Blog - Posts tagged year in review

Write the Docs Community Kickoff - January 2021

2021-01-13T00:00:00Z

Hey folks, Eric Holscher here, one of the co-founders of Write the Docs. This is the January edition of the newsletter, which has a community update to give the newsletter team the month off.

A new year

A new year comes with many expectations: hoping for change, setting new goals, and feeling optimistic about the fresh year that has just begun.

Sadly this year that optimism has been dashed in record time. We have written many times throughout 2020 that we hope you’re okay, and we’re continuing that tradition once more in our first newsletter of 2021.

We hope you’re okay, and we hope that the storm we have been engulfed in will soon pass.

A heartfelt thanks

We had a lot of big plans for last year, but most of those had to be put on hold in March as we scrambled to move our community fully online. Getting to see all the happy faces at our in-person events is one of the largest motivators for people who organize events. Sadly this year, we weren’t able to make that happen.

2020 has shown that the love and care we put into the community will be returned back to us when needed. When we moved the conferences online, we were genuinely worried about the health and longevity of Write the Docs. As we noted in our ticket choices page for Portland, we had a lot of outstanding debts and we didn’t know how much support we would get with our online conferences. It was easy to see a worst case scenario where our venues didn’t refund us and people didn’t support the online events.

We are happy to report that we received overwhelming support from our vendors, sponsors, speakers, team, and attendees:

Most of our vendors refunded our down payments in full. Our A/V and captioning folks adapted perfectly to the new format.
Only 1 of our sponsors canceled because of the transition to a virtual event.
Our speakers pulled together to record videos and handle live online Q&A.
Our team pulled together to run virtual events that exceeded our expectations for what those events could be.
Our attendees, most importantly, made our virtual events feel like our conferences, with a supportive and generous spirit.

2020 has been a hard year, but we wanted to take this chance to give thanks to those who made 2020 a special year. We feel incredibly lucky to be able to support this wonderful community, and we look forward to making 2021 the best year yet, with your help.

Looking forward

One of the largest things we noticed in 2020 was how much more support our community needed. As we scrambled to move our events online, people were also adjusting to working remotely for the first time. We saw lots of activity in our Slack network, as people were trying to connect online. Meetups slowly adjusted, trying to move online and keep some momentum going.

Write the Docs itself was able to provide similar value as in the past, but we had limited resources to adjust to the changing world. The profits from our conferences pay for everything we do, which constrains our ability to adjust to events as they happen.

We are planning a way for our community to support the organization directly. We are proud that all the content that Write the Docs produces is free to everyone, and we don’t plan to change that any time soon. The goal for 2021 is to be able to provide additional support to our community, funded by members in that community, who are able to contribute.

We’re still working out the details, and will be posting a Write the Docs Enhancement Proposal (WEP) soon to ask the community for feedback. We hope that you’ll support us in building a community that is better able to support you.

Write the Docs Quorum Meetups

One of the first things we’re excited about this year is an evolution of our meetups: Quorum meetups. These quarterly, remote, “super” meetups are an hour long and include a presentation by a speaker followed by breakout networking.

Write the Docs is running three Quorum pilot programs for 2021:

Virtual Write the Docs East Coast Quorum on Meetup.com - For participants in the Eastern (UTC-4) and Central (UTC-5) time zones. The first meetup is planned for February.
Virtual Write the Docs West Coast Quorum on Meetup.com - For participants in the Pacific (UTC-7) and Mountain (UTC-6) time zones. The first meetup is planned for March.
Write the Docs Australia on Meetup.com - We are planning to continue hosting collaborative APAC meetups via our Australia meetup group that are similar in concept.

Events are free and open to all. Quarterly meetups will typically occur at 7PM local time on a Monday through Thursday evening.

If you are a local meetup organizer in the these timezones who would like to learn more about what is required to participate, or are located in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and would like to know if the program expands to your time zones, contact Alyssa Rock on the Write the Docs Slack network.

You can read more about these meetups in the quorum meetups GitHub repository.

Other community updates

We have shared our high-level community stats for the past 4 years, and will continue to do it each year going forward. You can view our 2020 stats on our blog at Write the Docs 2020 Stats.

