Hey everyone,
I’ve been thinking about how #WPCollab could be brought back to life and would like to share my thoughts on that and things we did.
When this started, what I was realistically hoping for was to find one person interested in working on a plugin together. To say I was surprised to see so many people interested is an understatement. Seven people (from seven different countries) who never met before contributed code and there were a few more involved in planning stages. Compared to expectations, this made WPCollab success, at least in my eyes.
The same thing that made it successful was possibly what made it lose the momentum. Having so many people requires serious project management, and without speaking for anyone else, that wasn’t something I was able to do, especially at the time.
So, what to we do now?
We could try to revive Gitbot, but I’m worried that would eventually lead us to where we are now, again.
Instead, I’m thinking about using WPCollab to set up a site similar to WP Mentor, basically a WordPress matchmaking site, where WordPress professionals can find other WordPress professionals to work with, be it designers looking for developers, developers looking for project managers or any other combination you can imagine. The beauty of WP Mentor is that all it does is connect people. Once you’ve found your mentor or mentee, it’s up to you two how you’ll handle the mentorship.
For some crazy reason, WordPress people really want to work with other WordPress people they don’t know. If WPCollab can just help them meet and then step aside and let them work on whatever they want to work on (free themes, paid plugins, client project…) there’s more incentive for people to join and this whole thing will be way easier to manage.
Thoughts?
P.S. I’ll be honest with you, suggesting this is a combination of tunnel vision and trying to scratch my own itch (http://thematosoup.com/web-designer-wordpress-theme/), but the original idea hasn’t changed – help WordPress people find other WordPress people to work with.
