Chapter 4: Introducing the WordPress Community

In This Chapter

• Finding WordPress users
• Locating users on social networks
• Members helping members in support forums
• Participating in testing and bug squashing
• Discovering professional consultants and services
• Attending and organizing local WordCamps

Allow me to introduce you to the fiercely loyal folks who make up the WordPress user base, better known as the WordPress community. This band of merry ladies and gentlemen comes from all around the globe, from California to Cairo, Florida to Florence, and all points in between.

In March 2005, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress proudly proclaimed that the number of WordPress downloads had reached 900,000 — an amazing landmark in the history of the software. By August 2006, WordPress had logged more than 1 million downloads, and by 2007, more than 3 million. The number of downloads of WordPress continues to grow with each passing day. 2010 was a landmark year for WordPress when Microsoft announced that they would be transferring their 30 million+ users of their Windows Live service to WordPress. This makes for a rather large community of users, to say the least.