The rarefied micro-community of WordPress users who travel to WordCamps and run small to large WordPress projects around India, have been talking about an interesting project: WordCamp India!
A large multi-day WordCamp of thousands of people coming and doing cool WordPress things with maybe a couple of hundred folks from around the world, with large enterprise agencies, product companies and more.
A large event like this is probably the only chance for a lot of people in India to attend a WordPress conference of that size and stature because of finances involving a foreign trip and of course visa regimes.
It is hard to argue against the value that an event like this would unlock.
But there are also fears of consolidation of sponsor support and organiser time.Some of these things I want to write are really from my perspective. I am not suggesting this is some researched article. But I have been around the WordPress community team long enough (almost a decade now) and have seen these things happen over the years.
Costs of Consolidation
Sponsors: Sponsors would rather spend time and money on one large event once a year rather than several smaller ones. This makes a lot of operational sense to sponsors. This introduces a higher load on event organisers from smaller events to find new sponsors.
Event Organisers: Event organisers from smaller communities also end up getting involved in the large event, and if they are not sponsored (paid to work in open source) they will prioritise the larger events. In reality, even paid contributors do this, so I expect this is even harder for unpaid volunteer contributors. As a result, we will possibly see the unintended consequence of weakening local communities.
Possible Side Effects
- Stagnating Community: As the local communities struggle with events newer people might not find it as enjoyable or fun to get involved. This will lead to stagnation
- Local events fade out: While big fancy events in resorts might thrive, no one will be around to get into the weeds and help local events grow. Local communities will eventually fade out.
- The Big Event will eventually decline: Well if all the local communities feel the pressure, and a system that only takes from the smaller communities (both sponsor money, organiser and speaker talent), new things will not happen, we will have the big event finally becoming jaded and possibly also decline over time.
Okay, Are you against WordCamp India?
No, I am not.
I want WordCamp India to happen and fuel WordPress growth in India. But before we put out an order this fuel we need the engines in place and that we do not have as yet.
I would not want us to soak everything in fuel as a small misstep there on will set fire to everything.
If we are to organise WordCamp India – we should try to pick up this gauntlet that we could set out as a challenge for ourselves.
The Pre- WCIndia Challenge
- Get 50 local meetup groups active that meet in person atleast once a month.
- Have 20 active year WordCamps in Indian cities.
In reality, currently India had 5 WordCamps in 2023. We are probably going to have 7 (Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kerala, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata) and a possibly a small experimental one in Kolhapur and another one in a Tier 3 city.🤞
In meetups, we have about 22 active meetups in India and 21 inactive. So that number of 50 is not as far fetched. I do think we can add a lot more value with cross community online events but more on that in a another post.
Twenty cities big & small hosting day long conferences, and fifty hosting regular meetups groups would be powerful engines of the WordPress community which can justify and use this fuel, that an event like WordCamp India would unleash.
A Post- WCIndia Thought experiment*
*subject to community risks
Okay, lets do a post WordCamp India thought experiment. What would the world be like after we achieve those goals and organise a very large event like WordCamp India?
Fifty active meetups and Twenty active WordCamps would mean hundreds if not thousands of individuals who would be exposed to the WordPress project as possible contributors. Also that’s just a start, there is no need to stop at 50|20. 🙃
New people, younger people in the community from several different parts of the country with thriving local communities would mean several more ecosystems around translations, publishing, training and skill development.
So hopefully, WordCamp India – if and when it happens, would not be “just another big WordCamp event”.
Credits
Many thanks to Pooja Derashri, Naoko Takano, Julia Golomb and Ratnesh Sonar for giving me some valuable feedback and adding more perspectives.
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