Don't Go It Alone: Recruiting Contributors

You made a passion project and the seemingly impossible happened: people use it! A lot! And now you’re overwhelmed as the only maintainer. This talk will walk you through how to ask for help in a structured way that protects your project while empowering others to help it succeed.

The success of launching a popular package, IDE extension or developer tool is complemented by the dread of maintaining it for 1,000s of people. How do you find people who can help? Are you prepared to let them help? I want to walk you through a collection of mental tricks to prepare yourself to let others help you as well as the tools GitHub provides you to let people have access to help.

We will cover:
* How to Ask for Help – from the basics of how to reach out when in need to the more advanced social psychology tricks of asking people to help you help them
* How to Setup Your Repo – given that 99% of this code is on GitHub, we will focus on having the right documentation for contributors, permissions configuration and protections in place to keep your project moving forward with many hands helping to make for light work
* How to Recognize All Contributions – we’ll discuss the All Contributors project and go through an example of using it to allow all types of contribution to your project’s success
* You will leave this session with a strong grasp of some recommended practices to enable contribution and the reassurance that you don’t have to go it alone as a maintainer.

Here are slides with full notes: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KNXHdWIOmzHRNFKwaQ57vT3ycP6_Yb5u0XJAwj3BQT8/edit?usp=sharing

Transcript

1. Don’t Go It Alone: Recruiting Contributors VP Community, Sensu Inc. Matt Broberg @mbbroberg Open Source 101
2. A Favor Please & Thank You @mbbroberg
3. @mbbroberg
4. Patterns @mbbroberg
5. @mbbroberg https://www.designhacks.co/products/cognitive-bias-codex-poster
6. Ask* @mbbroberg
7. @mbbroberg Responsible for the awareness, engagement and health of the Sensu Community. Matt Broberg VP Community, Sensu Inc 200+ Plugins On GitHub 10+ Maintainers Volunteering to make monitoring better Open Framework To connect all your monitoring pieces
8. @mbbroberg https://twitter.com/sarahnovotny/status/280822396477378560
9. @mbbroberg https://twitter.com/eryno/status/802600628413460480
10. Open Source? @mbbroberg
11. @mbbroberg
12. Ask @mbbroberg
13. @mbbroberg
14. You @mbbroberg
15. Asking for Help On GitHub • License • README.md • CONTRIBUTING.md • Pull Request Reviews • Issues • Labels • Releases • Milestones • CHANGELOG.md • Templates (.github/) • Permissions (Teams & .owners) • Saved Replies Beyond GitHub • Acronyms (LGTM) • Continuous Integration (Travis) • Chat (Slack/IRC/Gitter) • Recognition (All Contributors) • Social Media (Twitter, etc) • Sharing (Blog, Podcast, Talk) Psychological • Just ask (Ben Franklin Effect) • Make it easy (Sunk cost) • Tell a good story (survivor bias)
16. !(All or Nothing) @mbbroberg
17. Basics @mbbroberg
18. Asking for Help Beyond GitHub • Acronyms (LGTM) • Continuous Integration (Travis) • Chat (Slack/IRC/Gitter) • Recognition (All Contributors) • Social Media (Twitter, etc) • Sharing (Blog, Podcast, Talk) Psychological • Just ask (Ben Franklin Effect) • Make it easy (Sunk cost) • Tell a good story (survivor bias) Basics On GitHub • License • README.md • CONTRIBUTING.md • Pull Request Reviews • Issues • Labels • Releases • Milestones • CHANGELOG.md • Templates (.github/) • Permissions (Teams & .owners) • Saved Replies
19. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer! License Basics Choose how open you are for contribution (and ownership). Permissive MIT Protective Apache 2.0 @mbbroberg
20. https://opensource.guide/legal/
21. README.md Basics WHAT, WHY and HOW Good Default: ## Overview ## Installation ## Getting Started ## How to Help (Advanced) ## Contributors (Advanced) @mbbroberg
22. Advanced @mbbroberg https://github.com/sensu-plugins/co mmunity#how-you-can-help
23. Advanced https://github.com/kentcdodds/ all-contributors
