Growing open source communities on GitHub around your WordPress plugin or theme

A talk presented at WordCamp DC.

Transcript

1. Growing open source communities on GitHub @benbalter ben.balter.com around your WordPress theme or plugin
2. • CamelCase domain name • Lots of WordPress users • Famous one-click installs™ • Support forums • Marketing material WordPress.org GitHub.com • CamelCase domain name • Lots of WordPress developers • Famous three-click contributions™ • Bug/project tracker • Technical documentation
3. The promise of open source Publish code People contribute
4. Online communities are offline communities, just online
5. Opensource.guide
6. The open source contributor funnel @mikemcquaid 
 http://bit.ly/contributor-funnel
7. 10-ish ways to grow communities around your Wordpress theme or plugin
8. Import the code (and history) https://import.github.com
9. Community Profile
10. 0. Solve a shared problem
11. 1. Choose an open source license
12. chosealicense.com
13. 2. Link to the repository from WordPress.org
14. 3. Publish technical documentation
15. Five minute documentation 1. Add Markdown files to your repository's docs/ folder 2. Activate GitHub Pages 3. (Optional) choose a theme
16. Collaborative documentation
17. 4. Document how to contribute
18. Ask (all) users to contribute
19. 5. Clarify support versus development
20. 6. Welcome new contributors
21. 7. Set up automated tests
22. How to set up automated tests 1. Install WP-CLI and PHP Unit 2. wp scaffold plugin-tests [your-plugin-name] 3. Write tests 4. Login to travis-ci.org and enable your project 5. Push https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/plugin-unit-tests/
23. 8. Enforce WordPress code standards https://github.com/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards
24. 9. Deploy to WordPress.org • Convert GitHub-flavored Markdown to WordPress readme.txt format • Push Git master to SVN trunk • Create a Git tag • Create a SVN tag • Create a GitHub release (optional)
25. https://github.com/GaryJones/wordpress-plugin-git-flow-svn-deploy
26. https://github.com/wpreadme2markdown/wp-readme-to-markdown
27. 10. Adopt a code of conduct*
28. GitHub Community Guidelines
29. *Why add a code of conduct? • Reasonable people disagree on the internet • Establishes expectations for community norms • Signals that your project is a welcoming community • Better to have before something happens, not after • It's the right thing to do
30. Bonus: find someone to adopt it
31. 10 ways to grow communities 
 around your Wordpress theme or plugin 0. Solve a shared problem 1. Choose an open source license 2. Link to the repository from wp.org 3. Publish technical documentation 4. Document how to contribute 5. Clarify support v. development 6. Welcome new contributors 7. Set up automated tests 8. Enforce WP code standards 9. Deploy to WordPress.org 10. Adopt a code of conduct
32. Growing open source communities on GitHub @benbalter ben.balter.com around your WordPress theme or plugin