Write the Docs community board quarterly update Q3-2026¶
Greetings, documentarians! Mikey Ariel here, chairperson of the WTD community board. I’m happy to share our third quarterly update for 2026.
To catch up on previous quarterly updates, check out the community board blog posts archive.
Q2-2026 meeting highlights¶
Our third meeting of the year covered a mix of ongoing updates and new initiatives:
- Brand guide and refresh
Eric Holscher began investigating a possible brand refresh and a unified design system. The board reviewed a first draft of a new brand guide generated with AI tools using the full collection of historical graphic assets, website files, and design materials. We discussed the importance of retaining historical context internally, but focusing the public-facing guide as well as any possible refresh on current assets.
To maintain visual integrity for local community groups, we also discussed developing a logo generator with strict templates, avoiding excessive customization and extreme disparities between communities. Eric is currently seeking a vendor to collaborate with on this effort.
- Community content spotlight project update
Our community content spotlight project is picking up speed, with Felicity Brand onboarding to lead the effort. We already got some written materials and initial post drafts, which will be reviewed by Sam Wright, with the goal of launching around or shortly after the Berlin conferenece.
- Salary survey printed edition
For the upcoming Write the Docs Berlin conference, we partnered with GitBook to print physical copies of our annual salary survey results. This is a brand new initiative, and we are excited to offer this artifact to our community members to take home and share with their colleagues and communities.
- Talk proposal mentoring
We’re excited to restart our proposal workshops and office hours. These will offer mentoring for community members who are considering or preparing talk proposals for Write the Docs and other tech writing conferences. Swapnil Ogale is putting together a high-level plan with dates and formats, so we can line these sessions up with upcoming conference CFP blocks.
- AI usage in team workflows
The board evaluated the use of AI tools for internal team operations. While AI is proving useful for project proposals and content analysis, we observed significant resistance to implementing AI for community moderation.
The board acknowledged concerns regarding data sovereignty, optics, and the potential for AI slop and hallucinations. For now, we are putting plans to implement AI moderation tools in our community channels on hold, and will continue to focus on human moderation.
- Social media channel review
Looking at our recent engagement data, it appears that LinkedIn is our most active social media platform. We’d like to add the Write the Docs Australia LinkedIn page to our Buffer account, but we’re currently capped at four integrated channels. We decided to wait until September to figure out which of our less active channels might need be removed to make room.
- Virtual community group event security
There has been a growing number of virtual even spam and “zoom-bombing”. To help keep our events safe, Rose Williams will draft standardized security guidance for organizers, as well as instructions on how to report security incidents to the team.
As always, the board continues to review the community backlog to determine the most valuable efforts for the community in the short and long term.
What is the community board¶
The community board exists to curate the overall strategic direction of the community teams.
The board members are team leads for each WTD team, as well as the conference chairs of our various conferences:
Mikey Ariel (CoreOps, brand and design, board chair)
Eric Holscher (CoreOps, Portland chair)
Samuel Wright (CoreOps, infrastructure)
Sasha Romijn (CoreOps, support, Berlin chair)
Rose Williams (meetups)
Janine Chan (Slack moderation)
Aaron Collier (newsletter)
Swapnil Ogale (Australia chair)
The community board meets quarterly to share what they’re working on and request any help to keep the various teams functioning effectively.
Thank you¶
Thanks again to the team leads that participate in the community board, and to all the team members (mostly volunteers!) who work diligently to support the community and each other. If you want to join any of the WTD community teams, check out the Team page for team descriptions and contacts.
See you in the next update!
Mikey and the community board
