A friendly and welcoming WordCamp for everyone
Deutsch / English
TL;DR
- Diversity and inclusion make the WordCamp better for everyone.
- Status quo: Childcare, accessible access and talks in German and English.
- Now new: Active search for speakers from under-represented groups and adjacent communities, more support for speakers, financial support.
One of the strengths of the WordPress Community is its diversity. No matter if our monthly Meetup or the WordCamp Vienna – we are a motley bunch with different interests and skills. Everyone is welcome no matter if beginner, professional, developer, blogger or designer.
Everyone needs a voice – truly in the spirit of the WordPress motto “Democratize Publishing”.
But as it is some groups, for example women, are under-represented in comparison to the general population. That has manifold reasons, many of which are outside of our control. Still we as organizers of the WordCamp would like to try our best to reduce this imbalance as much as possible. But why actually?
Why diversity?
Even though sometimes misunderstood diversity isn’t about some “charitable act” or the preference of a few. On the contrary! Differences and variety make us stronger together, not least because through different perspectives we can learn from each other to see the (WordPress-)world from different angles. And like that the WordCamp can become better for everyone.
So what we want to try is to remove as many obstacles as possible so that everyone in our community can have the same opportunities. For this to work some special assistance might sometimes be needed. But this shouldn’t be done at the expense of others or result in special treatments: Our goal is inclusion so that we can all participate in the WordPress Community equally.
Women in the WordPress Community
One of the most obvious imbalances in comparison to the average population is the ratio of women. Namely when it comes to visitors (2018 about 30% women, measured by the chosen T-Shirt size) as well as concerning those proposing talks (always clearly below 50%).
But why is this? It doesn’t seem to be a lack of interest if we look at initiatives like Women && Code that managed to gather more than 500 women in Vienna over the course of only some months. The reasons have to be elsewhere – we have identified three main reasons for us:
- Lack of representation of women e.g. in texts and images on the website
- Lack of female role models in the community especially when it comes to speakers
- Lack of childcare during the WordCamp, as, in spite of big progress, the responsibility for children still mostly remains with women
This already brings us to the next point:
What we have already done
We have already done some things to improve the diversity at the WordCamp.
- More femininity in our appearance. – It isn’t a coincidence our new design features illustrations of women in a prominent spot. Also elsewhere, for example in our call for speakers, we are careful to use wording and chose images that appeal to women.
- Free childcare. – Already in the year 2018 we successfully offered childcare and enabled many parents to visit the WordCamp more easily or at all.
- Accessible access to the WordCamp. – For the last 2 years all locations for talks as well as the After Party and the Contributors Day have been at ground level or accessible with an escalator.
- Talks in German and English. – Every year we are happy to offer talks in English for our many international guests. At the same time there will be many interesting talks in German for those who feel more comfortable with it.
What we have planned for the future
In addition to these measures we have set new goals for this year:
- Active encouragement to speak. – This year we’ll actively approach unrepresented groups like e.g. women to encourage them to propose talks for the WordCamp.
- More support for speakers. – It isn’t easy to speak in front of a full auditorium, even more so if you aren’t speaking in your mother tongue. To help (future) speakers overcome their fear we want to put increased effort into giving them feedback and other assistance.
- Approach friends from adjacent communities. – WordPress isn’t an island but embedded in a network of many communities in and around the Web. In this spirit we’d like to invite people from adjacent communities to apply as speakers.
- Financial support. – Especially for speakers who aren’t from Vienna visiting WordCamps often isn’t possible due to the costs involved. To ease this we encourage (and help if needed) you to apply at the Yoast Diversity Fund for financial support.
Help us to become more diverse!
We hope that with these measures we can make the WordCamp a little bit more diverse again this year. At the same time we hope that you help us reach that goal. How? Apply as speaker! Tell your friends about us! And if you have further ideas how to make WordCamp Vienna an even more friendly and welcoming event for everyone we are looking forward to hearing from you.