24. Pull Request Reviews Basics Do you accept PRs? Good default: • Be responsive • Have tests (advanced) @mbbroberg
25. Basics @mbbroberg https://bluedynamics.com/blog/joha nnes/watch-all-your-repos
26. Basics @mbbroberg guides.github.com/introduction/flow/
27. Advanced @mbbroberg
28. Issues Basics What do you hope to accomplish but haven’t yet? Good default: • Any missing documentation • Features you want to implement • Ask for a Maintainer (Advanced) @mbbroberg
29. Basics @mbbroberg https://github.com/sensu-plugins/sensu-plugins-s endgrid/issues/1
30. Advanced @mbbroberg https://github.com/sensu-plugins/sensu-plugins/c ommunity/issues/80
31. Psychology Basics How are you helping people help you? Good default: • Accept contribution liberally • Encourage repeat contribution (advanced) @mbbroberg
32. Basics @mbbroberg
33. Advanced @mbbroberg https://github.com/blog/2135-saved-replies
34. Comment: “Thank you for contributing @user! I made a couple comments in the review, do you have time to add them?” If they don’t get back to you ~3 days: “Hey again @user, no worries on these little things - I’ll merge this and add to it. Thanks again!” Then go to an open issue: “Hey @user, I wonder if you could help out by working on this issue. Wdyt?” Situation: Pull Request is missing something you’d like to see before merging. Advanced @mbbroberg
35. Growth @mbbroberg
36. Beyond GitHub • Acronyms (LGTM) • Continuous Integration (Travis) • Chat (Slack/IRC/Gitter) • Recognition (All Contributors) • Social Media (Twitter, etc) • Sharing (Blog, Podcast, Talk) Psychological • Just ask (Ben Franklin Effect) • Make it easy (Sunk cost) • Tell a good story (survivor bias) On GitHub • License • README.md • CONTRIBUTING.md • Pull Request Reviews • Issues • Labels • Releases • Milestones • Templates (.github/) • Permissions (Teams & .owners) • Saved Replies Asking for Help Growth Focus
38. Don’t Trust Me @mbbroberg
39. @mbbroberg https://twitter.com/mbbroberg/status/961348173628284928
40. @mbbroberg
41. @mbbroberg
42. @mbbroberg
43. @mbbroberg https://twitter.com/mbbroberg/status/961348173628284928
44. @mbbroberg
45. Bigger Q @mbbroberg
46. Open Source? @mbbroberg
47. Decision Tree (Simplified) Should I share? Yes @mbbroberg
48. Decision Tree (Simplified) Should I share? Yes @mbbroberg
49. Decision Tree (Expanded) Could I share? Yes Do I have to? No @mbbroberg
50. Don’t Panic It’s a big world out there. @mbbroberg
51. 0.03% octoverse.github.com @mbbroberg
52. 0/42 @mbbroberg
53. Survivorship Bias (via XKCD) @mbbroberg
54. Your Reason Avoid other people’s @mbbroberg
56. Asking for Help On GitHub • License • README.md • CONTRIBUTING.md • Pull Request Reviews • Issues • Labels • Releases • Milestones • CHANGELOG.md • Templates (.github/) • Permissions (Teams & .owners) • Saved Replies Beyond GitHub • Acronyms (LGTM) • Continuous Integration (Travis) • Chat (Slack/IRC/Gitter) • Recognition (All Contributors) • Social Media (Twitter, etc) • Sharing (Blog, Podcast, Talk) Psychological • Just ask (Ben Franklin Effect) • Make it easy (Sunk cost) • Tell a good story (survivor bias)
57. Start Simple The basics are enough 99% of the time. @mbbroberg
58. Ask @mbbroberg Don’t go it alone
59. Learn Brains @mbbroberg They’re more important than algorithms
60. Have Fun @mbbroberg If you’re not, rm -rf * and go for a walk
61. Stay Healthy @mbbroberg It’s a marathon, don’t burnout for a sprint
62. Show of Hands Please & Thank You @mbbroberg
63. Thanks! VP Community, Sensu Inc. Matt Broberg @mbbroberg Open Source 101 Maintainer Bits • Learn GitHub (bitly.com/git-it) • Readmes (awesome-readme) • Advice for maintainers (thread) • GitHub Maintainers program • All Contributors project • Sane GitHub Labels project Psychological Bits • Ben Franklin Effect • Buy the cognitive bias codex
64. TL;DR
65. “In order to act, we need to be confident in our ability to make an impact and to feel like what we do is important.”
66. We solve our problems with technology.
67. We create new problems with technology.