Twelve years ago today, I received my very first props for contributing to WordPress Core. I had no idea at the time, but it turned out to be a transformative milestone in my career.
In WordPress, community participants receive credit for contributing to a given change or deliverable by receiving “props.”
Props should be given to all those who contributed to the final commit, whether through patches, refreshed patches, code suggested otherwise, design, writing, user testing, or other significant investments of time and effort. Usernames are parsed for the credits list and WordPress.org profiles.
Before each release, the names of all contributors to that version are collected and added to the Credits API, which powers the Credits page in the WordPress dashboard. I’m proud to have been listed on that page for 22 consecutive releases starting with 4.7, and 27 of the 33 releases overall since my first credited contribution in WordPress 3.7 “Basie,” alongside 210 other contributors.
To celebrate my ten year anniversary, I started publishing a blog post each year. In past editions, I’ve focused a bit on my WordPress origin story and looking at some “props” related data.
This year, I’m excited to commemorate the day by announcing something new!
From Stage to Essay
At the end of May, Nick Vidal from the Open Source Initiative reached out to me. To celebrate GitHub’s Maintainer Month, he had been working to compile a collection of contributor stories for a book about the maintainers behind Open Source projects. He asked me if I’d be willing to submit something.
I was honored! I read through the dozen or so questions he sent and wrote answers for a handful that resonated with me. The next day I flew out to attend WordCamp Europe. Between the whirlwind of travel, attending sessions, and preparing to give my talk, I completely forgot about it.
A few days after speaking, I received another email from Nick.
While doing some research about you, I fell in love with your recent talk at WordCamp Europe.
He had seen the recording of my talk and asked me to incorporate the subject matter with the answers I had already sent over for the book. My speaker notes captured the core ideas, but they needed a lot of refinement and proper citations before they could stand alone as a publishable essay. I also included some thoughts from my recent post about the impact of maintaining Open Source projects.
I’m excited to share that thanks to the many hours Nick put into the project, the maintaine.rs website showcasing this project is live. 🎉 You can read my essay on the website, or download the full book in PDF or EPUB format.
Building On The Ideas Of Others
My good friend and fellow Core Committer Felix Arntz celebrated the 10 year anniversary of his first contribution to WordPress late last month. He wrote about 10 things he’s learned in 10 years of contributing.
As far as I know, Felix hadn’t seen my WCEU talk or heard about the Maintainers project. Despite that, we ended up exploring many of the same themes and principles.
While the ideas I explore in my talk and essay aren’t novel, they’re rooted in lessons I’ve learned from others and foundational Open Source concepts. A key part of participating in any Open Source community is learning from your predecessors. How should we conduct ourselves? How should we structure our communities? How should we make decisions? You can earn the respect of your peers by demonstrating that you thoughtfully consider these questions through your day to day actions.
Submit Your Own Story
I’m grateful to be included in the book among many other amazing maintainers, but I was also glad to find out I was not the only maintainer representing the WordPress project: Tammie Lister also submitted her maintainer story.
While it’s good to see WordPress represented in the book, the project is maintained by many people, not just two.
On the landing page for the project is a call out to “Share Your Story” for consideration in future editions. The HeroPress site does an amazing job of surfacing the stories behind members of the WordPress community. But there’s value in sharing those stories with the broader Open Source community too. If you help maintain WordPress in some way, I hope you’ll consider sharing your story for a future edition of the book, they all deserve to be heard.
Closing Thoughts
Over the past 12 years, I’ve done my best to contribute in ways that don’t just solve problems, but make the project more approachable, more sustainable, and more human.
I recently received this DM from someone.
“Watched your talk on my way home. You did a fantastic job explaining core and the committer role. Reminded me why I’m still around and invigorated to do more. Thanks!”
It came from someone I deeply respect, someone I’ve learned a great deal from over the years.
It’s easy to underestimate the impact even our most routine contributions can have on others, especially in Open Source, where so much of the work happens asynchronously and behind a screen.
Messages like this remind me why I do this work. I hope others have found value or inspiration in what I’ve shared. And if my story, my talk, or my essay helps even a few people feel more connected or inspired to stay involved, then it’s all been worth it.
Here’s to year 13 and beyond. ❤️
“Props” Anniversaries: Ten, Eleven.
Commit-iversaries: Two, Five, Six.
Featured image credit: “A couple of bookshelves with colorful books on a stone wall” by mdburnette/ CC0 1.0
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