We’re still accepting talk proposals for our virtual Portland conference, April 25-27. Especially if you’ve not been able to attend due to travel logistics, or if you’ve not spoken before we’d love to hear your voice. The virtual conference format means you can speak from anywhere, though it’s ideal if you are close to the local time in Portland.

Submit your talk proposals by January 25th, If accepted, we’ll ask you to put together a 30 min talk video by the end of March. If you need feedback or help with your talk proposal, some of our meetups are hosting a proposal workshop. The proposal workshop will happen January 20th from 4-6PM PST (UTC-8).

Given the increased usage of our Slack network, we have also seen the need for increased formalization of our moderation. We will be proposing a WEP to formalize our process around moderation. Look for announcements of that in the newsletter if you want to contribute.

We are also working to get our 2020 Salary Survey analyzed and published. The plan for this year is to have a few different reports, one that comes out each month looking at different aspects of the data. We’re hoping to have the first report out for our February newsletter.

Featured job posts

Technical Writer (Developer Documentation), Ably
Remote (London, UK), full-time
API Technical Writer (m/f/x), finn GmbH
Munich, Germany, full-time

To apply for these jobs and more, visit the Write the Docs job board.

Thanks again

All these numbers remind us of the scale and impact of our work. Thanks again for being part of our journey.

To a better 2021,

The Write the Docs team

Write the Docs 2020 Stats

2021-01-13T00:00:00Z

This year we have done a Write the Docs Community Kickoff - January 2021 post along with our stats. Check there for context around the community going into 2021.

2020 Stats

We have shared our high-level community stats for the past 4 years, and will continue to do it each year going forward.

You can read our previous posts from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Conferences

600 attendees in Portland (up from 500)
325 attendees in Prague (up from 300)
125 attendees in Australia & India (up from 100)

Given the move to virtual conferences, we were able to allow more people to attend this year. We also experimented with a joint conference with Australia & India. Working to bridge communities across distances is a major value of virtual events.

Slack Network

11,350 members (up from 8,250)

Newsletters

8,225 subscribers (up from 7,386)

Meetups

Over 10,000 members (too many to count)
50 meetups (up from 46)

Podcast

32 episodes total (up from 26)

Website

225,000 sessions (down from 250,000)
375,000 page views (down from 430,000)

The website numbers have been dropping a bit in recent years. Generally this is because we are respecting Do Not Track preferences from our users, which results in a 5-10% drop in numbers. This means the website traffic is likely pretty stable, but the measurement drops over time as more users set this setting.

GitHub

1,321 commits to our repository (down from 1,955)
35 people who contributed to our repository (down from 56)

Thanks again

All these numbers remind us of the scale and impact of our work. Thanks again for being part of our journey.

To a better 2021,

The Write the Docs team

Write the Docs 2019 Stats and Community Update

2020-01-10T00:00:00Z

Since it’s quiet over the holidays, we normally don’t publish a newsletter in January. Instead, we send out a yearly update for the Write the Docs community, where we share updates on our progress as a community and an organization.

Community Updates

There are a few things that we know some of you have been wondering about, and we’d like to provide updates on:

The first big change is the Write the Docs Enhancement Proposals (WEPs) process. This process aims to provide transparency in community-wide decision making, and allows the entire WTD community to review and comment on major policies, processes, and governance topics. We already processed the first WEP, numbered WEP0, which defines the system and how to use it. We will be running more proposals through this process soon. We hope that you will provide your feedback and insight to us as we look to guide the community into the future.

The second major thing is another US conference closer to the east coast. We’re still in the process of talking with venues and trying to see if we can make it work for 2020. We will let everyone know the status of the event before Portland tickets sell out, so that you won’t miss your chance to attend.

The last major thing is our Salary Survey, which ran until November. This is the first year that we’ve done this, and we were blown away by the response. We had over 700 people fill it out, and we’re in the process of sifting through the data to provide some insights. We plan to release the full results soon, and in the future we hope to improve the process so that it gets analyzed and published faster.

2019 Stats

We’re presenting our yearly stats here without much commentary, except where it’s useful for interpreting the numbers. We hope it gives you a sense of the state of the community.

