I think it is safe to assume that as an open source project, striving to grow our community, we should make first interactions of new contributors with us a pleasant one.
So when commenting on a new contribution or attempt, we should try to either say something positive or don’t say anything.
- If the contribution is not useful then sugar coat you criticism. Because while the contribution might be bad, the person who did the contribution showed initiative to help out. We need to harvest this momentum and help integrate the person into the community.
- If the contribution is useful then praise the developer. Making him feel useful. I learned from Lydia Pintscher to not only praise good contributors, but grant them autonomy to play around. This would allow them to master their craft, which will lead to them feeling like they have a purpose to stay.
What do you think?
I have mixed feelings about that. Here in Brazil we have very good examples of ‘not-userful-contributors’ that thinks that they are the voice of the community, by doing nothing. Sometimes they appear on an event stating how much they are devoted to free software and how much code they wrote on a particular topic, and when you see the git logs… nothing. I don’t like this kind of people, pratically stealing what others did to himself. while this might be entertaining ( seeing how someone praises to be the creator and the only maintainer of an app that I have designed and worked on for three years with Andreas Cord and Wagner Reck ), this also hurts free software since people that are trying to enter on the field get fooled by those non-contributors-looking-for-fame.
@Tomaz: You don’t have to write code to be part of a community IMHO. But in that case why not ignore them?
@Seif, true, you don’t need to write code, but you need to be something else than just an user, you can be promoter, coder, artist, etc. Just by using the software doesn’t make you part of a community.
Interacting with the community ( even to just talk a bit ) makes. So when somebody comes from nowhere saying that he represents us… I get a bit unconfortable.
People are complex beings. A simple set of rules will not work for everybody. We should not encourage co-operation by a set of rules, but by being human towards others.
I do not like sugar-coated criticism. If I’m dumb and stupid and a moron (as I am very often), please tell it to my face so you don’t disillusion me any more.
I understand that my opinion does not apply to everyone.
@Tomaz: I don’t agree with that. By using the software, you are participating by obtaining knowledge. You are learning. I don’t think you have to actively seek out people who doesn’t know in order to teach them or contribute to their projects. But if someone asks, you’ll explain. That’s what people do. When I’m out in the streets and someone asks for direction, I always try to tell them. Not one single time in my life have I refused to give directions when I had them. That’s because I’m part of the community, even if I’m not standing in the streets waiting for people to ask how to get from A to B.
The only kind of contributions I don’t like, are those who doesn’t consist of anything but hate or dislike of something. That’s destructive, and that’s not a valuable contribution. Quite the contrary; it can distract, demoralize and take the energy out of development, making it an anti-contribution.
When someone is actively trying to contribute, that’s something to be treated with respect. In many cases, you have no idea who this person is. It might be a twelve year-old who might grow up to be the most valued contributor you could think of. Or it might be an old fellow with little to no experience with Free Software, but decades of experience with software development in general.
I think remaining positive and encouraging is always a good policy.
I think there’s a difference between the “sugar-coated criticism” St. Pierre mentions, and being encouraging and supportive.
It’s like how there’s a difference between putting a fresh coat of paint on a horribly awkward UI, and creating a user experience that people can easily “get”. The one is continuing business as usual, and just presenting it differently. The other is changing the way you do things altogether.
The alternative to being mean and snarky isn’t being condescending and superficial, it’s having empathy and consideration.
Here’s a lesson I learned from back when I used to teach dance classes: Most beginners are extremely insecure and don’t take criticism well. Gloss over the nitpicky stuff and give them lots of praise, because you want them to come back next week, and the week after, and then for the intermediate class. When they do stick around, and they start to feel more secure and more entrenched in the community, you don’t do them any favors by not telling them what they’re doing wrong. They want to do well.
That pretty much sums up my attitude on open source contributors too.
For most of first-time contributions, it’s not that important if the patch is useful as-is, but rather if it can ever reach usefulness without a disproportionate amount of effort from the maintainers.
For example, if that person cannot follow the patch submission guidelines after being told once, best is to just ignore and move on.
In any case, I don’t think you need to go as far as sugar-coating, which can take a good deal of time. Just being polite should be enough.
[...] with open source communities Last month, Seif Lotfy wrote about first interactions with open source communities. I both agree and disagree with him. Moreover, I think most of this still applies for people who [...]
[...] month, Seif Lotfy wrote about first interactions with open source communities. I both agree and disagree with him. Moreover, I think most of this still applies for people who [...]
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