An open source project has a repository and, usually, a scattering of other places where people talk about it: chat servers, social posts, a mailing list nobody reads. The repository is excellent at tracking work. It is poor at the conversations that come before and after the work: how do I get started, which feature should come next, what changed in the last release. Those conversations need a home that newcomers can find and search.
This guide sets up that home on WordPress. Jetonomy provides the discussion spaces, including an Ideas space with voting and a built-in roadmap view. BuddyNext provides member profiles and onboarding. Product Roadmap is an optional extra for publishing release notes. The Reign theme styles all of it. Jetonomy, BuddyNext and Product Roadmap are each free with an optional paid Pro licence. Pro features are labelled.
If you also want the wider structure of a developer community, with triage spaces, documentation and contributor recognition, our guide to building a developer community on WordPress covers that ground. This article stays on three jobs: bringing contributors in, letting users vote on direction, and announcing releases.
What belongs on the site and what stays in the repository
Start by drawing the line, because a community that competes with your issue tracker will lose to it. The repository stays the source of truth for work. The site holds conversation.
| Conversation | Where it lives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A confirmed bug with steps to reproduce | The repository issue tracker | It needs an owner, a branch and a fix |
| “How do I use this?” | A Q&A space on the site | The answer helps the next person, and it stays searchable |
| “I would like the project to do X” | An Ideas space on the site | Votes show demand before anyone writes code |
| A design discussion before a large change | A forum space on the site | Threaded replies and longer thinking |
| “What changed in this release?” | A changelog or a release topic | A stable page that people can link to |
| A security report | Your published security contact, not a public space | Public posts expose the problem before the fix |
Put the security row in your rules post in plain terms, and pin it. Nothing in the software replaces a proper disclosure process for your project, so write one and link it from the community.
A first week for a new contributor
People rarely arrive and contribute on day one. They read, they lurk, they ask a small question. Your job is to make that path short and visible.
Tell people who is who
BuddyNext member types let you label people with a colored badge that shows on their profile and directory card. Define types such as Maintainer, Contributor and User. You can leave a type assignable only by you, or mark one as self-selectable so newcomers choose it themselves. The member directory then gets a filter for each type, which answers the most common newcomer question: who do I ask?
Add a profile field of type URL for the member’s repository profile, and a Dropdown or Multi-select for the areas they work in. Fields marked Include in search are added to the member directory search and the site search, so a maintainer can find everyone who ticked a given area.
Use the welcome path that already exists
BuddyNext runs an onboarding wizard right after sign-up, with steps for the profile, interests, spaces, people to follow and notification choices. Members can skip it. Create a space category for each area of your project and members pick those as interests, which tunes the spaces and people suggested to them. Jetonomy adds a welcome banner for signed-out visitors, with the community name, live member and post counts, and Create free account and Log in buttons.
Build the entry spaces
A modest set is enough.
| Space | Jetonomy type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Start here | Forum | Pinned contributing guide, conduct rules, a map of the repository |
| Using the project | Q&A | Questions from users, answers voted and accepted |
| Contributing help | Q&A | Questions about setting up a development environment and sending a first change |
| Feature ideas | Ideas | Requests with voting and a roadmap |
| Release notes | Forum | One topic per release, closed once the discussion ends |
Q&A is the right type for the two help spaces. The person who asks marks one reply as the accepted answer, and the space list shows an Answered badge. An Unanswered filter gives maintainers a queue. An accepted answer earns its author 15 reputation points by default, an upvoted reply earns 5, and the values are editable.
Write the contributing guide as a pinned topic
Pin a topic in Start here. Moderators can pin a topic to a space, and a pinned topic stays at the top of the list whatever the sort order. Cover how to set up a development environment, where to look for beginner-friendly work, how a change gets reviewed and how long that usually takes. Put the same text in your repository too, since the repository is where contributors will expect it, and link between the two.
Jetonomy’s composer has a code block button as well as inline code, which matters on a developer site. The editor does not convert typed Markdown, so tell contributors to use the toolbar buttons rather than typing backticks.
Roadmap votes in an Ideas space
An Ideas space is a feature request board with votes and four statuses. It is part of free Jetonomy. Here is how to set one up.
- Go to Jetonomy > Spaces, click Add New, and give it a title such as Feature ideas.
- Set Type to Ideas, Visibility to Public and Join Policy to Open. Open joining lets users vote without waiting for approval.
- Open the space Settings tab and confirm Allow Voting is ticked. It is on by default. If you turn it off, vote buttons and vote counts disappear.
- Members see a + Share an Idea button. New ideas have no status, so they show in the list but not on the roadmap.
- A space moderator or administrator opens an idea and clicks one of the status buttons: Planned, In Progress, Shipped or Declined. The change saves at once and a colored label appears beside the title.
- Open the Roadmap tab. It shows a column for each status, with ideas in each column ordered from most votes to fewest. A column shows up to 50 ideas.
- Add a link to the roadmap, at
/community/s/your-space-slug/roadmap/unless you changed the base slug, to your menu. There is no block or shortcode that embeds the board in a page, so link to it.
What voting actually measures
Every idea has an upvote and a downvote, and the score is the net of the two. A member cannot vote on their own idea. Voting requires an account: a guest who clicks a vote button is sent to the login page and returned afterward. Guests can read a public roadmap but cannot vote.
Be clear with your community about what a vote means. A vote is a signal of demand, not a promise. Say so in the space description, and say that maintainers decide based on the project’s goals and capacity. A project that treats the top-voted idea as an obligation will soon be maintaining features nobody on the team wants.
Decline with a reason
When you click Declined, post a reply that explains why. People who voted deserve an answer, and a closing comment makes it far less likely that the same idea comes back next month. The idea’s author gets a notification when its status changes, and an email too if they switched on My idea roadmap status changed in their notification preferences. Email for that is off by default, and you can change the default under Jetonomy > Settings > Email > Notification Defaults.
