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How do i ask for contributors to my open source projects? (programming.dev)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by xoron@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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id like to ask if there is some guideline/advice for asking for open source contributions.

initially i thought i could just have open source code, documentation and communicate about it, but that doesnt seem to work for gaining contributors.

maybe there is something else im overlooking?

contributors would be using their own valuable time and effort so it could just be that my projects are not interesting enough. it might be worth concluding that i should proceed on this solo.

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[-] pylapp@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

Be sure also the issues you have in your project have the suitable labels to help future contributors to pick easily some of them, i.e. labels like “help wanted” or “good first issue”.

You can also refer to best practices listed and explained for example in Advent of Open Source so as to have a nice and user-friendly repo: https://adventofopensource.com/

[-] xoron@programming.dev 1 points 15 hours ago

thanks for the tip. youre right i think i need to do more housekeeping there. i dont give it much attention, because as a solo project, id mostly just be doing it to myself with admin stuff.

i previsously made an attempt for things like issues, but it doesnt seem to have made any different and is just an additional overhead that im ignoring: https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat/issues

i used to pay more attention to it, but its only my time being wasted if nobody else is interested (thats fine... but it results in the amount of attention i give it. and i have a lot of things to do already when i dont have enough time for it)

[-] pcouy@lemmy.pierre-couy.fr 31 points 2 days ago

I think most open-source contributions come from a tiny fraction of users who initially get involved because they want to improve the project or fix a bug for their own usage

[-] Azzu@lemm.ee 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Exactly, in other words, you get people involved by making your tools good and advertising them to increase usage.

Write good documentation, make it user-friendly, create beautiful landing pages for the repository (i.e. readme), create a marketing/project website, be responsive in discussion forums, etc etc

[-] xoron@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat https://github.com/positive-intentions/dim

i dont think my documentation is as clear as it could be, but i dont think its unclear: https://positive-intentions.com/blog/dim-functional-webcomponents

i think i have put efforts towards a good landing page, readme, documentation etc. id appriciate if you critique those.

[-] Azzu@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago

I would immediately get rid of the warning for unstableness in both projects. They are simply unnecessarily self-deprecating and "stay away" markers. When would you remove them?... I don't know your projects, but it's incredibly unlikely that they are worse in those regards than basically any other software project. It's always the user's fault if they use some unestablished thing in production, you're not responsible for that and have to help them learn that.

Being experimental can be expressed through a 0.x.x versioning scheme. Having bugs is expressed by the issue tracker, and in any case not unique at all. Incomplete features is something anyone will see if they decide to try it.

The chat thing seems like one of a million chat things, why is this chat solution better than any other already existing one? Needs to be clearly expressed as the first thing. tool like this suffers from adaption usefulness, it's only useful if people use it, why would you use it if no one uses it.

The other thing looks very niche, so also not surprising that it's not used that much.

I don't know, I wouldn't worry about it that much. Kind of confused anyway why you'd "look for" contributers. Seems kinda like you want to simply get a following for ego reasons or something.

[-] xoron@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

thanks for you thoughts.

i previously didnt have the "unstable" warning. this results is people saying that i should make it more clear. i think the project is in its early enough stages for it to be sensible to include there. im already planning on breaking changes which could make things worse so this is something i hope make it clear to users about the status of the project. before i had that notice, i would get complains from people that the app is terrible and doesnt work (which was basically true because it still is a work in progress and full of bugs.). i added a bit of a polish on it so it leads people to think its a finished product.

im looking for contributors on the dim repo because there part things i would like to do (and tried), but reached the limits of what i understand. i can learn and figure it out if i pour more time into it, but i have already poured time into it. im hoping someone with relevent experience would want to help.

im hoping to get a following on lemmy, mastodon, reddit in order to get traction on the projects. as it stand its just me and so its a bit of an uphill to get traction on something like the chat project. what you might be interpreting as ego, is a mannerism i have to adopt if i want to actively promote it as being a "secure chat system". otherwise, feedback is a lot more dismissive about the project. that would surely sink the project immidiately.

im a developer not a sales person... but since working on these project ive learnt to moderate how cautious my tone should be to balance the communication of technical details as well as promoting something. i dont think i do the best job of it, but im still in the learning process.

[-] vext01@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 days ago

Make something good and they will come.

[-] xoron@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

thanks. i think then i should continue as im going and see where i end up.

[-] xoron@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago

thanks. maybe i havent reached the point at which people are using my projects enough for them to to improve a part of it.

