BuddyPress contributing really is possible…

BuddyPress contributing really is possible for anyone.

Ever since last fall, I have followed in Drew Jaynes’ (and others’) footsteps in that I took up the initiative to document BuddyPress action and filter hooks the way he helped lead the task for WordPress core.

Not long after that moment, my employer WebDevStudios implemented its own “5 for the Future” initiative for the benefit of its employees, allowing them to spend a little bit of their work week contributing back to the WordPress community. It didn’t matter what role we had in WebDevStudios, we were allowed to contribute back to what helps make our daily job possible.

I decided to continue my efforts with the hooks documentation each week. At the time of this post, I am almost done with all of the components. However, that is not the purpose of this post here. Instead, I wanted to highlight the fact that with part of my time, I helped three different coworkers make their own contributions to BuddyPress Core. For some of them, it was their first contribution ever.

Each of these co-workers is the Project Manager of one of the internal teams at WebDevStudios, and their daily dealings are never code. I talked to each and they were willing to give it a try. All three were assured that I would help them each step of the way. Each took on a whole BuddyPress core file that did not have a large total amount of hooks, but had enough to feel like it really counted (ANY contribution counts). While I helped with details, they did all of the typing and submitting the changes to me.

Jaimie was tasked with bp-core-widgets.php Changeset 9542, Melissa was tasked with class-bp-suggestions Changeset 9731, and Cristina was tasked with bp-core-update.php Changeset 9745.

I am extremely proud of each of them, and appreciate them taking 15-30 minutes of their 5 for the Future time to remotely “sit” with me and work on helping make BuddyPress Core better and more informative for its users and developers.

It goes to show that anyone has the ability to contribute, even if you need a bit of help at the start. I hope that some time in the future, any of them “tap my shoulder” in company chat and ask “Michael, how can I help contribute more to BuddyPress, last time was fun!”