PDX WordPress Meetup Group: WordPress Codex Night

The WordPress Meetup Group in Portland, Oregon, has invited me to tonight’s meetup at the US Bancorps Building in downtown PDX to talk about the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, and how to contribute.

I’ll show them some basics about the Codex and we’ll spend a couple hours working on maintenance tasks and possibly writing up articles.

If you are joining us or would like to learn more about contributing to the WordPress Codex, here are some tips.

You do not have to know code. Spelling Police not just welcome but embraced with open arms.
Editors with some basic understanding of technical writing and grammar are desperately needed.
Coders are welcome as proofers, checkers, and contributors.
Researchers and fact-checkers are treated with honor, respect, and virtual chocolate.
Learn to write WordPress Codex speak:
1. Write in second person. It’s always about “your” not “my” experience.
2. Watch capitalization. WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, Administration Screens, and screen/panel and proper names are all capitalized (and WordPress gets special attention on the “P”).
3. It’s Plugins not plug-ins. It’s the WordPress Administration Screens (or Panels) not backend, admin, or dashboard.
4. Code is written with <tt>in sentences</tt>. Stand alone code uses <code> and <pre>.
5. Link to every concept or namesake at the first mention or in a new section.
6. Use the word “WordPress” too much. We enjoy working with WordPress Plugins and WordPress Themes on WordPress sites. It’s SEO friendly but also reads clear and specific.
7. It’s a WordPress “site” not WordPress “blog.”
For more information on WordPress styles, editing, and formats, see:

To contribute to the WordPress Codex:

Register or log in with WordPress.org.
Log into the WordPress Codex with same username and password a second time.
From the Codex Tools menu, click on your name to go to your User Page.
Edit it to add your bio information, contact information, and a description of how you wish to contribute to the Codex. This will give you an area to practice and communicate with other Codex members.
Optionally, you can also create subpages to work on projects or articles by creating a link such as [[User:Lorelle/Article on Comment Counts]]. Save the page and click the red link to access the new subpage.

We’ve kept an informal list of things to do on the WordPress Documentation Team Task List. They include:

I also highly recommend using the Random page feature of the WordPress Codex to explore a randomly generated page. If it needs work, fix it or put it on the WordPress Documentation Team Task List list for Articles Wanted or Need Attention: May 2012. If it is fine, then move onto another random page.

The WordPress Docs Team currently doesn’t have its own blog other than our unofficial Task List. To communicate and participate actively, we are still using the wp-docs mailing list. We hope this will be changed soon.

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2 Comments

Evan Vonay

Posted October 8, 2012 at 1:03 am | Permalink

Glad you started a Meetup group. I recently discovered meetup, and now I’m on it all the time. To bad you’re not around the LA area. My team of devs. and I try to attend as many tech. meetups as possible. Great place to brainstorm ideas for our sites.

- Lorelle VanFossen
  
  Posted October 8, 2012 at 3:40 pm | Permalink
  
  The PDX WordPress Meetup group has been around for many years. I didn’t start it. While not the oldest, it is among the oldest. Glad you are getting involved in your area.