Joomla! Community Magazine™

I was privileged - and I mean privileged - to watch the release of Joomla 4.2.7.

It went wrong, there was a bug, and according to some on social media the sky was about to fall in, but what unfolded was impressive and makes me feel that Joomla is in good hands.

You’ve probably heard or read it more than once: Joomla needs volunteers. Without people, new releases take longer and have less exciting features, documentation remains incomplete and bugs take forever to get fixed. But who do we need, and what would they be doing? Read how you can help.

Gamification of testing is something often discussed in the threads of Joomla discussions.

Wouldn't it be a great idea if we could reward those volunteers who are doing the work hard and putting in the time with something fun and creative? Well, now we can!

Joomla had not shown growth since 2016 - 2017 and that was just 0.1%. Over 60 months of the line going down or remaining level. So in early June when the w3tech graph showed a small uptick which wiggled back and forth between a tiny up and baseline flat there was some hope for change.

At the time of going to print Joomla has grown 0.2% in both usage of CMS and usage of the entire web in 6 weeks. Let us explore why

My association with Joomla has mostly been enjoyable: I’ve made some good friends… although I have my share of frenemies as well.  I’ve travelled the country and the world and I even have a photo memento of me giving Brian Teeman^* a smooch on the cheek at J & Beyond in 2013. But above all, I’ve learned so much from the almost-daily contact I have with Joomlers everywhere whether they’re first-time newbies or whether they’re hard-core web evangelists. I wouldn’t have missed it for quids.

Attention all fellow Joomla volunteers: we are Joomla’s most precious jewels. Without us, the volunteers, Joomla wouldn’t be what it is now, and without us you wouldn’t even be reading this article. We matter. We are precious.

Whether it's a community group in your local area, or a global free and open source software project like Joomla, volunteers are an important resource for any organization. Joomla! In fact, it would not exist without over 750 volunteer contributors to the code base alone, along with hundreds of other volunteers over the past 17 years that have made Joomla what it is today.

Ever heard somebody say "there is no I in team"? It's a sports expression managers like to use to imply that the best way to achieve your goals is to set your individual needs aside and come together as a team to accomplish great things. That may all very well be true, but when you think about it, you'll find every successful team has a few I's in it. Ideally at least six. Are you in one of Joomla's teams? Then read further and find out if your team has all the I's dotted!

Last month, I've read the awesome Astrid's blog post about what it means to be part of a global community, specifically the Joomla community. Being part of a global community is a huge topic and I'm not sure to have the answer, but I will do my very best to share my point of view in echo to Astrid's one ;)

Do you have another point of view after reading? Don't hesitate to write and post it next month in echo to Astrid's and mine!

Some Joomlers might already know of Jeroen Moolenschot. He has been active for quite some years now as a volunteer in different roles. But you might also know him by using one of the extensions he builds. Let’s start and get to know Jeroen just a little bit better and read just exactly what Joomla means to Jeroen and a little bit more…