The Gnome Outreach Program for Women is an internship program modeled on Google Summer of Code and administered by the Gnome project on a regular basis that awards stipends to participants who successfully complete a requested free and open-source software project contribution under the guidance of project mentors. This program is intended to increase the participation of women in free software projects and increase the diversity of project contributor pools.
WordPress is a mentoring organization for the Gnome Outreach Program for Women Summer 2013 session.
Projects can be proposed in any of the areas of contribution listed below. The best way to pick a solid project idea is to discuss it with one or more potential mentors for feedback. Your own ideas are very encouraged; consider these project ideas as jumping off points for your involvement. You can also feel free to propose a project that includes more than one area of contribution; we're a collaborative project community by habit, so it's easy enough to have multiple mentors on a project as needed.
Note: We are a little behind on filling in these ideas due to other coinciding deadlines, but we'd love to talk to potential applicants about project ideas. We'll be filling in more ideas over the next couple of days, but can also be contacted in irc on freenode channel #wordpress-contribute, or via the Ask a Question form at the community team blog.
Documentation for WordPress encompasses our Codex, the handbooks project, video transcriptions, help text for core, and other documentation needs.
Here are some ideas for potential projects. The actual project(s) proceeded with will depend on the qualifications of the candidate.
We're open to other suggestions for documentation projects.
Excellent writing skills including spelling and grammar proficiency. Extensive WordPress experience and/or the ability to interview someone and use their knowledge as the basis for your written content. Familiarity with MediaWiki a plus.
Siobhan McKeown - Siobhan is a Word Ninja at Audrey Capital, which means she gets to spend all of her time writing about WordPress. She is available to mentor on any documentation project.
Drew Jaynes - Drew is a developer at 10up. He's current rep on the docs team and contributes regularly to core. He is available to mentor on the Help Text and Video transcription projects.
Write a WordPress tutorial on your blog. It could teach users how to work with specific functionality or show developers a new trick or technique. We'll be looking for good writing style and grammar, technical accuracy, proper use of formatting, and excellent communication skills.
Include a link to the tutorial in your application.
The Support team answers questions in the WordPress.org support forums and the #wordpress irc channel on freenode.
A support internship would consist mainly of answering questions and helping people solve their WordPress problems in the forums. Another aspect of the project could include creating more documentation on how to troubleshoot common WordPress issues, and/or helping to clean up forum content.
Significant experience running a WordPress site (including multisite a plus) with excellent troubleshooting skills. An account/username on the WordPress.org support forums. Comfortable with forum software, mailing lists, and IRC.
Mika Epstein - Mika (AKA Ipstenu) is a WordPress Support Manager and Community Specialist at DreamHost, which means when someone has a wild and wooly WordPress problem, she's there! She also reviews plugins for WordPress.org and is the support rep. She's available to mentor projects about support, even though they won't have a 'timeline' per sey.
Answer at least one unanswered/unsolved question that has been asked in a support forum thread at the WordPress.org support forums.
Create workshop content for just about any/every area of WordPress education to extend our workshop series.
Following the format used in our Troubleshooting workshop, create workshop content for other areas of WordPress experience/knowledge including but not limited to: theme creation, plugin development, core contribution, using multisite, setting up a new WP site (including niche setups), advanced WP feature use, etc. Exact curriculums will be based on your interestes and experience/qualifications.
Varies by subject matter. Good organization skills, people-herding, and communication skills helpful.
Mentors for the training project would include someone with experience in instructional design to vet your approach to creating exercises, and a technical subject matter expert to make sure that your curriculum is based on the most accurate, up-to-date information.
Create an outline for a one-day course in a subject area you feel confident in, or write up one actual hands-on exercise.
Rather than re-publish the list of potential coding projects/mentors/etc (core, mobile apps, plugins, site dev, etc), please refer to the information on our GSoC2013 page. The same code project ideas may be used for both GSoC and Gnome applications, and the same mentors would be available for both programs.
If you are an organizational wizard with event planning and/or marketing experience, we have any number of potential projects that might be a fit. Between WordCamps, Meetups, the Contributor Summit, and the WordPress.org site, there are endless possibilities.
We have only recently developed an official structure of contributor groups, and there are two potential projects.
-- Day-to-day community management. Create and manage a schedule of ongoing group activity tracking and reporting, monitor social media channels, interact with community volunteers.
-- Diversity Measurement. Help with initiating some opt-in profile data collection to measure community diversity. Create/execute/analyze a community survey on diversity, contributor experience, economic impact, etc. Background in academic social sciences preferred.
Mentor for either project would be Jen Mylo, and there would be interaction with Team Reps from all contributor groups. Experience managing groups/departments helpful, as is experience with survey design and stats collection and analysis.
We could really use a formal QA program. We do unit testing and usablity testing currently, but a regular old QA program with scripted QA flows/tests that beta users could do at home to participate via a beta testers/QA plugin would be ideal. Putting together this initiative would require QA experience. Would also work with a developer who would implement any needed plugin functionality to enable useful reporting.
There are a number of design projects that could be assigned, but this area more than any other depends on the applicant's portfolio since we work within a pretty specific brand. Site designs, swag designs, print materials, and more are all in the mix for the right person.
If you fancy something different and want to be involved in a social plugin then you could consider getting involved with BuddyPress. There are a few potential projects for anyone wanting to be part of this:
Sounds like at least one of these projects is right up your alley? We have many contributors willing to mentor a project for this program, so figuring out what you want your project to be will really be the biggest determining factor in who should be your mentor (and in most cases, we will assign 2 mentors just to make sure you get the attention you need). If you have any questions about the application, want to know who might mentor a particular project, or have a general question about participating with WordPress, hop into the freenode irc channel #wordpress-contribute, or get in touch via the Ask a Question form at the community team blog.
Good luck!
When you're ready (but before May 1st!) send in an application .