After the conference has wrapped up, Tuesday and Wednesday will be set aside for WordPress.org contributor team meetups. These are the people that give their time to the WordPress open source project. They usually work together asynchronously via blogs, forums, and bug trackers. Most teams have a weekly online meeting in IRC as well, but the challenges of time zones, work schedules, and coordinating among dozens of people mean that it’s rarely a full-team experience.

The core development team has done  an in-person annual meetup since 2009, and it has always been a positive experience. A lot of things get talked about, a lot of things get done, and bonds are built that help with communication throughout the year. This year we want all of our contributor teams to have that opportunity. Setting aside a couple of days after the main WCSF conference means that folks won’t have to make two trips to be involved.

Scope
Each team will have an agenda of things they want to talk about and/or what they want to work on.  These goals will be decided on in advance of the event via the team blogs.

Participating
These meetups are limited to the active contributors on each team and are not open to general attendance. Participant rosters will be created with each team in advance.

For our volunteers that do not have a WordPress-related day job and can’t afford the trip on their own, or who live somewhere that makes the airfare significantly higher than domestic travel, the travel assistance program can help cover the costs.