You may have come across or heard about Make WordPress and wondering what exactly this is. In general, Make WordPress is where you can become a part of the WordPress.org team and get involved with various areas of WordPress.
It is important to note that there are two forms of WordPress (WordPress.com, which is maintained by the company and staff of WordPress.com and Automattic, and WordPress.org, representative of the self-hosted version of WordPress).
To join the volunteers and contributors in the WordPress Community on Make WordPress, you need to be registered with WordPress.org with your own account. Once you have that taken care of, you can get started!
There are many WordPress contribution groups available for you to join depending on your area of interests and expertise. These include the following, with descriptions below:
Core Group
If you are familiar with writing code, debugging, beta testing, and general development, this area may be perfect for you. In the Core group you can file any bugs or problems you have found in your exploration of WordPress. You can also beta test patches or attempt to reproduce reported bug problems to help fix them.
You can also visit their Contributing Handbook to see how you can contribute your coding knowledge.
In addition to discussions on the Core group site, this group has weekly scheduled chats Wednesdays @ 21:00 UTC.
UI Group
This is the spot for designers and user experience creators. The UI group offers discussions about designs, testing, mockups, and more.
You can simply follow along with the UI news and discussions or participate in the weekly scheduled chats Tuesdays @ 19:00 UTC.
Mobile Group
The Mobile group focuses on WordPress apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. Everyone is encouraged to contribute and help make WP apps perfect for the six featured platforms used.
A handbook is available to guide you through contributing to this group.
This group has weekly scheduled chats Mondays @ 17:00 UTC.
Accessibility
The Accessibility group is dedicated to making sure all aspects of WordPress are easily accessible and ensuring continued improvement in this area. Volunteering to test certain aspects of WordPress is essential in making improvements. Not only does this group want to make WP accessible, but they also want to make it usable for everyone.
If there is a disability that affects how you use the web, this team would greatly appreciate your feedback so they can improve upon WordPress features.
This group has weekly scheduled chats Wednesdays @ 20:00 UTC.
Polyglots Group
Are you a translator? Speak, read, and write fluently in two or more languages? The Polyglots group would love to have you as a part of their team in translating the latest releases of WordPress into various languages. You can also help create tools to make translations easier for others.
This group unfortunately does not have any weekly scheduled chats, however you can comment and discuss in their blog section. Be sure to follow their tagging guidelines in order to ensure your comments will be seen.
Support Group
The Support group is the perfect beginning to getting involved with Make WordPress. You can help out simply by answering questions in the support forums. Remember, this group is here to help create support for others not answer your support questions. If you have questions, try visiting the forums yourself and ask away!
The support group blog discusses issues and concerns with the support as well as answering questions on forums. This group has weekly scheduled chats Thursday @ 17:00 UTC.
Documentation Group
The Documentation group is responsible for writing and editing the documents that users will be reading for WordPress information. Actually, they handle not only the writing, but also the look and feel of docs as well in the WordPress handbooks and on the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users. If you know how to make efficient help tutorials and tool tips, etc., this group may be just for you!
The group blog discusses current projects and solutions. This group has weekly scheduled chats Fridays @ 0:00 UTC.
Themes Group
This team is all about WordPress Themes, of course. The Themes group goes through and reviews each submitted theme in WordPress before approving it. Getting involved with this group can greatly increase your own Theme development skills. The team also manages the guidelines for themes along with Theme Unit test data and Theme check Plugin.
If you are interested in joining this group, be sure to check out the guidelines on how to review themes. This group does not have weekly scheduled chats, but you can still comment in the blog and discuss with other team members.
Plugins Group
The Plugin group is specifically for Plugin developers. This group provides resources, the latest updates, current issues, and a great discussion community around creating Plugins for WordPress.
This group does not have weekly scheduled chats, but it is encouraged to follow and comment on the blog.
Community Group
The Community group is perfect if you like organizing events, WordCamps, and Meetups. This team focuses on creating outreach, training programs, support events, and a sense of community within WordPress. Meetups and WordCamps are commonly organized events that this group helps bring together.
This group has weekly scheduled chats Thursdays @ 19:00 UTC
Meta Groups
The Meta group is designed for the developers of the WordPress.org website and its features. This blog provides resources, updates, and announcements by and for the developers of WP and associated sites.
This group does not offer weekly chats, but, of course, you are more than welcome and encouraged to follow the blog and make comments.
Get Involved!
So now that you have a basic understanding of Make WordPress and the groups you can get involved with, I hope you are inspired to volunteer with one or more of these groups. You can have the chance to improve an already great website and become a part of its community. Enjoy your day and get involved!
ClarkWP WordPress Magazine 