Andy

Andy McIlwain has been a WordPress advocate since 2007, co-organizing WPToronto since 2011. He wrangles content and community projects at GoDaddy. Connect with Andy on his blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Group Update: WordCamp Toronto 2018, open organizing, and a call for volunteers.

Hello WordPressers!

We’ve got a handful of exciting announcements this week. But first: congratulations to our friends in Niagara for hosting their inaugural WordCamp this past weekend. It’s great to see more local WordCamps popping up on the official schedule.

Now, speaking of WordCamps…

WordCamp Toronto 2018

We’re excited to announce that WordCamp Toronto 2018 (#WCYYZ) is a go. Join us for a day of WordPress on Saturday, December 1st at the North York Civic Centre, pictured above.

Local community is our priority, so we’ll be looking for speakers from around the GTA and neighbouring regions. Expect more details to come on that, and our call for sponsors and volunteers, in the coming weeks.

Check out the #WCYYZ 2018 website

A more transparent organizing team

In addition to running a leaner WordCamp with a tighter focus on community, we’re also taking steps to be more transparent & inclusive in how we organize events. To that end we’ve spun up a new P2 site at organize.wptoronto.com.

We’re using this site to discuss plans for WordCamp Toronto 2018, but it’s also the go-to site for WPToronto planning in general. If you’d like to get involved with our group planning, this is the place to do it.

Join the planning discussions on our new P2

A call for more volunteers

Previous updates have mentioned that we’re looking for volunteers to help with the meetups. We’ve just published a volunteer application form to collect more details about potential volunteers and what they’re interested in.

Our group organizers currently include Kristine Black, Alex Sirota, Robin MacRae, Kiera Howe, Dan Stramer, Jacques Surveyer, Jeremy Choi, and myself. While we’re a bigger team than in the past (yay!), we’re still lacking a diversity of views & experiences that reflects Toronto.

Help us make WPToronto even better. If you’re interested in joining us, fill out the volunteer application form. If you’d rather give us feedback about what we can do to improve, please send us a message.

Read moreGroup Update: WordCamp Toronto 2018, open organizing, and a call for volunteers.

Group Update: WordPress 4.9.8 released

Hello WordPressers!

It’s a civic holiday, our summer is in full swing, and the heat is very much on. So there’s not a whole lot happening in terms of local events. That said, there’s a lot to share from around the web this week.

First up, in WordPress: 4.9.8 just dropped, bringing us a new Gutenberg prompt in the dashboard. If you’re not ready for Gutenberg yet, use the Classic Editor plugin to keep the existing editor, or use Gutenberg Ramp to enable Gutenberg for specific post types. If you haven’t tried Gutenberg yet, the official info page on WordPress.org now includes a front-end demo.

Read moreGroup Update: WordPress 4.9.8 released

Group Update: July 21, 2018

Hello WordPressers! We’re reviving our old Meetup.com newsletter as a weekly digest in blog post format. If you’d like to receive these updates via email, subscribe to our site using the form in the sidebar (or footer, if you’re on a mobile device). Jump to a section: Upcoming Meetups & Events Help Wanted WordPress News … Read more

WordPress Weekend: GDPR on your website

Full disclosure: None of the following is legal advice. This is meant to prompt conversation within our community about the implications of GDPR. What is GDPR? GDPR (“General Data Protection Regulation”) kicked in on May 25th in the European Union. It’s a law intended to protect EU citizens by regulating the processing, transfer, and storage … Read more