This was my first time mentoring a group of WP Credits students. It turned out harder and more rewarding than I expected, but not for the technical reasons.
The program pairs students with community contributors who guide them through their first open-source contribution. I read the Mentor Guide and submitted my application. When I learned I’d been accepted, I felt excited because, as a consultant, I enjoy working with people in small groups. This was a great opportunity to guide them the way I would have liked to be guided when I started learning WordPress.
I started with three mentees, all new to open-source contribution. WP Credits offers immediate contribution opportunities and recommends choosing one to shape a project.
Here are some examples related to what may students chose:
Become a Theme Reviewer – introduce yourself as contributor in #themes slack channel. Read the contributor guide in the repository and requirements in the themes team handbook, then follow these steps to review a theme.
Contribute Photos – Create and upload at least 30 quality CC0-licensed photos of your campus, town, or meaningful surroundings to the WordPress Photo Directory. (Photos)
Work on a Component – Learn about a feature or component, and work on it in a Bug Scrub session. Read Contributing with Code and each of the Best Practices, then contribute to a Good First Bug. (Core)
Before choosing one, they learned WordPress and its community through a course on Learn WordPress. The onboarding phase provides curated lessons and the option to try the software in Playground sandboxes and quizzes. This seems so normal to us, as WordPress users, but it is amazing to see how far we’ve come in learning experiences with a single click. I was happy with how easy the platform was for them to use after the initial hiccups.
Unfortunately, this first phase took too long. There is a lot of material for students and mentors to learn, and a schedule to define. But the most difficult part is navigating the delicate balance between enabling students’ potential without doing their work and not forcing them, since you have to accept that this is open source: Help them understand why they might be interested in donating their contributions, connecting, and building something bigger as a community for the community.
Gabi chose Photos. She works as an IT technician and is making her way into web development. She was already working with WordPress, trying out plugins for other projects, so it was easy for her to choose something not necessarily related to her career but, in a sense, more about who she is — a really visual person interested in front-end work. You can see her sensibility in what she submitted — a Japanese pagoda lit at night, jellyfish in deep blue water, koi beside a rock-lined path. Not test submissions. Images from someone who has an eye. I really liked her website; it shows she spent a lot of time detailing it. I was kind of frustrated because, even though her project requirements were met on time, some final details needed extra time for the certificate to be delivered. She filled out a feedback form with a different email than the one on their WP Credits profile, so the course system wasn’t detecting her completion. Sometimes, the person you think will be the first to obtain it is the last. Anyway, I guess it’s the price of being one of the first graduates.
T’Kai chose Themes, but then changed to Photos when time was running out. Smart! She’s a full-time student and a full-time mom, and her schedule was unpredictable in the way only a newborn makes it. Still, she kept showing up. Not necessarily in sync, but that was one of the lessons I wanted to share most: as a global community, the conversation will happen async!
She attended a WordPress meetup at 2:30 in the morning — not because she couldn’t sleep, but because she was already awake doing mom things and decided to make the most of it. She wrote about it on her blog as if it were just a reasonable thing to do. I agree!
Noah took a different direction. He spent real time early on trying to find a path that felt meaningful, not just one that was completable. After working on Good First Bugs, for Core, I helped him land on WordPress Playground blueprints — small files that spin up pre-configured WordPress environments instantly, with no hosting required. I had suggested blueprints as one possible direction. He made it his own, which is exactly what you want.
In the meantime, T’Kai was submitting photos but not getting them approved. The Photo Directory has real standards — quality and description — and a long queue when everyone is rushing to finish at the same time or when big events collide. I tried links and documentation. What actually moved things was going to the Photos Team page on WordPress.org, finding the most active moderators listed there, and reaching out directly.
That was Michelle Frechette. She’s the Executive Director of Post Status, has contributed over 360 photos to the directory herself, and has been part of this community longer than some of my mentees have been using the internet. She responded immediately, explained exactly why the photos weren’t passing, and offered to review T’Kai’s submissions before she sent more.
That one conversation did what weeks of sharing links hadn’t.
The community has no boundaries — it’s global, generous, and people will help if you reach out to them. That’s the thing I should have led with. Instead, I learned it in the middle, and I’ll start there next time.
Noah kept working through the end. He created blueprints for Hello Dolly and Disable Comments, opened PRs on the official GitHub, and reached out to the authors. His blueprints weren’t merged before the program closed. He wrote about it without bitterness: “this is certainly not the end for me in the WP ecosystem.” He documented everything and gave a wrap-up presentation on WordPress.tv. I think that matters.
They all graduated on the same day.
If I’m honest about what I’d change, it’s the project scoping. Thirty photos gave us a finish line, and finish lines are useful. But a better version would have been: contribute photos that WordPress meetup organizers can actually use.
Everything else I’d keep — especially the part where you show up at 2:30 a.m. if that’s what you have. Hours add up. Requirements get met. And somewhere along the way, you realize the community you’ve been contributing to is much bigger and more generous than you imagined.
Near the end I wrote to all three of them: the community will always be here, raising a hand on any channel will get you help, and I really hope you come back to it.
I meant it. I’m already thinking about next time. Now I’m ready, LOL.
Thanks to all the WP Credits team members who patiently helped us sort all kinds of issues: Isotta Peira, Celi Garoe, Francesco Di Candia, Maciej Pilarski, and contributors @evarlese, @nilovelez, @roblesloaiza. A lot of people are behind something that looks simple from the outside.
One thing I know for sure is that many people are interested in becoming WP Credits mentors, which shows a strong commitment to WordPress’s future and makes me happy.
Jos Velasco.
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