By Anja de Crom on Thursday, 19 February 2026
Category: February

My first Pizza, Bugs and Fun Experience - Morteza from Iran

Every PBF there’s at least one participant that hasn’t had the ultimate Pizza, Bugs and Fun experience before. The excitement. The questions and doubts beforehand. And, eventually, the realisation that, yes, you are good enough and your contributions matter. Morteza Honar was the lucky one this time. Read all about his first PBF!

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Who are you, where are you based, what is your background?

I am Morteza Kowkabi Honar, active in Joomla under the name Morteza Honar. I was born in 1979 and live in Iran. My professional activity began with accounting, and to create an accounting forum that later gained 27,000 members, I became acquainted with the Persian Mambo forum, which redirected to Joomla, and since then I have been using Joomla and only Joomla.

In summary, from 2014, I spent several years studying Human Resources Management. Along this path, I suddenly found myself immersed in psychological concepts, and for leisure, whenever I can, I read philosophy. Currently, I have been focusing on improving PHP skills. I have seen many overlaps between Agile methodology and the ACT approach in psychology, as well as between schema.org and Philosophy.

And well, Joomla, as a community with no owner behind it, in my opinion, is rich with all these concepts

. 

When did you join the Joomla community?

I have been a member of the main Joomla forum from the very beginning, and naturally, in Persian forums, and now in Telegram groups. 
However, for a long time, I didn’t know a place like Mattermost existed. Not being part of the community can be difficult for many Joomla folks and create concerns. When you are distant from the community, doubts or fears increase.

Questions like the ones below sometimes arise serious and worrying, sometimes weaker:

And in short:

But when we are in the community, these concerns and questions become less intense or fade.
What I mean is: being in the Joomla community alongside others and preserving its values:

I had found Mastodon, and I discovered Mattermost through Alireza Javaherian. He introduced Mattermost in the Persian-language Telegram group. I joined Mattermost on November 11, 2025, and I am very happy about it.  

So this was your first PBF. What did you know about the event? And what were your expectations?

I knew in general that we deal with bugs and eat pizza, and I didn't know much more. I had also seen photos from previous PBFs. The initial motivation was to experience and get to know it, and of course, to participate as much as I could.

I thought we'd probably have to go to another planet and likely encounter strange things that I didn't know what they were! And if there wasn't such a thing, in the best-case scenario, I thought I'd have to take an inspection and thoroughly examine all the output or run weird tests to find an issue, and I thought: What a shame it would be if nothing is found probably my reputation would be ruined. 

How did you prepare for the event? Was it easy to find the information you needed?

Well, as a Persian speaker, I want to say that resources in my language are limited. Having more would have made things easier.

Today, after experiencing a PBF, I know which links to go to and what to do it seems very simple now. But before, it wasn't like that for me.

Honestly, I think Joomla is vast. The more I get involved, the more I realize its depth and breadth. Overall, even with limited Persian educational resources, the tutorial video prepared for PBF26 was really helpful. Thanks to it, Sadegh Kowkabi Honar and I were able to set up the system, understand what was going to happen, and we had no issues.

Also, whenever ambiguities came up, I simply joined the Google Meet session that had been open since the start of the PBF and got answers. And of course, in the OR PBF channel on Mattermost, we kept up with what was happening for others.

It was a very good experience there was no feeling of being lost. We could keep up with the team, and that felt great. This is the link to the tutorial video: Pizza Bugs and Fun 2026 First Edition Tutorial.

Watching it made me realize there's nothing unknown. The task list is clear, and each team member can engage with specific bugs and examine them.

The goals of the PBF are clear and logical, and the experience of working together is truly created.

Of course, we have tried to make using Joomla and participating in PBF easier for Persian speakers by helping with the translation of the following:

What did you do during PBF? Did you work on your own fresh install of Joomla or did you use the prepared ones on the PBF server? Did you test patches, fix bugs, translate or write documentation? Or something else?

We were in a general situation that affected our internet speed and access. Despite that, we participated, were present, and Joomla was important to us.

We used our own server. If possible, we would have liked to use the prepared PBF versions as well; apparently, that makes the job easier.  

