Recruiting Open Source Contributors: a lesson from Benjamin Franklin

You made a passion project and the seemingly impossible happened: people use it! A lot! And now you’re overwhelmed as the only maintainer. Or maybe you never have a project posted because you're scared of what success means to your mental health.

This talk takes a lesson from OG Thought Leader Benjamin Franklin on how to win others over and get them to help. It highlights some tactical tips for GitHub contributor management, but focuses on the impact of psychology to get people to participate.

Transcript

1. Recruiting Open Source
   Contributors
   VP Community, Sensu Inc.
   Matt Broberg
   @mbbroberg
   Monitorama 2018
   a lesson from Benjamin Franklin
   

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2. A Favor
   Please & Thank You
   @mbbroberg
   

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3. @mbbroberg
   

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4. Patterns
   @mbbroberg
   

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5. @mbbroberg
   https://www.designhacks.co/products/cognitive-bias-codex-poster
   https://www.goodreads.com/book/s
   how/11468377-thinking-fast-and-sl
   ow
   

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6. Ask*
   @mbbroberg
   

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7. @mbbroberg
   Responsible for the awareness, engagement
   and health of the Sensu Community.
   Matt Broberg
   VP Community, Sensu Inc
   200+ Plugins
   On GitHub
   10+ Maintainers
   Volunteering to make
   monitoring better
   Open Framework
   To connect all your
   monitoring pieces
   

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8. @mbbroberg
   

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9. Asking for Help
   On GitHub
   ● License
   ● README.md
   ● CONTRIBUTING.md
   ● Pull Request Reviews
   ● Issues
   ● Labels
   ● Releases
   ● Milestones
   ● CHANGELOG.md
   ● Templates (.github/)
   ● Permissions (Teams & .owners)
   ● Saved Replies
   Beyond GitHub
   ● Acronyms (LGTM)
   ● Continuous Integration (Travis)
   ● Chat (Slack/IRC/Gitter)
   ● Recognition (All Contributors)
   ● Social Media (Twitter, etc)
   ● Sharing (Blog, Podcast, Talk)
   Psychological
   ● Just ask (Ben Franklin Effect)
   ● Make it easy (Sunk cost)
   ● Tell a good story (survivor bias)
   

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10. @mbbroberg
    

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11. Basics
    @mbbroberg
    

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12. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer!
    License
    Basics
    Choose how open you are for
    contribution (and ownership).
    Permissive
    MIT
    Protective
    Apache 2.0
    @mbbroberg
    

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13. Pull Request Reviews
    Basics
    Do you accept PRs? Good default:
    ● Be responsive
    ● Have tests
    @mbbroberg
    

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14. Basics
    @mbbroberg
    https://bluedynamics.com/blog/joha
    nnes/watch-all-your-repos
    

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15. Advanced
    @mbbroberg
    

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16. Psychology
    How are you helping people help
    you?
    Good default:
    ● Accept contribution liberally
    ● Encourage repeat contribution
    @mbbroberg
    Advanced
    

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17. @mbbroberg
    Advanced
    

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18. Advanced
    @mbbroberg
    https://github.com/blog/2135-saved-replies
    

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19. Decision Tree (Simplified)
    Should I share? Yes
    @mbbroberg
    

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20. Decision Tree (Simplified)
    Should I share? Yes
    @mbbroberg
    

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21. Decision Tree (Expanded)
    Could I share? Yes
    Do I have to? No
    @mbbroberg
    

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22. Your Reason
    Avoid other people’s
    @mbbroberg
    

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24. Asking for Help
    On GitHub
    ● License
    ● README.md
    ● CONTRIBUTING.md
    ● Pull Request Reviews
    ● Issues
    ● Labels
    ● Releases
    ● Milestones
    ● CHANGELOG.md
    ● Templates (.github/)
    ● Permissions (Teams & .owners)
    ● Saved Replies
    Beyond GitHub
    ● Acronyms (LGTM)
    ● Continuous Integration (Travis)
    ● Chat (Slack/IRC/Gitter)
    ● Recognition (All Contributors)
    ● Social Media (Twitter, etc)
    ● Sharing (Blog, Podcast, Talk)
    Psychological
    ● Just ask (Ben Franklin Effect)
    ● Make it easy (Sunk cost)
    ● Tell a good story (survivor bias)
    

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25. Start Simple
    The basics are enough 99% of the time.
    @mbbroberg
    

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26. Ask
    @mbbroberg
    Don’t go it alone
    

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27. Learn Brains
    @mbbroberg
    They’re more important than algorithms
    

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28. Thanks!
    VP Community, Sensu Inc.
    Matt Broberg
    @mbbroberg
    Open Source 101
    Maintainer Bits
    ● Learn GitHub (bitly.com/git-it)
    ● Readmes (awesome-readme)
    ● Advice for maintainers (thread)
    ● GitHub Maintainers program
    ● All Contributors project
    ● Sane GitHub Labels project
    Psychological Bits
    ● Ben Franklin Effect
    ● Buy the cognitive bias codex
    

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