Category: Posts

2023-09-20

For companies, community should be “us” not “them”

Referring to the community as “them” as if there’s no overlap encourages treating company & community interests as separate, harming long-term sustainability.

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2023-09-13

What are you optimizing?

If you start optimizing for a process and then discover you’re optimizing for the wrong thing, you’ve wasted time.

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2023-09-06

One approach to AI contributions

All communities will need an AI contribution policy at some point, and the Apache Software Foundation’s example is a good one to follow.

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2023-08-30

Don’t try to guess contributor affiliations

When asked “how many $company employees contribute to this project?” the best answer is “I don’t know and there’s no good way to find out.”

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2023-08-16

Don’t launch a communication tool without a moderation plan

Well-understood and consistent moderation practices go a long way toward reducing hard feelings in your community.

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2023-08-09

Choosing between wiki- and git-based documentation

What should you choose for your documentation: a wiki or text files hosted in a git repo and rendered by another tool?

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2023-08-02

Be careful how you treat AI-looking posts

When you prohibit anything that you think is AI-generated, you can end up creating an unwelcoming environment.

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2023-07-26

How to re-write your project

In most cases, the risk of rewriting your project isn’t worth the reward. When it is, the technical part is easy. People are the hard part.

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2023-07-19

A year of Program Management for Open Source Projects

Today, I celebrate the first anniversary of Program Management for Open Source Projects by answering questions from newsletter subscribers.

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2023-06-28

Separating announcements from discussion

The problem is rarely that the important information isn’t communicated. The problem is usually that people can’t find it.

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