We, the organisers of WordCamp Europe 2022, have been called out for a lack of diversity on our Organising Team. That’s fair: when you look at our team page, it doesn’t visibly reflect the diversity of our global community, and it is difficult to readily see who in this group of people are underrepresented in their communities. Diversity is important, and we know that seeing people like yourself at the helm of WordPress events makes the entire event, and the WordPress community, welcoming and safe.
The WordCamp Europe team has been hard at work, as we have been so excited to bring you an in-person WCEU in Porto this year. We’re a volunteer team, and being called out was immensely hard. We’ve been working through hurt, deep reflection, and painful realisations. The whole team cares deeply about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is dedicated to ensuring our event is a safe and inviting place for our entire community. There’s still more we can do to ensure that.
Our next steps
At this time, WCEU is already more than halfway planned. There are areas that we intend to focus on that will make WCEU more inclusive, both this year and in the future:
- Speaker Selection
At this time, the Call for Speakers is closed, and we are working to ensure a diverse stage. In 2019, we had 44% female and 56% male representation on stage, and featured representatives from 21 countries. In 2020, we had nearly 50/50 gender representation, with several folks outside of the gender binary, and representatives from 16 countries. We’re proud that year after year, our diversity increases, and we are excited to bring you an even more diverse stage this year.
- Call for Volunteers
Volunteering is a gateway to WordCamp leadership. In addition to an open call, we will do some outreach to recruit a diverse volunteer crew who represent our community, and thus prepare future generations of WC leaders for roles like team members, leads, and global leads.
- Working with WordCamp Central and the Community Team
Following this week’s discussions, we have spoken with WordCamp Central around what resources are available to us. Central will be starting some conversations on the Make Community Team blog around diversity, and has shared the following resources with us:- Participation in #WPDiversity programs, especially the Allyship program.
- Tuesday Trainings: Encouraging Diversity in Meetups and WordCamps
- Community Inclusion Initiatives
- Community team deputies are available online and will be at WordCamp Europe. They can help answer questions about how to become a WordPress event organiser, and help you through the steps to becoming one!
- One other area of focus for us is to increase transparency in how organisers, speakers, and volunteers are selected for WCEU. We will share more details around the selection process a bit later, right now our priority is to ensure the preparations for the first in-person WordCamp Europe in three years.
- Reflecting on the past
Every year, the volunteer WordCamp Organising Team creates an internal retrospective on what we can do differently for future years. This year, we are planning on publishing that retrospective. - Future improvements
In advance of the Call for organisers for 2023, we will speak with Central and other WordCamp and Meetup organisers to hear their advice on how to improve the diversity of our organising team. Our call for organisers will incorporate that advice and share details on the organiser selection process.
Getting a team together this year
The last two years of life have been difficult for so many, and also for our event itself. In 2020 we were planning to gather the European WordPress community to Porto but were forced to switch online at a moment’s notice. Since that decision, the WCEU team has been stretched in the same ways our community has – we have lost jobs, lost loved ones, schooled our children at home… Still, we didn’t want to skip 2021 and decided to organise a second online edition of the event.
The global struggle has been visible also in the applications to join the organising team. Especially this year, we discovered that we did not have the pool we needed, despite extending the application period. In the global situation that was the reality during the Call for Organisers, we can’t blame anyone for not taking the risk to commit countless hours to work towards organising an in-person event in an uncertain future.
So we want to use this opportunity to also thank everyone in the WCEU team, for taking this step with us and choosing to contribute towards an event that will bring the European WordPress community together after being online for a few years.
If you have something in mind and would like to speak, you can reach WordCamp Central or the organising team of WCEU 2022 us in the following ways:
- Email WordCamp Central at support@wordcamp.org
- Follow the Make Community blog for upcoming conversations
- Email us at europe@wordcamp.org
We look forward to seeing you in Porto in June!
“That’s fair: when you look at our team page, it doesn’t visibly reflect the diversity of our global community, and it is difficult to readily see who in this group of people are underrepresented in their communities.”
I think this is where this situation lies. A WordCamp (or a Meetup) has a lot of local pressure. They are “local” events that have to gather people from the place they represent.
WordCamp Europe represents Europe, and therefore the profiles of people who live there, and, no, it is not a “global” event. In the same way WordCamp Asia, Latam or US represent those territories. If we want a global event, maybe a WordCamp World will be it.
At WordCamp Europe the profiles to be represented are those who reside in European countries and, in fact, those people within those countries who participate in the WordPress Community or are users. This means that, by itself, there are profiles that will never be represented. Common Sense.
This does not mean that there is no need to empower, promote and seek greater participation from everyone, but let’s not fool ourselves, participation in the WordCamp is voluntary and people are accepted for their worth, not for their appearance or beliefs.
On the other hand, it is important to take into account, because it begins to border on the delicate, to ask in forms for a “not necessary” biased element such as (taking it to the extreme) skin color, gender, race, beliefs or anything else that affects the privacy and intimacy of people. RGPD (mic drop).
Let whoever wants to participate in the Community participate. If someone sees any action that goes against diversity, denounce it, but never force quotas or similar in something that, in fact, is very open, as I say, especially at WordCamp Europe where, as far as I know, there has never been any problem with this.
If someone sees itself underrepresented, let tehm say so, but above all, let them volunteer and help to participate, because that will be the great success of WordCamp Europe: the participation of the more people who want to participate.