Note

You can also read our posts from 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Conferences

500 attendees in Portland (up from 450)
300 attendees in Prague (up from 275)
100 attendees in Australia (similar to last year)

We also had a conference in Vilnius this past year, which drew 50 people. Portland is maxed out at 500, and won’t be growing again in the near future. Prague will be moving into a new venue so we can accommodate more folks next year.

Slack Network

8,250 members (up from 5,250)

Meetups

Over 10,000 members (up from 8642, too many to count :)
46 meetups (up from 39)

Podcast

26 episodes total (up from 18)

Website

250,000 sessions (same as last year)
430,000 page views (down from 450,000)

GitHub

1,955 commits to our repository (up from 1,250)
56 people who contributed to our repository (up from 53)

Thanks

Thanks again to everyone who makes this community possible. The community is the people, and we’re grateful to share our passion for docs with so many delightful people all around the world.

We hope to connect with you during 2020, whether in person at one of our conferences or online in one of our collaboration platforms.

Happy new year!

The Write the Docs team

Write the Docs 2018 Stats

2019-01-10T00:00:00Z

2018 was another wonderful year for Write the Docs, it marks our 6th year of existence.

Since it’s quiet over the holidays, we normally don’t do a newsletter in January. Instead, we send out a yearly update for the Write the Docs community, filling you in on our progress.

We’re presenting the numbers here without commentary, except where it’s useful for interpreting the numbers, to facilitate comparison across the years. We hope it gives you a sense of the state of the community.

Note

You can also read our posts from 2016 and 2017.

Conferences

450 attendees in Portland (up from 400)
275 attendees in Prague (up from 250)
100 attendees in Australia (up from 50)
50 attendees in Cincinnati (new this year)

Australia went from a one-day to a two-day conference, growing from 50 to 100 attendees. Cincinnati was new this year, in collaboration with OpenHelp, and had 50 attendees.

We also had a full day meetup in London, focused on building a career in documentation.

Slack Network

5,250 members (up from 3,000)

Meetups

8642 members (up from 5589)
39 meetups (up from 30)
4 continents (same as last year)

Podcast

18 episodes total (up from 12)

Website

250,000 sessions (up from 225,000)
450,000 page views (same as last year)
guide: 225,000 views
conference sites: 120,000 views

This is one place where we haven’t seen a lot of growth. We haven’t added much new content to the guide this past year, which is the primary reason that traffic hasn’t increased.

This would be a great place to get more contributions from the community, if you’re looking for a place to put those writing skills to use!

GitHub

1250 commits to our repository
53 people who contributed to our repository

New this year, we’re keeping track of how many folks are contributing on GitHub. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to keeping our website up to date and adding new content.

Featured jobs

API Documentation Expert Expert Support, full-time

To apply for this job, or post your own, visit the Write the Docs job board.

Thanks

Thanks to everyone who makes this community one of the most open and inviting in the software industry. Here’s to another wonderful year.

Write the Docs 2017 Stats

2018-01-08T00:00:00Z

2017 was a wonderful year for Write the Docs, it marks our 5th year of existence. The community is growing into a truly global community, with events around the world.

This post contains stats that mark our progress, so that we can look back and see how we’ve changed as a community. We continue to grow and expand, and we’re glad to have you along with us!

Note

You can also read our post from 2016.

Conferences

400 attendees in Portland (same as in 2016)
250 attendees in Prague (same as in 2016)
50 attendees in Australia (New)

We have sold out both the Portland & Prague conferences the last couple years. We’ve intentionally kept them smaller to maintain the intimate feel of the events, but might grow them slowly over time in order to accommodate more people.

We continue to publish videos freely to the public. Doing this is more inclusive to people who cannot attend the conferences, promotes learning, and is part of our commitment to openness.

Slack Network

3,000 (up from 1,200 members in 2016)

Slack has been quite active this past year. We’ve had an amazing amount of good conversations within the global community here!

Meetups

5589 Members (up from 3109 in 2016)
30 Meetups (up from 18 Meetups in 2016)
4 Continents (same as in 2016)

Our meetup community has continued to grow across the globe.

Podcast

12 episodes (up from 2 episodes in 2016)

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The podcast has been doing work again this year!

