MD Contribution Camp a day dedicated to contributing to WordPress 

Howdy!! 👋 If you are reading this, then we would safely guess that you are using and loving WordPress or one of the fan followers of Multidots or both! This is a very unique and slightly awkward experiment when our CEO (Anil Gupta) put us (Kushal Dave — Sr. Business Development Executive and Amit Patel — Project Manager) to cover a story of our Contribution Camp. We are not professional writers, do let us know in the comment how we did covering this story 🤓

Our company, Multidots organised a contribution camp, where 90+ team members from three continents camped to contribute their skills and time. The entire Multidots team contributed more than 350 hours of their time to this half-day contribution camp across 13+ WordPress channels. We wish we were wrong about this but it seems to us that we are the very first company to contribute 350+ hours by 90+ team members to WordPress in one single day! (Please let us know in a comment if any other company in the WordPress ecosystem, has done a contribution of this size in one single day).

There is a lot to talk about this contribution camp but first, let’s look into a few interesting stats. 

• Out of 92 contributors, 33 (~36 %) were first-time contributors, and 59 were regular contributors. 

• 45 developers contributed to WordPress Core and submitted 18 code patches. 

• In this contribution camp, 11% of contributors were non-technical. 

We are proud to share the below facts regarding our first contribution organization-wide.

First-time Contributors 

We asked a few first-time contributors to share their feelings after the contribution. Here is how they summed up their experiences! 

Tips for first-time contributors 

• The first step is to create your WordPress.org and Github profiles (both are free) and will be essential for your contribution journey to WordPress. 
• There are tons of help and resources available to get started with a contribution in WordPress. We recommend reading these resources!
  • Watch this workshop introductory workshop on contributing to WordPress.
  • This blog covers a few great tips for new contributors with technical skills.
• There are technical and non-technical areas in WordPress where you can contribute. So don’t hold yourself back if you don’t know how to code to contribute to WordPress.
• The quickest and easiest way to start contributing is by submitting the photos to the photos directory. 
• You can also help translate WordPress to your language and that is a very easy way to contribute to WordPress and make WordPress more accessible.
• Participate in your local WordPress meetup and WordCamps where you will meet others who already have contribution experience. 
• Try to find a group or buddy to partner with as that will make the contribution experience more fun. 
• If you need any additional help related to WordPress contribution, let us know in a comment and we will be happy to help.

Why does our company encourage everyone to contribute to WordPress? We asked this question to the co-founders of Multidots and here are their words. 

I was one of the volunteers and members of an open-source committee during my college years. This committee’s mission was to learn, experiment, and advocate open source in educational institutions. My volunteer experience and involvement in open-source paved the way for a purposeful, successful, and satisfying career and business. So, I feel that I owe to open-source for my success. Also, contributing experience brings unique opportunities like connecting with a community of like-minded people, being part of something significant and impactful, and learning new unique ways to code and communicate. Hence, with all the joy and pride, I encourage our Dots of Multidots to contribute to open-source and WordPress.

said Anil Gupta, CEO at Multidots

From the very beginning of my career, I have been fond of WordPress. Being a huge WordPress Fan I enjoyed contributing individually as well. Contributing to the WordPress community is not only my passion but also brings me the happiness of giving back to the entire community. As a newcomer to start with my WordPress Journey, I learned plenty from the WordPress Community. Hence I keep encouraging Team Multidots to contribute more and more to maintain the tradition of Giving and eventually learning & growing. I am really glad that on this company-wide contribution day, we were able to bring in a lot of first-time contributors.

said Aslam Multani, COO at Multidots

Our Favourite Part of the Contribution Camp 

We both asked this question to each other. What was our favorite part of this Contribution Camp? 

Amit — I recently joined Multidots. I have been into WordPress and open-source for 14+ years. To be honest, I never thought of creating my own WordPress profile. When I attended an educational workshop arranged by Multidots for first-time contributors, I came to know that there are many areas in WordPress where I can contribute to. And here I am as a first-time contributor. Education & awareness brought by Multidots for the first-time contributors is amazing. 

Kushal — My favorite part of the contribution camp was supporting the Teach for India NGO with a generous amount of $3,680 dollars donated by Multidots. I have been in Multidots for more than 4 years, and Multidots has carried out multiple community support initiatives through the Multidots Foundation. However, they let us (all the Dots) vote for the cause and NGO that we like to support, and gamifying it a little bit (number of hours contributed x $10) was really fun and touching for me.

Our first contribution camp was a great success and an amazing experience for all of us at Multidots. We are committed to doing three more contribution camps in 2022 and can’t wait to share more about our next contribution camp with you all soon. We look forward to your comments and ideas on what we should do differently in our future contribution camps.  

Amateur Bloggers,

Amit + Kushal 

P.S.  Amit and I collaborated on this article using our Multicollab tool. It’s super-fun and easy to use!