Hi, I’m considering how to put together a contribute to open source contest, which will gets listeners of my podcast, but also whoever is interested, to submit to their favorite open source projects as a contributor. Thinking of offering prizes (possible multiple) based on pull requests, bug filing, documentation writing.
Want this to be a fun, and successful, contest over two or three months. I know some Nextcloud employees told me they once tried a contest and felt too many submissions were questionable at best in terms of effort.
What do you think, Lemmy peeps?
Before persuading your listeners to contribute to other people’s projects, please teach them how to offer their contributions constructively, respectfully, and with humility. One should find out what the project maintainers want help with (if anything), and self-assess whether one is qualified to do that work.
When someone goes in feeling entitled to have their ideas/work accepted, it can easily end in frustration on both sides, and be counterproductive to the project rather than helping it.
Also, please remind them to bring a healthy dose of patience. Even small contributions to open-source projects can sometimes take far longer to be accepted than many people expect. It might take months or years rather than days or weeks.
This is actually my intention, to show examples of how to contribute and lead that into a friendly contest
Maybe you could narrow the field a bit by identifying projects that need help (have actively expressed desire). That could help avoid the Nextcloud issue you mentioned. Limit the contest to that list of projects.
Great idea! Happy to do this, perhaps by asking projects if they would like to participate (and what they would like particular help on)
If you think a different community would be better to ask, please share there. Thanks.
This is about Linux as much as anything, so curious what people think besides outright hatred and dismissal. :)