The WordPress community in the UK is on Slack.
In a nut shell Slack is an online chat service for teams. After many years of IRC, the WordPress.org team moved all of their conversations onto Slack. This has made having conversations to do with the WordPress.org project much easier to have, regardless of technical abiity. You can read more about their decision at chat.wordpress.org
With Slack you can create your own team, and within that team, have multiple channels. It may be helpful to look at it like this:
If Slack was a block of flats, every team is a flat, and every channel is a room within that flat.
Just like a flat in real life, the key to entering to each team is different. We will discuss how to get onto the WP Community UK slack team later.
WP Community UK, is the team name for the UK WordPress community. It is currently primarily being used to help support and sustain the many WordPress community organisers up and down the country. This tends to be in the form of discussions around venues, speakers, sponsorship and general running a group discussions.
In the team, you will also find individual channels for all the WordPress groups. In there you will find friendly faces from your local events. The team also enables you to talk with other groups - find out other places to go, other ideas/suggestions for meetings. Plus get involved with the WordCamps and any other WordPress events are are being organised around the country.
We also use the channel to discuss UK specific issues and ideas. Example topics include our lovely banking system, UK legal and how our lovely government is changing the laws that effects us as freelancers, businesses and employees.
wp-community-uk.slack.com is not a WordPress support channel and we are not in favour of siloing ourselves from the greater WordPress community.
This is not to say we don't get questions on issues to do with WordPress, but we highly recommend you visit the WordPress support forums or online chatroom.
The wp-community-uk team is accessible with the use of a @chat.wordpress.org email address. These are freely available to anyone with a WordPress.org account.
###1. Get a chat.wordpress.org email address
- Before beginning, you need a WordPress.org account. If you haven't got one, head to https://wordpress.org/support/register.php and sign up for an account.
- When this is done, visit https://chat.wordpress.org, and half way down, under Joining the WordPress team on Slack, you will find a link to be invited to the Make WordPress Slack team.
- Click on I understand. Please send me an invite. (if you understand all above).
- An email will be sent to you.
- Follow the instructions in the email to create your account for Make WordPress Slack team - The home of all discussions on contributing to the WordPress project.
- You'll be dropped into the Make WordPress Slack team. From there you can join channels based on where you want to contribute to WordPress (by clicking on the left hand side under "Channels").
###2. Sign up for an account on wp-community-uk.slack.com Now armed with your chat.wordpress.org email address, you can sign up for access to the UK community team.
- Go to https://wp-community-uk.slack.com/signup, and put in your wordpress.org username in this box. An email will be sent to your email address.
- Click on Confirm my Email Address, and you'll be taken to another username and password box. This can be the same or different to the username & password created for Make WordPress team (step 1.5).
- You should be taken to the #general slack channel.
In the UK Slack team, you will find many other channels, including channels for each user/ meetup group. To join any other channels:
- Click on the "+X More..." link under "Channels" in the left hand column
- Click on the channel's name to preview it
- Click "Join Channel" to join and chat :)
When you create a team, Slack only allows you to add new members in two predefined ways:
- Invitation only - where as a user you would have to ask for an invitation.
- Using an email address from a particular domain.
As a group, we choose to minic the same standards as the global WordPress team. This also means you now have access to the global WordPress slack team.
I signed up for an account at WordPress.slack.com, why do my creditals not work for wp-community-uk.slack.com?
Remember how we describe every team on slack as a flat in a block of flats, and every team having it's own set of keys? Just like how you cannot use your Boots loyalty card in Tescos, the same can be said for here. You are using the same email address to get in, but you are actually signing up to two teams.
We know, it's a pain. At least we only have to go through this process once!
There are some great tips at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/#help. Some of those tips can be used on this team too. These include:
This channel is not an official WordPress channel, but we do expect all our members to be lovely to each other. That's why we've decided to include a Code of Conduct. This code of conduct is based off the code of conduct that you would see in many WordCamp and across the WordPress community.
For this code of conduct, We refers to the administrators of this team. This team is formed from the following people:
TODO: LIST SLACK ADMINS
###1. Purpose
We believes our community should be truly open for everyone. As such, we are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, preferred operating system, programming language, or text editor.
This code of conduct outlines our expectations for participant behavior as well as the consequences for unacceptable behavior.
We invite all participants to help us realize a safe and positive chat experience for everyone.
###2. Expected Behavior
- Be considerate, respectful, and collaborative.
- Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory or harassing behavior and speech.
- Be mindful of your surroundings and of your fellow participants. Alert Slack admins if you notice a dangerous situation or someone in distress.
- Participate in an authentic and active way. In doing so, you help to create WP-Community-UK.slack.com community.
###3. Unacceptable Behavior
Unacceptable behaviors include: intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or demeaning conduct by any member of WP-Community-UK.slack.com. The Slack channel is an open one; please be respectful to all patrons of the team.
Harassment includes: offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability; inappropriate use of nudity and/or sexual images in public spaces (including presentation slides); deliberate intimidation, stalking or following; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of conversations; inappropriate contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.
###4. Consequences Of Unacceptable Behavior
Unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated by any member of the WP-Community-UK.slack team.
Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.
If a participant engages in unacceptable behavior, the administrators may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the team without warning.
###5. What To Do If You Witness Or Are Subject To Unacceptable Behavior
If you are subject to unacceptable behavior, notice that someone else is being subject to unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please notify an administrator as soon as possible.
The administrators are available to help participants, to block offenders, or to otherwise assist those experiencing unacceptable behavior to feel safe on the Slack team.
###6. Scope
We expect all Slack team members to abide by this code of conduct whilst on our Slack team.
###7. Contact Information
You can find all the administrators of the group using our Slack handles:
TODO: ADD SLACK HANDLES ONCE ALL ADMINS AGREE
###8. License And Attribution
This Code of Conduct is a swipe from the awesome work of Open Source Bridge, but with our Slack information substituted. The original is available at http://opensourcebridge.org/about/code-of-conduct/ and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.