Managing Casual Contributors
Increasingly, people want to contribute to projects casually. A number of factors have driven this change, among them distributed revision control, social coding platforms, and the general trend towar …
| Talk Title | Managing Casual Contributors |
| Speakers | Ann Barcomb (PhD candidate, University of Limerick) |
| Conference | Open Source Summit Europe |
| Conf Tag | |
| Location | Prague, Czech Republic |
| Date | Oct 21-27, 2017 |
| URL | Talk Page |
| Slides | Talk Slides |
| Video | |
Increasingly, people want to contribute to projects casually. A number of factors have driven this change, among them distributed revision control, social coding platforms, and the general trend toward “new volunteerism.” To take advantage of these contributions, communities need to adapt to the needs and expectations of casual contributors. Yet at the same time, no community wants to invest more effort in inviting casual contributions than it receives in return. This talk will cover the benefits of incorporating casual participants, the factors that influence their return, and practices for engaging them. The material draws on the body of scientific research , the speaker’s own research, and her personal experiences both as a community manager for a non-profit and as an open source contributor.
