Duck Alignment Academy

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.

Posts

2023-09-18

Celebrate Hacktoberfest with 30% off

Save 30% when you buy “Forge Your Future With Open Source” or “Program Management for Open Source Projects” through the end of October.

News

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.

Posts

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.

Posts

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.”

Posts

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.

Posts

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?

Posts

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.

Posts

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.

Posts

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.

Posts