The aspect of community-powered support is definitely one of that factors that has lead to the popularity of WordPress, but despite millions of users, only a handful regularly volunteer in the support forums. How can you support WordPress? What kind of questions will you encounter? What if you aren’t an expert? These just a few of the questions that Automattic Happiness Engineer Sheri Bigelow answers in her WordCamp Portland 2010 session, How to Support WordPress. I became a volunteer in the WordPress Support Forums six years ago, one week after installing WordPress. I was what some would call a “n00b,” but while I was waiting for an answer to my question, I noticed a few installation questions that I could answer. Fast-forward six years later, and everything that I know about WordPress today was learned from answering questions on the WordPress Support Forums. If a lack of knowledge is preventing […]

WordPress is certainly the most popular open source blogging platform, but how are development decisions made? You may have heard that WordPress is a democracy, that Matt Mullenweg makes all the decisions, or that Automattic governs the development of WordPress. Of course, neither of those are true. WordPress is actually a Meritocracy. It’s really quite simple and efficient, but the more you contribute to WordPress, the more weight your opinions carry when it comes time to make decisions. Probably the best example of this is Andrew Nacin. When Nacin began contributing to WordPress, he could only submit his bug fixes and enhancements for review. After showing his commitment to the WordPress community over three months and a hundred patches, Nacin was asked to be a core developer. Now, Nacin’s bug fixes and enhancements go right to the core. I could write pages upon pages describing how everything works, but I’d certainly […]