Encouraging Community Development

Encouraging Community Development

Pippin Williamsonhttp://[email protected]/pippinsplugins

http://pippinsplugins.com/

What is community development?

• Other people do “work” on your project



• Code contributions




• Written documentation





• Tutorials





• Tutorials

• Bug reports





• Tutorials

• Bug reports

• Testing


What kind of projects?


• Themes –– _s, StartBox, Genesis



• Plugins –– bbPress, Easy Digital Downloads, WP e-Commerce




• Libraries –– WP_Logging, Custom Meta Boxes and Fields, WP_Session




• Libraries –– WP_Logging, Custom Meta Boxes and Fields, WP_Session

• Tools –– WP-CLI, WP Stack

How to encourage contributions

• Ask for it


• Ask for it

• Make it easy


• Ask for it

• Make it easy

• Give contributors credit


• Ask for it

• Make it easy



• Be nice

• Ask for it

• Make it easy



• Be nice

• Help out the first timers

• Ask for it

• Make it easy



• Be nice

• Help out the first timers

• Give solid, polite feedback

How to continue getting contributions

• Respond in a timely manner



• Maintain quality




• Accept criticism






• Be constructive





• Be constructive

• Ask others for their opinions





• Be constructive

• Ask others for their opinions

• Admit you are wrong

How to respond to bad patches?


“Thank you for taking the time to submit a patch, though there are a couple of things that need updated before I can approve it.”



• List the issues clearly




• Be polite




• Be polite

• Thank them for their contribution

Maintain standards

Do not let crappy code in

Maintain standards

There will always be sub-par contributions.

Maintain standards

There will always be sub-par contributions.

Do not allow them in just because they are contributions.

Educate instead

Educate instead

Identify the sub par contributions

Educate instead


Your standards make or break the project.

Educate instead



Help the submitter make it better.

Educate instead




Developers get better the more they contribute.

Educate instead




Developers get better the more they contribute

–– encourage them.

Never be rude or throw insults

Some people are douches “special”.



Take them down with kindness.




Do not EVER be rude back.




Do not EVER be rude back.

–– stern is fine, not rude

Tools to encourage community development


github


trac


forums


giving credit


extensible code


you

thanks

P.S.

I really, really like plugins.

Ask me about them.

Encouraging Community Development

Technology

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