Contributor Stories – The WordPress Community is like a family to me

The WordPress community is welcoming toward everyone. We can all join in and offer whatever we have in terms of time, energy, focus, and dedication, and we can use that to contribute regardless of who we are or where we come from.

WordCamp Asia 2023 is set to provide contributors with a platform to collaborate and improve WordPress. Your participation is what matters, and it makes all the difference. We present to you the first series of contributor stories.

#ContributorStory

“The WordPress community is like a family to me.

I’m a statistics graduate from Nagpur University. Nagpur is a Tier 2 city in central India. I started using WordPress with version 1.8 as a blogger. As a Tier 2 citizen, finding tech-minded individuals with whom to converse is challenging. WordCamps introduced me to incredible, like-minded individuals with whom I share technical conversations and lifelong friendships. I attended my first WordCamp in 2013 in the city of Baroda. This experience enlightened me about the fundamental errors I’ve made in the past, and as a result, I am now a more proficient WordPress user. I chose to attend as many WordCamps as I could. I have participated as an attendee, volunteer, speaker, and organizer in over 30 WordCamps across India. 

I wanted to make sure everyone else took such a long journey to meet tech-savvy geeks, so I created a WordPress community in Nagpur with friends from the community. 

As a GTE for the Marathi localization, I participate in polyglot teams to make WordPress accessible to Marathi-speaking users.

After participating in the Contributor Day at WordCamp Nagpur 2022, I’m considering making contributions to the Photo and Patterns teams.

Friends from other city chapters maintained constant contact during the COVID period by checking in with each other every day. The WordPress community is like a family to me.


#ContributorStory

“3 years of consistent contribution on WordPress.

I have been contributing to the WordPress community since September 2019, and I have been doing that virtually to date regularly. I am one of the very few contributors who has contributed to almost every WordPress project which can be visible on my profile: https://profiles.wordpress.org/passoniate/

I belong to Sindh, one of the provinces of Pakistan. We have a rich heritage, and our language is called the Sindhi Language. which is an almost 5000 years old language that motivated me to translate WordPress into my native language, which other community members and I completed successfully.

When I started using WordPress, I was amazed by its features, and I joined WordPress slack to get to know people who contribute to this amazing thing. Then I got a chance to attend WordCamp Karachi. I got inspired by people doing business around WordPress and giving back to the community by contributing to WordPress in different projects. It motivated me to choose WordPress as my tool for making my living and giving back to the community by contributing in any possible way.

I belong to a lower-class family where my father is a mason by profession and the only breadwinner in my family. I became aware of WordPress through one of my mentors Muhammad Kashif and started my career in WordPress. Within a few months, I learned WordPress Design and Development and started freelancing, which changed My life suddenly. I developed my personality in our society and supported my family financially. Today I have my dream home, which I built with my earnings from WordPress. I also help other WordPress newbies to get started with WordPress.

The critical area of WordPress for me is the amazing WordPress Community and the people in WordPress and WordPress itself!


#ContributorStory

“WordPress is The Best Decision I Ever Made.

Volunteers build WordPress, and I am one of them. Part of WordPress’ success is that the community consists not only of developers but of designers, user experience experts, support volunteers, writers, users, accessibility experts, and enthusiasts. This diverse input strengthens the project. It also means you have more space to get involved. Whatever your skill set, the WordPress community has room for you.

I have been associated with WordPress for almost 11 years, and I remember my first contributor day in 2018 when I started with the Polyglots team. There is no looking back, and I started participating in all the local WordCamp’s Contributor days and participated as a Volunteer for Support, WPTV, Polyglots, the Documentation team, and others. I love all the teams, but I enjoy being part of the Support, Polyglot, and WPTV team. 

My first walk-through of WordPress made me think about how a CMS can be so simple and easy to manage. Even since then, I have fallen in love with WordPress. I made a few simple websites and eventually jumped to enterprise-level projects. I have been in Project management for the last six years, but I am active in the WordPress community. I encourage my team members to be part of the community.    

I have now started participating in Global WordCamps and dream of organizing all global WordCamps. The Five For Future Pledge I have taken is most important for me, and I make sure that I learn from the community and give back to the community to the best of my ability. 


#ContributorStory

“Contribution makes us feel happy and helps for social connection. Together we can grow. 

WordCamp Ahmedabad 2018 was my first WordCamp. And I have attended my first contributor day. I learned about the contribution on contributor day and contributed for translation. After that, I contributed to plugins and the core team. I love receiving a contribution badge from the community team for my profile after my contribution. It makes me feel confident and proud. Giving back to the community is what I love the most. 

After that, I attended many WordCamps and participated as a volunteer. I love to contribute to different channels of WordPress. I have also been an active member of the WordPress community and participated as a speaker in Ahmedabad Meetups of India. I have also enjoyed attending do_action events.  Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much. 🙂 


#ContributorStory

“WordCamps Connect Me with the Community and Encourage Contributing More. 

In 2015, I attended my first WordCamp in Kathmandu (WordCamp Nepal 2015). I genuinely loved the conference, food, and vibrancy that I decided to speak at the next WordCamp. So, the following year, I presented my talk at WordCamp Kathmandu 2016. That was my first official contribution to the WordPress community. 

However, unofficially, I believe I contributed via my job as a WordPress content marketer. I was writing WordPress tutorials and guides, which I believe might have helped some people. Well, I still do the same. After WordCamp Kathmandu 2016, I talked again at WordCamp Biratnagar 2018. And recently, I co-organized WordCamp Kathmandu 2022 as a Speaker Wrangler and also spoke at WordCamp Nepal 2022.