[-] starshipwinepineapple@programming.dev 19 points 2 days ago

Just some general advice:

  • get regular users. Contributors are going to be a subset of users as another commentor mentioned.
  • make sure to have a CONTRIBUTING.md and that it is clear/ easy to follow. Some projects will link to a separate wiki from the .md which is fine. But make sure your "first time contributor" instructions are easy to follow to set up whatever dev environment needed. The less clear the documentation then the more motivated the contributors will need to be.
  • if you haven't already, make issues with feature requests that you are wanting to add. Include enough details that someone other than you will understand your requirements.
  • consider a label you use to signify "great issue for a first time contribution". These should be relatively simple fixes or simple features but give time for someone else to try them instead of completing it right away. Make sure to reference this label in your contribution documentation as a great starting point. If you're able to get someone to do a simple fix then they will have set up the dev environment and may do other future issues.
  • advertise that you're looking for contributors. Point out your docs, first time contributor label, and any specific features you want/need help with.
[-] xoron@programming.dev 6 points 2 days ago

thanks! i'll make time to create those.

[-] Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org 24 points 2 days ago

it would be a good start to include a link to a git repo in your posts, when you share your blog posts.

if your code is hosted somewhere where you can create issues and tag them, create issues and tag them as "contribution welcome" or "good first issue".

github is probably the best plattform to get contributions, simply because it's the biggest and so many people already have an account there.

but complex reworks or new features are probably nothing a random contributor will provide, but you or close collaborators.

[-] xoron@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago

thanks for the tips.

i typically mention the git repo's involved.

i'll give it a go with something like contribution welcome. my projects are on github and i think i have something setup for issues tracking.

i suspect my projects might be a bit complicated and so unappealing to a random contributor.

[-] Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org 8 points 2 days ago

i mean: provide a link to the repo in your posts body, do not just link to your blog ;)

[-] xoron@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

ive tried several variations in how to communicate about it.

with blog link/with repo link/with a mix

https://programming.dev/post/21417457

it seems my projects are well recieved, but i guess it just isnt interesting for the minority of developers that would consider contributing. i also dont explicitly ask for contribution. this post this the first time im doing that to see what it could yield.

[-] FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Your project sounds interesting and quite niche. Although it's presented well it's not something I'd immediately be inspired to contribute to, but there's nothing wrong with the project itself. What problem is it solving? Who's going to save time using it? Perhaps include a scenario so that people who aren't immediately familiar 'get' what it is you're achieving?

[-] xoron@programming.dev 2 points 15 hours ago

thanks for your thoughts!

a scenario so that people who aren’t immediately familiar ‘get’ what it is you’re achieving

i think the ability to tell a story is important here and id like to put more time to learn how to frame it. its a very secure chat implementation from what i understand about what ive created. im keen to be challenged on if its the most secure chat app out there, but this typically seen as confrontational and seems to hurt public opnion of the project (and thus i dial it down).

here is an attempt to try explain it as "more secure than mainstream solutions": https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptography/comments/1evdby4/is_this_a_secure_messaging_app

while i think i have a point about the security implementation. im also aware that the project is not very user friendly and full of bugs which makes for a very unappealing product.

its worth noting, that im trying to communicate about the project to cybersecurity professionals at the moment to see if the theory hold up and i think it does. i iteratively improved the UI in an attempt to gain traction. as a webdeveloper i know that i can spend more time on the UI that everything else combined, but that wouldnt be a good use of my time compared to some under-the-hood changes for stability and fixes.

[-] FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Ok, that's great. I get what you're trying to do now.

I think in terms of getting input I can only suggest that deliberately invoking Cunningham's law is probably going to get you more responses that anything else. You are honest and upfront about the code being unstable but this is unlikely to motivate someone to audit it for you. Simply stating it's the most secure web chat available for x reasons is more likely to motivate someone to prove you wrong. Even if their motivations are negative you might still find the insight valuable..

[-] darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago

I recommend reading this insightful, sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening, but almost always educational collection of texts about open source development:

https://un.curl.dev/

[-] xoron@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago

i took a brief look. this looks like a really good read! thanks for pointing me to it!

[-] kionite231@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Can you share which software you are talking about?

[-] xoron@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

its further described by this previous post: https://programming.dev/post/23381812 ... to put it simply, its a javascript UI framework.

i have another project https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat ... but that project is very complicated. too complicated for me to easily explain how it works.

[-] Kissaki@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago

its a javascript UI framework

a very satisfied field, with a lot of established mainstream options

[-] xoron@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago

completely understandable conclusion.

it started off as a curiosity, but i think there is something to it. I’m aiming for something that looks and behaves like react, but without the overhead of the react tooling for transpiling.

im not trying to take a share of that market, i come across this solution as pf of the chat app project. id like to build up this ui framework well enough to rebuild the chat proct with it... the chat app is made with react and material UI. with this framework, i am aiming to create a more simplified version of the chat app where the "no need to transpile" is a feature for its transparency. perhaps it doesnt make sense right now without the ability to effectively demonstrate it.

[-] Kissaki@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

I think your dim repo first impression could be improved; with a repo description (there is none), and instead of a description that requires pre-knowledge and one huge example, a more general, novice-friendly description and intro listing positives and short intro examples demonstrating distinct functionalities/advantages.

[-] xoron@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

thanks! i'll make those changes when i can.

this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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