Screenshot of my WordPress profile https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin

A lot goes on in WordPress Core development that doesn’t make it into the WordPress Profile Activity log. Here is a handful of the things I’ve worked on over the last month to give you an idea of what I have worked on. Many other contributors work on things that also don’t make it into the report, so it’s import to recognize that this screen is far from a good recognition of effort put into WordPress.  This isn’t an exhaustive list (I wish I could remember everything).

  • Organize the Field-Guide posts.
    • Work with each author to help make sure they know the importance of the posts
    • Review drafts to ensure the posts have quality information and wording is clear.
  • Organize sending the email to all plugin authors about 4.5. This is worked on by the Core, Plugins Repo, and Meta teams.
    • Work with Polyglots team to help publicize Global Translation Day.
    • Work to help measure the impact of this email (so we can see if there are ways to be more effective in the future)
    • Start documenting how this happens to reduce the bus factor
  • During releases, remind people to not share the link to packages
  • Provide some mentorship to a guest committer
  • Review the credits list before the release
  • Review News posts announcing release
  • Draft Release Haikus (This is one of my favorite contributions)
  • Help document release activities and steps (aka, the release checklist)
  • Work with the Forums team on the OMGWTFBBQ! post
  • Review and test patches for other committers to commit
  • Help brainstorm the About Page and the release tagline
  • Attend weekly dev chats and contribute during those
  • Early-stage discussions around ways to help make core better serve the readers and commenters
  • Participate in the first Feature Projects chat.
  • Test various parts of WordPress
  • Work to Recruit new contributors
  • Be a sounding board for ideas from other contributors

As anyone who has ever worked on a project at scale knows, coding is just a small piece of the puzzle. While the work of WordPress generally happens in the open, it doesn’t always get logged.