Website

450,000 page views (up from 320,000 in 2016)
225,000 sessions (up from 180,000 in 2016)
Guide: 210,000 views
Conference Site: 175,000 views

The two primary parts of the site that get users are our Documentation Guide and various conference sites.

This is a new stat for this year, but we have historical data in Google Analytics to compare against. This allows us to give the comparison from last year.

Thanks

At every conference I make it a point to thank the attendees. People who believe in our community are the ones who make it happen. So thank you to everyone who has been a part of making this community something that keeps growing and evolving. I’ve been humbled by the empathy and wonderfulness of this community, and all I can hope is that we continue to strive to be as helpful and welcoming as possible.

Here’s to another wonderful year.

Write the Docs 2016 Year in Review

2017-01-18T00:00:00Z

2016 was a wonderful year for Write the Docs, it marks our fourth year of existence, and was the year that we coalesced into a more cohesive community. This post covers a few stats and tidbits of information that we feel mark our progress. We plan to report these each year from here on in.

Conferences

400 attendees in Portland
250 attendees in Prague

The conferences continue to be the yearly physical manifestation of our community. They are the time each year where hundreds of wonderful folks gather and have a great time, while learning so much from each other. Proving each year that work can be both fun and informative is one of my greatest pleasures.

We continue to publish videos freely to the public. This is done so that the information can be most widely shared, and help people who may not be able to attend the events. Write the Docs always strives to be as inclusive as possible, and continuing to publish these videos is part of our commitment to openness.

Slack Network

1,200 members

This is the part of the community that I’ve been most happy with this year. Our Slack network has really caught on, and folks are discussing a wide range of topics every day. It really feels like this is where the community is thriving, and it is becoming the default way of contacting folks inside the Write the Docs community.

Meetups

3108 Members
18 Meetups
4 Continents

Our meetup community has continued to grow across the globe. We have active meetups on 4 continents now, which is astounding and quite exciting. I think that the monthly meetup is another great way for folks to become leaders in our community, and it’s great to see so many people stepping up and making it happen.

Podcast

2 episodes

A few different folks have talked about doing a podcast, and this year we finally got the initiative off the ground. This is a fully community run podcast, and was organized by members in the community. The first two episodes are out, and we’re quite excited to see how it goes in 2017!

Sustainability

Write the Docs has long been a volunteer effort. This year we are experimenting for the first time with having a small staff be paid for their work. This is limited mainly to our conferences, as they are an incredible amount of work to put on, and we risk burning out volunteers with a lot of the grunt work.

This year we are paying Mikey Ariel and Sam Wright a (very below market rate) stipend to make sure they can devote time to make the conferences happen. The funding from this is taken from our conference budgets, and is part of the ticket price increase that we’ve enacted this year.

We want to maintain the volunteer and open nature of our community, and value all the wonderful people who are a part of it. We’re open to any feedback about this decision, and hope you will support us on our path to making sure the events and community are sustainable over the long term.

Thanks

At every conference I make it a point to thank the audience. People who believe in our community are the ones who make it happen. So thank you to everyone who has been a part of making this community something that keeps growing and evolving. I’ve been humbled by the empathy and wonderfulness of this community, and all I can hope is that we continue to strive to be as helpful and welcoming as possible.

Here’s to another wonderful year.

Blog - Posts tagged year in review

Write the Docs Community Kickoff - January 2021

A new year

A heartfelt thanks

Looking forward

Write the Docs Quorum Meetups

Other community updates

From our sponsor

Featured job posts

Thanks again

Write the Docs 2020 Stats

2020 Stats

Conferences

Slack Network

Newsletters

Meetups

Podcast

Website

GitHub

Thanks again

Write the Docs 2019 Stats and Community Update

Community Updates

2019 Stats

Conferences

Slack Network

Newsletter

Meetups

Podcast

Website

GitHub

Thanks

Write the Docs 2018 Stats

Conferences

Slack Network

Newsletter

Meetups

Podcast

Website

GitHub

Featured jobs

Thanks

Write the Docs 2017 Stats

Conferences

Slack Network

Newsletter

Meetups

Podcast

Website

Thanks

Write the Docs 2016 Year in Review

Conferences

Slack Network

Newsletter

Meetups

Podcast

Sustainability

Thanks