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== Evaluating Projects ==
For each of your potential projects, you'll use the information you gathered in the last step to help you evaluate the project. You can evaluate the project by asking yourself the following questions. Write down your answers!
=== Is this project active? ===
Take a look at the issue tracker. When was the last issue reported? Or take a look in the source repository and see - when was the last commit? If the answer is "today" or even "this week", that's great! Your project is definitely active. If it's been a few months, that may mean that the project is abandoned, or it may mean that it's been quiet for a while. Even if the project is still going, the maintainers may want to focus on other things for a while. If the answer is "years", the project is probably abandoned. If the project has had commits made or issues reported within the last few months, take a look at the rate: how often do issues get reported or commits get made? Once a day? Twice a week? Once a month?
=== How responsive are the maintainers? ===
Take a look at individual issues. How long does it take a maintainer to respond - if ever? Or look at pull requests, for instance on Github. Are there dozens of pull requests languishing for weeks or months? That may mean that the project's maintainer is overwhelmed or busy or just not very responsive. Look for pull requests that have a back and forth between the maintainer and the requester. Is the maintainer giving feedback and helping people submit appropriate requests? If so, that's a very good sign!
=== Is the community welcoming? ===
Every project is made up of individuals, and this means that each project has a different atmosphere or culture. You can read through their mailing list archives, or lurk on their IRC channel (or read their channel logs, if available) to see how newcomers are treated. When people have questions, are they answered patiently or ignored? Are the community members friendly with each other, and talk about things other than the project? If that's a dynamic you like, you can search for it. One thing to look for are codes of conduct. A lot of smaller projects don't think to have them, but many larger projects do, and you can get a sense of the kind of community a project has by seeing what kind of behavior they tolerate and what they discourage.
== Contacting Projects ==
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