Giving Back to the WordPress Community

Comments 10 by Rebecca Bollwitt

How the morning ended...One of the best things about Web 2.0 in my opinion is open source development. Partnered with Creative Commons Licensing, you are often free to build, re-work and share your contributions to an original work through public collaboration.

WordPress is a shining example of an open source project, meaning folks are free to build their own plugins, make their own themes, and add to the value of the entire platform by spinning around the code in their own way and releasing it back to the community for all to share – at least that’s the expectation. I haven’t heard of it happening much just yet, but with a WordPress install being basically free (except for your separate expenses for hosting, a domain etc.) just what exactly do people get out of running WordPress?

Reading one of my favourite resource sites this morning I came across “24 Ways To Contribute To WordPress” – from wearing your WordPress t-shirt with pride, to even writing a blog post about it, all of these step help spread the word. Here are some of the ways you can contribute:

Participate In The WP Forum
The official WordPress forums which can be found here were set up for users to help other users…

Donate Money Towards The WP Project
Now, you might scoff at the idea of donating cash towards the WP.org project, but the fact of the matter is, most of the money involved with Automattic is used for WP.com…

Create And Share WordPress Themes
Not much explaining I have to do here. If you create a theme, share your work to the masses…

Report Theme Piracy
While there is a large amount of inspiration within the WordPress themeing community, some folks just can’t seem to find a way to differentiate themselves, so they copy a successful theme from the codebase all the way to the CSS…

(Side note: Most themes have a Creative Commons License. I have found that if you hack apart a theme based on an original ie. not from scratch, simply credit/link the original author and state that your theme is ‘adapted’ from their works. As for premium ‘paid’ themes, always check the licensing and to see if they are being re-sold).

Report Security Hazards To The Proper People
If you happen to be a coder and come across something that you think may pose a security risk, the best thing for you to do is to send an email to security at wordpress.org

What if you’re not a code monkey? Well.. blog it, wear it, or organize it.

These are just a few, for the entire list check out the Weblog Tools Collection site.

Also, a great way to participate is by having a coding party like the folks did at DrupalCamp Vancouver. Through the power of a Drupal Code Sprint, they took a website from alpha to beta and gave back to the Fearless City project. I propose we figure out something cool and neat to contribute during or after the next WordCamp Vancouver.

Finally, if you have a WordPress site show it off with a “proudly powered by” link or button, found here.

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10 Comments  —  Comments Are Closed

  1. Jeffro2pt0Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 11:21am PDT

    Thanks for the excellent write up and the link. How many of those 24 steps are you currently doing?

  2. Miss604Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 11:25am PDT

    Hmm… let’s see – blog, wear, theme, WordCamp speaking, purchased a t-shirt, leaving credits inside themes, spreading the word, and creating graphics 🙂 I should help out in the Forums wherever I can but I mostly *get* my help from there and the Codex.

  3. ZakTuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 11:57am PDT

    I’ve discovered WP through Twitter post, I’m using it to start a new blog. I love your blog, and the iPhone user friendly GUI, I’d like to create one, I understood.that WPtouch is required. I don’t want to host a web server, neighter to maintain a MySql db. I’m ready to make donation or pay for a service like this: hosting a blog accessible from iPhone, what would you propose ? Thanks.

  4. Miss604Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 12:04pm PDT

    Zak, the blog is accessible through any mobile browser but the WP Touch theme just makes it a bit more user friendly when viewed that way.

    It’s simply a plugin that you add to the backend of your WordPress site and it automatically changes the look and feel when viewed with a mobile device/iPhone. You can read more about it over at Brave New Code.

  5. ZakTuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 12:22pm PDT

    Thanks Miss604, I’ll read the note you’ve mentioned. I can’t imagine that such a magical ans fsntastic plugin exists wich enable you to transform a WP blog to an iPhone user interface. If it is confirmed, WP worthes more advertizement and support. I would be more then happy to participate to this “aventure”. Thanks again.

  6. ChrisTuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 2:39pm PDT

    You’re supporting WordPress by wearing the shirt to the potty.

  7. TaniaTuesday, May 20th, 2008 — 3:48pm PDT

    Wow – I was just wondering about whether to fully make the switch over from my blogger account to wordpres – Thanks for the info! 🙂

  8. inaequitasWednesday, May 21st, 2008 — 9:16pm PDT

    I am a bit unhappy about the link between Open Source and web 2.0. Granted, a lot of the Web 2.0 stuff is enhanced by the availability of open- and free-software, and yes, the community model applies in both cases, but the link kind of stops there. Plus, open-source has been around for far longer than the Internet has, so there’s that too.

    So far my support for WordPress has been in increasing its install base. But a hoodie might be coming soon my way.

  9. forumTuesday, October 7th, 2008 — 7:53pm PDT

    Thank you.

  10. Abbie HuntTuesday, May 25th, 2010 — 11:55am PDT

    i am not a fan of having credits and getting credits cards.:,’

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