You can also run more than one roadmap. Each Ideas space has its own roadmap, so a project with a core library and a separate plugin can give each its own board.
Two ways to publish release notes
Release notes need two qualities: they are easy to link to, and they stay put. There are two reasonable setups, and they suit different projects.
Option one: a release topic in Jetonomy
Create a Release notes space of the Forum type and post one topic per release, titled with the version. Tag it with the project area. Members can reply with questions, and you can close the topic when the discussion dries up. Closing a topic stops new replies and keeps it readable. Every public Jetonomy space publishes an RSS feed, at /community/s/{slug}/feed/, so people can follow releases in a reader.
This is the simplest route and keeps release talk beside the questions it generates. The same pinned-topic pattern is used for product launches in our gadget and tech review community guide. It does not give you a structured changelog with fields for version and release type.
Option two: Product Roadmap’s changelog
Product Roadmap is a separate plugin for public roadmaps and changelogs. Its free version includes a changelog: each entry has a version, a release date and a release type (Major, Minor or Patch), and changes can be categorized as New Feature, Enhancement, Fix, Update, Deprecated, Security or Breaking Change, each with an editable color. You display the list with the [roadmap_changelog] shortcode, and every entry gets its own page. The archive lives at yoursite.com/changelog/.
The plugin’s own guidance is worth borrowing: publish the entry when the release actually goes live, keep version numbers consistent with your project’s, put breaking changes near the top, and write for the people using the project.
Choosing between them
If you want votes and a roadmap and a changelog, you can use Product Roadmap for the whole lot, or use Jetonomy’s Ideas space for requests and Product Roadmap only for the changelog. The documentation for the two plugins describes them as separate, so pick one home for voting. Running both would split votes between two boards.
| Question | Jetonomy Ideas space | Product Roadmap (free) |
|---|---|---|
| Who can vote | Signed-in members only | Anyone including guests, tracked by IP, or logged-in users only, your choice |
| What a vote count shows | Net score of up and down votes | Number of people who voted |
| Statuses | Planned, In Progress, Shipped, Declined | Planned, In Progress, Completed, On Hold, Under Review, plus your own |
| Who is told when status changes | The idea’s author | People who voted or commented, by email with an unsubscribe link |
| Comments | Threaded replies in the space | WordPress comments on each item |
| Changelog with version and release type | No | Yes |
| Several products | One roadmap per Ideas space | One product on Free; Pro adds more |
If the idea authors in your community are the people you most want to keep informed, Jetonomy’s notifications are enough. If you want everyone who voted to hear about a release, Product Roadmap does that.
Closing the loop when something ships
A roadmap only works if “Shipped” means something. When a release goes out, do these in order:
- Move the idea to Shipped so the author is told.
- Publish the release note, in either setup above.
- Reply on the original idea with a link to the release, so the thread points forward.
- Thank the contributor by name in the release note if they wrote the change.
Recognition is a retention tool. The people who send their second patch are usually the ones who were thanked for their first.
Conduct, moderation and maintainers
Open source communities attract strong opinions. Settle the rules before you need them.
- Publish a conduct policy in Start here and name who enforces it. Link it from the registration page.
- Make maintainers space moderators. A space has roles, and a member can be promoted to moderator or administrator of one space. A maintainer of one area need not moderate everything.
- Use the tools you have. Members flag content, moderators work a queue, and administrators can ban members. All of this is in free Jetonomy. Spam is handled by CAPTCHA (reCAPTCHA v3 or Cloudflare Turnstile) and Akismet when active.
- Rely on trust levels. New accounts start with limited privileges and earn more by taking part. Levels 1 to 3 are automatic, with defaults you can change.
Free and Pro at a glance
| Need | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Q&A, forum and Ideas spaces, voting, roadmap view | Jetonomy | |
| Moderation queue, trust levels, reputation, private topics | Jetonomy | |
| Member types, profile fields, directory, onboarding wizard | BuddyNext | |
| Attach new files from the composer | Jetonomy Pro | |
| Email digests of new activity | Jetonomy Pro | |
| Public roadmap, voting, changelog | Product Roadmap | |
| Several product roadmaps, extra layouts, analytics | Product Roadmap Pro |
The plugins overview and the free versus Pro page list the full split, and the forum, Q&A or ideas board comparison helps if you are unsure which space type to choose for a given conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Does Jetonomy have a roadmap view for feature requests?
Yes, in the free plugin. An Ideas space has a Roadmap tab that groups ideas by status into Planned, In Progress, Shipped and Declined columns, sorted by votes.
Can visitors without an account vote on ideas?
Not in Jetonomy. Guests can read a public roadmap but must sign in to vote. Product Roadmap can allow guest voting, tracked by IP address, if you choose Anyone under Who Can Vote.
Should I use Jetonomy Ideas or Product Roadmap?
Use the Ideas space if you want requests, discussion and votes in the same place as the rest of your community. Add Product Roadmap if you need a structured changelog or want everyone who voted to receive an email when status changes. Avoid running voting in both.
Can maintainers get notified of new ideas?
Jetonomy lets members follow spaces and subscribe to topics, and moderators can use the moderation tools. Product Roadmap has admin emails for new suggestions, comments and votes, with a toggle for each. Check which notifications are on by default before launch.
Do I need BuddyNext for this?
No. Jetonomy works on its own, with profiles and a leaderboard. BuddyNext adds member types, searchable profile fields, a directory and the onboarding wizard, which help when your project has many contributors who need to find each other.
How do I handle security reports?
Not in a public space. Publish a private reporting route for your project and link it from the community rules. This is general practice for any project, and the software does not provide a disclosure process for you.