WordPress is a collaborative effort by people from all over the world. Being an open-source platform (meaning that anybody can see and use the code which actually enables WordPress to press words), it is vital to have engaged and interested participants who will help to bring the next iteration to life.

One of the best ways to learn is by doing. And there is plenty that needs doing over at WordPress central. Everyone is invited, from experienced coders to those who are just learning PHP. And writers, too! (Somebody needs to make the documentation read like a Grisham novel.)

You can learn all of the many ways that you can help WordPress to continue to evolve by vistiting the Make WordPress page at make.WordPress.org.

WordCamp is a great place to learn more about WordPress, what it can do for you, and how you can use it to get your message to the world. But even if you live in San Francisco, probably the most tech-jacked city on the world, there is still only going to be one WordCamp per year. So what to do?

It’s helpful to know the best places that you can go for information about WordPress. Since WordCamp Calgary 2015 is still weeks away at this writing, I have put together a little list of great resources that you can rely upon to get your questions answered now.

WordPress.tv

 

Talks from WordCamps around the world are captured on video and saved at WordPress.tv. Imagine that! Hundreds of hours of WordCamp programming right at your fingertips and in the comfort of your own home! You can even wear your pajamas while you watch. (I don’t want to give anyone the impression that you can’t wear your peejays to WCYYC2015. If it feels good, you do it.)

wpbeginner

 

These guys provide some of the best ongoing tips, tricks and traps for WordPress users. Make sure to give them a follow on twitter as well. They’ll e-mail you with stuff they want to sell you, but then, you might even get some deals on stuff you want to buy. Did you know that they’ll even set up your site for you? You have to sign up for hosting with one of the companies that they’re affiliated with (wpbeginner will get a referral fee for that). If this step is what’s holding you back, then this might be a super easy way to at least get up and running.

WP101

 

wp101 is another WordPress resource that you can look to in order to learn what you don’t yet know. They have a paid-access forum where you can get your questions answered. Pros may want to check out their plug, conveniently named WP101Plugin. It delivers tutorials on using WordPress right to your clients’ dashboard. You can spend less time doing the tutoring yourself.

WordPress.org

 

This is the WordPress homespace. As such, it’s going to have the most official information about what you need to know. Their forums are–well–extensive. Their How-To and Troubleshooting forum has amost half a million topics. So yeah, there’s a lot there. While an incredible resource, the downside is trying to find exactly the information you’re looking for in such an enormous repository. This support goes back many generations of WordPress, so getting the stuff that’s going to answer the question you have right now can be difficult. That said, you can be sure that, provided you can find it, the question you have has probaby already been asked and answered a few times already.

I’m going to provide a weekly round-up of timely information and links from around the ‘Net for you up until WordCamp Calgary 2015 on May 23. Check back to this blog, and I’ll help you to navigate the rich sources of information about WordPress that are out there awaiting your eyeballs.