This guide is a quick starting point for first-time contributors for the Documentation Team. If you are on a Contributor Day at a local WordCamp, this should get you pointed in the right direction. If you feel there is any aspect left out of this please let us know in the comments below.
Getting started
If you haven’t got a wordpress.org account already, now would be the time to create one. You can easily create one using the registration form on the website. Once you’re done with that it’s time to get on Slack. Slack is used by the Documentation team to coordinate efforts and to keep in touch. You can sign up on the web version of the WordPress.org Slack. Use your WordPress.org credentials to create an account and head to the #docs channel. There you should find people that can help you with any questions you might have regarding the documentation process.
Group Responsibilities
This team is responsible for coordinating all documentation initiatives around WordPress, including the Codex (moving to HelpHub and DevHub), handbooks, parts of developer.wordpress.org, admin help, inline docs, and other general wordsmithing across the WordPress project.
Most of what we do ends up in one of these two sites:
- developer.wordpress.org (aka DevHub) – This is where all the documentation aimed to developers are, such as: Code reference, Plugins and Themes development handbooks and more.
- wordpress.org/support (aka HelpHub) – This is where all the documentation aimed to the end-user are, such as Installation instructions, Admin panel reference and more.
What about the Codex?
The Codex is a community-created repository for WordPress documentation. Anyone can edit any of the information on the Codex, and only a WordPress.org user account is required to create a page.
At this moment in time, the Codex is not actively maintained and pages are being migrated to both HelpHub and DevHub.
How can I help?
As the first step, refer Good first issues. Or, you can try Editing articles.
Prior Knowledge
Prior knowledge that you’ll find helpful for working on docs is:
- some familiarity with WordPress, though keep in mind that writing docs is an excellent way to learn
- good English language skills
- knowledge of theme development for working on the Theme Developer handbook
- knowledge of plugin development for working on the Plugin Developer handbook
- for writing documentation, the ability to write clear, concise documentation
- development skills (PHP, CSS) if interested in building tools
OLD Open projects
Currently there are two projects that can use your help. These two are the current main focus for the Documentation Team. The projects are HelpHub and the inline documentation for all JavaScript used in WordPress.
HelpHub
You can find the current state of this project listed in an earlier post on our make.wordpress.org pages. If you do decide to help out with HelpHub, make sure you read up on our styling and formatting guide.
Inline JavaScript documentation
The second project that’s currently being worked on is the inline documentation for all JavaScript used in WordPress. You should be able to find all information relevant to that in this (Core) post.
Other projects
If these two projects are not your cup of tea: Take a look at our Current Projects page. You can find more documentation projects there. While these currently don’t have our main focus they can still use some love and care.
Working on HelpHub
If you want to help out with HelpHub, you’re going to need access to the staging environment. You can request access from anyone that has administrative rights within the HelpHub Staging Environment. Most of them are in the #docs channel on Slack. If you request access in that channel you should get an answer in there rather quickly.
Most work is currently coordinated in this Google document. Most of the work being done right now is proofreading all articles that are currently in HelpHub.