PHP× World

For Organizers

To start a PHP× group:

Awesome. You want to start a PHP× group! Here are the basic steps to get started:

  1. First, make sure there isn't an existing group in your region. If there is, reach out to them and see if it's possible to work together first. If you end up working with an existing group, we can still add you to the PHP× website so that the group gets exposure. Here are a few places to check:
  2. Get a phpx(…).com domain
    • If possible, use a local airport code or similar (e.g. Atlanta is ATL)
    • If local airport code isn't a popular way to reference your region, it's OK to do something else!
  3. Set up SSL via a third party (like Cloudflare)
    • The easiest way to do this is with a free Cloudflare account, but you can roll your own with nginx or use any service you like
    • Set it to proxy to the IP address 167.99.10.168
  4. Submit a pull request to update groups.json with the following data:

Required Data

  • external — always set this to false if you want us to host for you
  • name — use "PHP×FOO" where FOO is the code you picked in step 2. Please use the unicode times symbol “×” rather than the letter “x” (you can just copy-and-paste from here).
  • region — Set this to a short descriptive name of your region (like Philadelphia or Atlanta)
  • description — Set this to a single-sentence description of your meetup. Something like: "A Philly-area PHP meetup for web artisans who want to learn and connect."
  • timezone — Use your PHP-compatible timezone ID (like America/New_York)
  • status — choose one of:
    • active: Your group is actively holding meeting
    • planned: Your group is planning its first meeting
    • prospective: You hope to start a group and are gauging interest
  • latitude and longitude — we hope to show each group on a map soon, so let us know where that should be

Optional Data

  • bsky_url — if you use Bluesky, you can provide your group's Bluesky profile URL
  • meetup_url — if you use Meetup.com, you can provide your group's Meetup URL
  • frequency — groups show as "bi-monthly" by default, but you can set this to however often you meet (monthly/quarterly/etc)

Once you've started

Set up Mailcoach

The folks at Mailcoach have generously offered free accounts to all PHP× organizers. Reach out to Chris Morrell on the Discord to get the coupon code.

Get a free Mailcoach account

Once you have your coupon code, register at Mailcoach.

  • When registering, you can choose "Let us handle sending."
  • Go to billing and choose the base plan. At checkout, use the PHP× coupon code that you received from Chris. That will cover the monthly fee and the first 2,000 emails.
  • You will still need to provide a credit card and will be billed if you send more than 2,000 emails in a given month.
  • Finally, you will have to go thru a short approval process to get out of test mode (this is to mitigate spam).

Once your account is set up, you will want to go through the Mailcoach settings and configure it however you choose. A few things you will probably want to do:

  • Set your timezone
  • Verify you PHP× domain
  • Set your default from address to something at your domain (if you don't have email set up you can set up something like hello@phpx(…).com to forward to your personal email address using Cloudflare's free email routing)

Connect your account to PHP×

Once your account is set up and you have a mailing list configured, please get in touch with Chris Morrell and give him the following information:

  • Your sending email addres (eg. hello@phpx(…).com)
  • Your Mailcoach list UUID (this can be found on the list's general settings page)
  • Your Mailcoach API token (go to "API Tokens" under your profile menu)
  • Your Mailcoach API URL (shown when creating a token)

Once we have this, we can both configure Mailcoach for your account and sync anyone who has already registered for updates to your list.

Eventually, the PHP× platform will automatically trigger transactional emails for things like RSVP receipts and announcement/reminder emails, but for now you will need to send out event announcements yourself via Mailcoach.