The handbooks landing page is one of the most-linked-to pages we have.

A lot of our conversations on Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ and email are pointing to handbook pages.

The current list is a flat list and nine headings or sections. The education handbook is missing. It is difficult to learn which handbook is relevant where, especially for new contributors to the community team.

Current state

The landing page today:

• Community Team Handbook
• Community Team Supporter and Manager Handbook
• Meetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. Organizer Handbook
• WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Organizer Handbook
• Innovative WordPress Events Handbook (temporary)
• Contributor Events Organizer Handbook
• KidsCamp Organizer Handbook
• Online Events Handbook
• Incident Response Team Handbook

I am suggesting a revamp of the way we structure our handbooks and also help community members work better to navigate with tools and processes. Also it would be easier to onboard people contextually. 

Part 1: Proposal to restructure the landing page

Group the nine handbooks into three sections by audience and purpose. 

Each section gets a short description so people know whether they’re in the right place before clicking.

Make Community Team

For the people who run and support the Community Team itself.

• Community Team Handbook (overview of Meetups Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook., Events, WordCamps, WPCC and Credits and supporter roles like Event Supporters, Program Supports, Program Managers )
• Incident Response Team Handbook
• Education Program Team Handbook

Local Events Organizers

For anyone planning or running a WordPress event in their community.

• Meetup Organizer Handbook
• WordCamp Organizer Handbook
• WordPress Campus Connect Handbook
• Online Events Handbook
• KidsCamp Organizer Handbook

Resource Handbooks

Reference material for people supporting events.

• Sponsor Handbook
• Speaker Handbook
• Volunteer Handbook

The Sponsor and Speaker handbooks don’t currently exist as standalone documents. This content lives buried inside the WordCamp Organizer Handbook.

It would be good to have them as proper standalone handbooks.

Also should we add a one-page handbook for volunteers? so all WP event organizers can send it to their volunteers when they’ve been accepted?

Here is a mockup I created using some AI tools for representational purposes. (it is missing the Education program parts as it was based of current layout) 

Part 2: Restructure the Community Team Handbook chapters

The Community Team Handbook is the most-used. The current chapter list is a bit flat and the names don’t always match what’s inside. I’d propose this outline:

• Event Vetting
• Event Orientations
• Setting Up Meetups
• Setting Up Events
• Team Chats
• Team Goals
• Community Team Dir
• Tools
  • Google Apps Email
  • HelpScout
  • Finance Tools
    • QuickBooks
• Trademark FAQs

Can we add an invitation on the first page of each handbook to take the relevant learn.wordpress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ course for self training? 

For example, invite new contributors to take the training, etc.

What I’m asking for

I’d like around three Event Supporters to join me as a working group to ship parts 1 and 2.

The work breaks down into four chunks:

• Audit. Go through each handbook and list what’s outdated, what’s missing, what’s duplicated across handbooks, and what should move where. This is the foundation everything else builds on.
• Restructure. Finalize the chapter outline above (open to changes — the version in this post is a starting point) and migrate existing content into the new structure.
• Publish. Fill the gaps. The Sponsor and Speaker handbooks need to be written and published as standalone documents. Any other gaps the audit surfaces get filled here.
• Maintain. Define a lightweight review process and maybe have a rotating Docs Working Group.

Timeline

Six to eight weeks of work, with twelve as a hard ceiling. I’d rather we ship something solid than let this drag through a long unstructured stretch.

• Weeks 1–2 — Audit. The working group meets, divides handbooks, and produces the audit document.
• Weeks 3–5 — Restructure. Finalize the outline, migrate content, build the landing page.
• Weeks 6–7 — Publish. Sponsor and Speaker handbooks drafted and published. Final review.
• Week 8 — Launch. New landing page goes live.
• Week 9 onward — Docs Working Group takes over with a quarterly review cycle.

Open questions for the team

A few things I’d specifically like input on before kicking off:

• Is the two-section grouping the right cut, or are there handbooks I’ve put in the wrong section?
• The “Innovative WordPress Events Handbook (temporary)” from 2023 is still active? Maybe we could turn it into a one-page handbook for “Other types of WP events”, and to add there the info about other types of events: Do_Action do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org., WP Women Days, etc..
• Is there prior work on a Sponsor or Speaker handbook I should pick up from rather than starting fresh?
• Anyone already working on related cleanup I should coordinate with?

How to respond

If you’re an Event Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., Program Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. or Program Manager Program Managers (formerly Super Deputies) are Program Supporters who can perform extra tasks on WordCamp.org like creating new sites and publishing WordCamps to the schedule. who’d like to join the working group, drop a comment below or ping The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me in #community-team on Slack or send me a DM on slack if you want to know more.

We will be focusing on being agile and quick to make changes, we rather ship these changes and then make regular updates – instead of trying to get everything right in one go.

I’ll close the call for volunteers by 17th July, 2026 and we’ll kick off the week after.

Props to @_dorsvenabili @unintended8 for peer review and adding suggestions.

#handbooks

#highlight