Try making it a habit”, said Hari. “Find a while to do it on an ongoing basis, perhaps half-hour per week. If you happen to prefer it, consider doing this again. Make it a habit, explore more, and you will notice that you simply learn through it. I believe it’s one of the crucial underappreciated parts of our contribution.”