Care and Feeding of Volunteers
summary
Project-level tactics: concrete claims, numbers and results. Project runs dreamhack VMs and a zero-to-Perl training track, documents culture on a wiki and tags newbie-bait bugs in Bugzilla/GitHub. The codebase supports ~50–60 active volunteers, about 65% with no prior coding; funding 14 developers to attend a conference produces a measurable spike in pull requests lasting months. Pairing, two-week cycles, code tours and small-bug first hits increase contributions and retention.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Start
- 0:47About Me
- 4:31How Can My Project Attract Positive Attention?
- 6:28Be Inclusive
- 8:49Be Welcoming
- 10:03Follow the Yellow Brick Code Wanted people to do soul
- 12:34Lower the Barriers to Entry Installing code on your computer can be
- 14:25Training Your Developers
- 16:13Invest in Your Community
- 20:37How Do You Work With A Newbie
- 21:42So What CAN They Do?
- 24:30Be Encouraging!
- 26:48Be a Sale Space
- 28:35Combat Rockstar Culture
- 29:56Manage your Community
- 30:30Impostor Syndrome
- 31:56Be Understanding
- 36:03How Can I Do This In My Project?
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