How to be a successful contributor

An important question is: what does one get out of volunteering?

Volunteering anywhere in projects that interest you can be very rewarding. With Fedora, for example, introducing someone new to Free/Open Source software is extremely satisfying.

However, personal satisfaction for doing something we believe in is not all we get in return for our participation. By working together and openly, we members of the community share perspectives, experiences, knowledge, skills, and resources with each other. Most of us learn and improve a variety of different skills while contributing to the community. We also learn about other cultures and experiences from our fellow community members.

All of this can also be very beneficial in a professional context, since it helps to demonstrate skills that are highly sought in industry: collaboration, technical skills, real world and management experience, and more.

Note that none of this acts as a replacement for a salary or an income. While the community does sponsor community members to organize and attend community events, there is no financial return for participation. So, managing time to ensure that work and other aspects of life do not suffer is paramount. More about that in the next section.

A work-life balance is most important. In most cases, it is your free time after work, time that you can spend on yourself and your friends and family, that you reduce to volunteer. So, let your friends and family know that you are volunteering, and make sure you continue to make time for them.

If you plan to contribute during your working hours, you should speak with your employer to confirm that you are able to do so, even if that is just a couple hours on a Friday afternoon. Most jobs encourage community contributions, especially if it’s closely linked to work related skills and projects. However, this may not always be the case.

Volunteering needs to be beneficial to all affected parties, so being clear about the requirements and benefits of volunteering is important.

A commitment requires putting aside some time to work on things. Some volunteers may spend four hours a week, while others may spend more than fifteen hours a week contributing. There’s really no right amount. We don’t compete with each other to do more, nor do we feel bad if we cannot put in as much time as a fellow community member. For most volunteers with jobs, volunteering ten or more hours a week is very difficult to maintain. So, whatever you do, how much ever you can manage is fine.

The general rule is to start small, to underestimate how much time you have, and to overestimate how much time it’ll take you to do a particular task. So, maybe start with a few hours a week, and depending on your circumstances, you may find that you can commit more time later. But, maybe in the future you are busier and have to reduce your commitment. This is also perfectly OK. Just because you are able to do a certain amount of hours now does not mean you will also be able to do it next month.

It is important to get to know the organization and teams you are looking to work with before you try to join them. Learn what they do and how they do it, and try to get to know the people involved.

Don’t be shy about asking questions and getting to know people. Plan on spending some time attending meetings, participating in the discussion forums/mailing lists and hanging out on the Matrix channels before taking on tasks. This could take a few weeks, so be patient.

Offer suggestions on topics being discussed, and share any experiences (good or bad) you’ve had that is relevant to the discussion. But do note that part of observing and making constructive suggestions may require withholding judgment. When making suggestions, don’t assume you come with all of the answers or that the Fedora Project is "doing it all wrong". There is a good chance we can improve the way we are doing things, however most of our current practices were developed over long periods of time after lengthy discussion. Your criticism may be better received once you have established yourself in the community and are perceived as understanding our culture.

A good way of providing feedback is to use "plussing". The fundamental idea is to not just provide a critique or feedback for an idea, but to also offer suggestions or alternative solutions with that feedback.

In Fedora, you decide what you want to work on. We do not assign each other tasks and duties.

Teams usually have lists of tasks to do. As you get to know a team better, you will be aware of what needs to be done. Pick something that’s important to you and something you have passion for. Also, ask questions and understand what you’re taking on before volunteering to do it.

There’s always something to be done. If you see something not quite right, something that can be improved, do your research and present a proposal to the team. Seek work out, take the initiative, keep yourself busy and help others.

When picking something to work on, don’t be the sole person to take on a huge task as your first contribution. Picking a task that’s too large significantly raises the chances of failure. Also don’t pick several things on several teams to work on. Start small, picking at most one or two things, and grow from there. The key is slow, steady, and sustainable growth. Don’t join with the immediate goal of becoming the next leader of the project :).

As a rule, unless personal information is involved, always always use public communication channels. As noted in this informative post, this has many advantages:

So, for example:

In a volunteer based community like Fedora, knowledge is shared and maintained collectively by the whole community. We rarely mentor each other on a one to one basis. Some teams may have sponsorship models in place where another community member may be responsible for another’s initial contributions. In general though, we all mentor each other. That way, there is no single point of contact/failure. So, if you see someone doing something you’d like to learn, go ahead and ask them to help you learn it. On the other hand, if you know there’s a better/easier way of doing something, document it somewhere and share it with the community.

Another thing to keep in mind is that learning in volunteer communities usually happens by self-teaching. People will always be happy to provide others with links and resources. However, since we’re all volunteers, it is difficult to make time to explicitly teach others. So, a good habit is to ask people for documentation and references so you can learn yourself. Reading documentation (and so maintaining up to date documentation) is an important skill. Of course, if you have queries, ask and people will answer.