Community Organizing

OpenHatch isn't (just) about helping newcomers make specific contributors. It's about getting newcomers involved in communities - our own, and those of other open source projects.

To that end, we have a few different initiatives in mind.

Community for community-builders

We'd like to help those who are doing community-building work communicate with each other so we can provide each other with advice, support, and tools.

We plan to:

Start a mailing list

• Step 1: Create mailing list
  • AL: Should this be a different list than events@oh?
• Step 2: Invite community-builders
  • Make list of people to invite (OSCTC event organizers, other people we know who might be interested).
  • Draft and send email to said people inviting them to the list.
• Step 3: Stimulate discussion
  • Come up with a few standing OH questions (eg the eternal freedom v guidance question) to ask in case people are shy.

Have a monthly IRC meetup

• Step 1: Create a doodle poll + send out to above mailing list.
• Step 2: Wait a week, announce the results to list.
• Step 3: Have the IRC meetup.

Community for past attendees

We could do a better job of reaching out to OSCTC attendees and inviting them to be an ongoing part of the OpenHatch community.

We plan to:

Reach out to individual attendees.

• Step 1: At events through observation, and via the exit survey, note which attendees seem most enthusiastic about open source.
  • Email them within one month of the event specifically inviting them to become more involved by:
    • Hanging out on IRC and attending IRC meetups (see below).
    • Doing OPW/GSoC/other internship.
    • Sharing a question they have about open source.
    • Doing additional curated first tasks.
• Step 2: When tracking contributions made at events, follow up with students.
  • If their contribution was finished + accepted, give them feedback/congratulations.
  • If it's still in progress, encourage them to keep working on it.

Monthly IRC meetup.

• Step 1: Select an ongoing time to have an hour-long meetup.
• Step 2: Find community members (such as representatives of GSoC, OPW, but also other groups) to come talk a bit about the opportunities their projects represent.
• Step 3: Announce and invite people.

Use alumni list more frequently.

• Via a monthly email to list approx 3-4 days before IRC meetup, including:
  • Curated first tasks.
  • Opportunities (OPW, GSoC, etc)
  • Reminding them of the IRC meetup.

In-person community for everyone

We all exist offline, as well as on. We'd like to promote more in-person meetups. This may include:

• Running a regular open source get together in cities like Boston and perhaps SF.
• Occasional sprints to improve OpenHatch.
• An OpenHatch gathering at major open source events.