Who gets WordPress documentation and training ready for a release, and how can you help? WPwatercooler invited me as the guest for episode 447, about WordPress 6.2. Much of my part covered the behind the scenes work: docs, training and release parties.
🎙️ Episode details
- Show: WPwatercooler, episode 447, “What’s New in WordPress 6.2?”
- Hosts: Jason Tuckercolleague, Sé Reedcolleague and Jason Cosperacquaintance
- Guest: me, Courtney Robertson
- Date: March 10, 2023
- Topics: where WordPress documentation lives, keeping training current, and release parties
- Show notes: WPwatercooler episode 447, with links and a transcript
📖 Where WordPress documentation lives
First, I walked through the layers. User documentation lives at WordPress.org/documentation, after years in the Codex. Meanwhile, handwritten developer docs on developer.wordpress.org often come from the release squad and core contributors. A tool called WP Parser generates the code reference. It reads the code itself and builds pages of functions, descriptions and parameters.
🎓 Keeping training current with each release
Similarly, the Training team aimed to get closer to release ready each cycle. I said companies sponsored about four people full time for some of that work. Volunteers still had to write lesson plans and rerecord videos, because a changed button style confuses a new user even when the button hasn’t moved. So we needed help.
In addition, Docs, Training and Marketing had started coordinating on what across WordPress.org must be ready at release. I asked plugin and theme authors who receive release emails from WordPress.org: what would make those emails worth reading and acting on?
🎉 What happens at a release party?
In short, release parties are Slack chats in the core channel, usually on Tuesdays. There, contributors push the beta or release candidate build, and a new zip becomes available to test. Contributors don’t discuss issues publicly in the party. I’d recorded one for the Training team so others could see what riding along is like. It’s less dangerous than a NASA launch, but it still ships software that runs a big share of the web.
🧪 What can you take for WordPress documentation and training?
- Plugin and theme authors: read the release emails, and tell the Training team what would make them useful.
- Anyone: join a release party and test the build it produces.
- Writers: the Docs and Training teams both need people to update content each release.
Also, more conversations like this one live in my podcast and speaking archive.
🗓️ Archival note
WPwatercooler’s episode page is dated March 10, 2023. Then I added this post on November 9, 2026, from the show notes and the publisher’s automated transcript, which garbles some contributor names, so I left those names out. However, I reviewed the transcript, not the recording.