WordPress Community Edition

3 Ways to Make the WordPress Community a Better Place

This is a post for WordPress enthusiasts, bloggers, developers, or just the basic user. As you may already know, WordPress is an open source web platform and CMS (content management system) with a ton of built in features and the ability to add plugins and modules to enhance your web experience.

WordPress wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for the participation of the community in the development of its core, plugins, the amazing admin UI, themes, and accessibility. If you’re a web developer, it’s easy to get caught up in keeping your clients (and yourself) happy without giving back to the community. Skilled developers down to first time users can contribute to the growth of the WordPress community. Here’s how:

Answer Newbie Questions on the Support Forum

WordPress Support Forums
How many new WordPress users are staring at the “Error Establishing a Database Connection” right now? We’ve all been there. Reach out to the new users on the WordPress forums and help them out. They’ll be grateful that someone with more experience can talk them through it. You can build credibility for yourself by becoming a contributor to the support aspect of WordPress, which can reward you in many unforeseen ways in the future.

Make A Plugin for Repeated Functions

Have you ever found yourself pasting pre-written code into a functions.php file for a variety of sites your own or manage? Is it specific to an existing plugin? If so, it’s possible that other developers use or may need the code too. Write a small plugin with the different functions that enhance your WordPress install and submit it to the WordPress plugin directory. If for one reason or another, it can’t be included into the public repository, offer it as a free download on your website. The long tail searches may actually help someone out with the same problem. Chances are, you’ll save some newcomer hours of time, encouraging them to stick around for the long haul.

Contribute to the Development

You don’t need to be a skilled developer in order to contribute to the building and betterment of WordPress. In fact, most of the UI and design is improved from users who have no experience at all. Now, you must be a core developer in order to touch the code that would be in a stable release, however, you don’t need to be a core developer or designer in order to give feedback. You can get involved with WordPress over at http://make.wordpress.org/.

Browse the different sections in which you have skills or interest, sign up for an account, and give your written feedback on the issues presented in the threads. Your insight and experience will make WordPress better for everyone now and especially in the future.

What experience have you had with the WordPress community? Do you have your own ways to contribute or improve it? Share in the comments below!

One thought on “3 Ways to Make the WordPress Community a Better Place

  1. Thanks for your information. All web master knows that WordPress is an open
    source web platform and CMS. WordPress provides lots of useable plugins, which
    help to create website. This is why all web master like to use wordpress.

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