[Becoming] Open Source Community Manager - #1

Hello there, and welcome to the first series in the tenth series of Becoming an opensource community manager. This series is designed to help you get started as a community manager in open source. Whether you just started your open source career as a community manager, an enthusiast, or are just curious about how community managers function in open source? This series is for you.

We will be reading from different community managers who have successfully built a career in open source in this and subsequent series. Before you jump right in, make sure to be open-minded and allow yourself to learn.

This is a long read but I promise it's worth the time.

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Getting to know our guest

Name: Elizabeth Barron

Work: CHAOSS Project

Bio: Elizabeth is the community lead for the CHAOSS project. Fun fact, although she was a developer and did unpaid community work for a few years before it became her full-time career, she eventually became a community manager for GitHub in 2012.

Now we know who we'd be learning from today, let's dive right in!

Q: How long have you been a CM in the Opensource space?

A: It’s been my job since 2010 but I did it unofficially since about 2005 through being in a few open source communities.

Q: When does a group of contributors become a community?

A: I think the minute you have more than one person working on a project, you have a community. Even in a group of 2-3 people, you have their little community, with group dynamics and communication issues and power struggles, and potential conflicts. So in my opinion as soon as you take that first outside contribution and have your first collaborator, you now have a community

Q: What values can Opensource contributors get from Opensource communities and when can they start getting these values when the community launches?

A: This is a great question. I think open source provides a lot of benefits that come not in the form of money.

First, you gain experience working on a team (and many times that team is international!). You learn how to communicate, and how to work with others. You learn patience and technical know-how from others on the team who might be more experienced than you. You learn project management and collaboration skills. You learn the importance of documentation and workflows. All of these skills are very helpful when looking for a job, or in your current job.

Second, your contributions are open and verified in an open source project. So while you could just talk about code you've written or documentation you created, or design, or any other number of things, being able to show a potential employer exactly what you wrote and how you communicated with others through comments, etc. it's a huge bonus over someone who hasn't done that. You can point them to a URL of your contributions and they can read things for themselves.

Third, you expand your professional and personal network tremendously when you're part of an open source community. You become friends and acquaintances with others who share similar interests. So the next time there is a job opening at someone in the community's company, perhaps they will post it to the community slack, or even reach out to you directly. You may not get the job because you know someone in the community, but you may hear about the opportunity before others! Fourth, there is a sense of pride that comes with working on a project that you know other people rely on or use. It's a cool thing to have your code merged into a project, especially those projects that are used by a lot of people! And once you're a contributor to those projects, that's something no one can take away from you.

Lastly, depending on the project, you have a chance to make real social change through open source. Some projects are focused on making the world better, and contributing to that is inherently meaningful and personally satisfying. You could say CHAOSS is one of those projects; we like to think we are making open source a healthier and less toxic place to be, and that personally aligns with my values and goals to make open source better for everyone. Another example would be projected in this collection https://github.com/collections/made-in-africa, which are speaking to growing opportunities and solving problems in Africa. Or these: https://github.com/collections/social-impact who are trying to make the world a better place. Contributing to those projects just makes you feel like you are using your skills to make a difference in the world.

I love how detailed this response is!

Q: Who recruits new contributors? Is it the community manager or project owners?

A: I think this role can be filled by anyone. Sometimes the most effective recruiters are people who are just contributing to a project, and who encourage their friends or colleagues to also contribute. It can be anyone. It can be done a few ways: First, through official announcements like “hey we are looking for new contributors.” Maybe they announce this at a local university student group, a local user group, a conference, or through social media. Second, it can be done organically by just working on a great project and building a great community, then the word will spread. You can also do it subtly through things like tagging “good first issues” or participating in events like hacktoberfest. So maybe you don’t really announce or push that you’re looking for new contributors but you make the information available to those who are actively looking to join a community.

Q: How do you build a community strategy for an OS community? What's the flow like? What do you consider when putting one together?

A: I think this is driven by who the stakeholders are in the community. For instance, if you have an open source project that is owned or managed by a company, they will require some kind of strategy and maybe even set goals for community growth or activity, or other types of metrics. The community manager will likely focus on the things that are important to the company in this case. So if their job is to attract new contributors, then they will heavily recruit wherever they can. if their job is to have a certain amount of activity, then maybe they will schedule regular hackathons or other events that drive contributions. (This, by the way, is one danger of leading with metrics — you end up focusing on certain things, and not keeping a holistic view of your whole community.) In CHAOSS, for example, we are not beholden to a company that requires us to focus on certain things. We choose to focus on DEI because that is important to us personally. So as a result, we will focus on things like newcomer experience and community sentiment, and building a diverse, global, welcoming, inclusive, and kind community. Otherwise, we allow our growth to happen organically.

Q: What are your thoughts on onboarding? How do you set one up for an Opensource community? Talk to us about what your experience has been like

A: I think onboarding is crucial to an open source project that cares about newcomer experience, community growth and retention, and DEI. Onboarding also can affect the amount of community activity. It touches all parts of an open source community. Most open source communities I’ve been in have had very few official onboarding procedures and documentation. I joined them because I was a fan of the product/language and ultimately connected with the community on a deeper level. But this took a lot of time and a lot of me just lurking, listening and being present, and asking questions.

For me, the reason I stuck around in those communities was that I liked the people in them. They became my friends! And it was more of a social connection that made me stick around, more than anything. So I think the ideal onboarding experience for me personally would be a mix of guiding new folks, setting the tone for communication, setting expectations, offering clear documentation for how the project works and how to contribute, but allowing space for them to connect on a human level and talk about things outside just the project.

Q: What's your advice to people looking to get into Opensource as a community manager?

A: I would say it's kind of hard to join an open source community if this is your main mode of contribution, and the maintainers aren't ready for it or prepared to support you. It will take some time to build trust between you and the community. So you may have to start out contributing in other ways until they get to know you a little better.

Community managers are kind of the glue that holds a community together, but they need support from leaders. You can only go so far if you don't have a good rapport with the community. I think it also depends on what you want to do within the community management genre. If you want to help other users you can easily do that from the start, as long as you're familiar with the project. But suppose you want to do things like organize events, facilitate meetings, moderate forums, or help newcomers. In that case, you do need to have some level of trust and a pretty deep knowledge about the project, and also have the "ok" from maintainers. I think maintainers would generally welcome that kind of help, because they may not have the time or resources to do those things themselves. But they will also be a little protective of their community and their project, so they generally want to make sure you're someone that can do those things with great care. And building that kind of trust takes time, so just be patient and consistent.

In conclusion, Elizabeth has these to say

I would just say that I'm very glad that community management as a whole is finally getting the validation and recognition it deserves. I don't think it's seen as much as an "add-on" as it used to be but as an integral part of open source and how we think of open source communities. I don't have research on this, but I'd venture to say that projects that value community management and appreciate what this role can bring are healthier, more sustainable, more active, and grow more diverse and inclusive communities. Because without someone to tend to the gardens of open source, you just have a group of people who may or may not be fulfilling their potential, and you have a project that is languishing. So it's a very good time to join open source as a community manager

Thank you for reading through, I hope you enjoyed every bit. As mentioned, this is a series, so please look forward to more every Friday. In the meantime, please share with every aspiring community manager looking to get into the Opensource space.