I'm working on the graduation guide, and noticed quite some text regarding community building. I think this contains enough material and is important enough to warrant a separate guide.
Basically I want the next text [1] migrated from the graduation guide to the new community guide. What do you think? Martijn [1] Community Building Before a podling graduates, it must create a diverse and self-sustaining community. Community building is tough: it takes time, effort and more than a little magic. There is no secret recipe, just hard work. In order to overcome this obstacle, committers may need to devote more time to community building and less to development. The community mailing list is open to all Apache committers. This is the right list for questions about community and on community building. Subscriptions should be from an Apache email address. Raising The Profile Sometimes, a podling is just not well-enough known. There are simply not enough users to allow new developers to be recruited. Overcoming this means finding ways to raise the profile of the podling. Some ideas: Improve the website Improve the information provided within each release and release more often Committers who blog should join PlanetApache Use grassroots media Encourage downstream distributions to include a packaged version Submit talks to conferences Feathercast Write articles Recruiting New Developers If the podling has lots of users but very few new developers then this means that more work is required to encourage users to become developers. A common cause of this is that committers are too quick to create code to solve user problems. It's good to respond quickly to requests by users. However, once a project gains momentum, it may be more productive for the long term health of a project to encourage users to become more involved at the expense of user satisfaction. Try to encourage expert users to answer questions. This may mean intentionally allowing a time gap before answering user questions. Encourage users to post by taking the time to deal politely and positively with misunderstandings and by replying to threads which have been answered well by a user to confirm that they are right. Avoid engaging in flame wars on user lists. Ignore trolls. Try to encourage users to become developers. When they give a good answer that isn't covered in the documentation, ask them to submit a patch. When users suggest a good design or extension, ask for volunteers to help implement rather than just coding it up. Helping Developers Become Committers If a podling has no trouble attracting developers but trouble retaining them long enough for them to become committers then this highlights an issue with the recruitment process. To become an Apache committer, a developer needs to hang around long enough to accumulate a track record of contributions. This often requires encouragement and help from existing committers. Promptly reviewing patches is important. The way that patches are applied is also important. Provide credit in the commit message and when closing the JIRA. It's also good to encourage developers by suggesting new related work they may like to volunteer for. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