We tested one patch. Regarding that patch, we commented on our testing process and its results on GitHub in that Pull Request to help clarify the issue and the type of test. 

We translated some documentation related to the PBF.  

We realized that participating on GitHub and clearly stating test results there is important.  

And we talked about how much we need Persian documentation because we felt that gap once again when we wanted to research that issue.

It's good to mention here that there are people in Iran who would like to help translate Joomla documentation into Persian, and they even individually write documentation on their own sites.

Did PBF live up to your expectations? What was different than expected? Were there surprises, challenges?

It was important to me that I could also succeed and that not a single "I couldn't" remained as a memory for me. I'm glad that the organizers behind the PBF facilitate it in such a way that this happens. In fact, they give a sense of acceptance.

Another point is that you are participating in an event taking place across the entire world, and every Joomla user can be part of it and experience this alongside people from different parts of the world. This is very important and can be exciting.

And furthermore, on a technical level, one can be effective in this way by either making an improvement or, more simply, checking whether an improvement has been corrected or not, since at least two approvals are required. Reviewing an improvement can lead to an experience or can highlight a topic in one's mind, thereby providing a good motivation for writing documentation especially if that topic is something new in Joomla.

One can write documentation and make an impact this way. It is very interesting that in Joomla, the path to making a difference is open; one only needs to not stand in their own way.

Another point is the possibility of direct communication with people who are extraordinary in how simply they make themselves accessible. They have exemplary warmth and humility; this is a trait that comes from within them.

This experience made me more confident in Joomla because I myself understood that I supported it, and this action gave me a particular understanding of how Joomla has lasted 20 years. Now I eagerly look forward to its 30th anniversary and beyond if I'm still in this world, of course.

What have you learned?

We first looked at a PR that was about schema.org. I was very excited because I love this topic. Then, just out of curiosity, we wanted to see another PR, so we went to one about "workflow plugin".

Until that day, I knew that it could be used to manage the workflow in "writing articles," but engaging with that PR taught us exactly what capabilities it has and how far it goes beyond what we had imagined. It is very interesting that the "workflow" features can be extended to other extensions. Imagine any extension whose users achieve results through collaboration could also benefit from 'workflow'. Workflow is a fundamental aspect of any business, so this feature could potentially help many businesses. It was also very interesting to see that access level management existed in different parts of it.

I had seen the same potential before with structure data in Joomla and realized that Joomla can be designed in such a way that core features are made available to other extensions as well.

Would you say PBF is for everyone? Any tips for our readers? What would you like to say to people who are not sure if they should participate? 

Naturally, everyone can participate, both professionals and beginners.

It seems that being in a community, such as Mattermost or any other local community, can strengthen one's presence in PBF. What I mean is that if someone is not connected to the Joomla community, their likelihood of participating in PBF may be lower. Although this point, like all previous discussions, is relative, being part of a community can be effective in participating and enjoying this collective work.

Therefore, my suggestion is to be part of the community.

Participating in testing PRs helps Joomla move forward faster, and usually, with each test, a new learning or insight emerges for the tester.

This is a good experience that allows us to be pioneers in understanding new things in Joomla.

So, it's both helping oneself and, at the same time, helping the community. Naturally, Joomla is structured in such a way that volunteers’ contributions to the community, in turn, become a form of help to those same volunteers.

Anything we forgot to ask?

I would like to thank those who organized this event or whose guidance helped and directed me, including you: Stefan Wendhausen, Angie Radtke, Emmanuel Lemor, Benjamin Trenkle, Dieter Ziller, Herman Peeren, Brian Teeman, Tom van der Laan, Laura Gordon, Cyril Reze, Olivier Buisard, Philip Walton, Anja de Crom, SD Williams, Sigrid Gramlinger, Sadegh Kowkabi.

And the Sponsors: Joomla Geek, Security Check Extensions, Joomla, Rochen.

And everyone who participated!

Pizza pics please 🙂. Tell us how that went: did you make them yourself, order in, get them at a pizza place…?

We ordered, and when hunger suddenly hit,  BABABAM  it was exactly what we needed!


  

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