| Re: Themes to include into next release [message #160392 is a reply to message #160388] |
Sat, 29 August 2009 18:46   |
kerryg
Messages: 157
Registered: September 2008
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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| Quote: | Currently I'm doing most of the coding, documentation and about everything else myself. This is not sustainable, and unless we get the community involved, this project doomed to fail. So, you tell me, how do we get more contributors.
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Leadership times numbers. Justin Frankel at Cockos is a great model for how this works successfully.
All stuff you know already: people with coding skills are going to be a fairly fixed percentage of a community of this nature unless there's something particular that attracts a higher ratio. You do indeed see some of that percentage helping out here - JanRei for example - but naturally we need to get *more* folks.
OK, picking numbers out of the air, let's say the community's size is "X". "Y" percent are coders. A certain percentage ("Z") of that group of coders are going to have the time and the inclination to help. A community of 1000, 1% of which are coders, 30% of which are willing to help gives you - three helpers 
So also obvious stuff - things like good marketing and "idiot-proof" ease of use increase X. Great leadership (particularly combined with "a good cause") increases Y. Things that attract coders, and make FUDForum (dare I say?) "fun" to code for, increase Y and Z.
I doubt anybody could provide better leadership than you're doing, so that part of Z's pretty much maxed already.
So strategy involves increasing what we can -
- enlarge X, the user base. You're doing precisely the right things in terms of user-friendliness. Taking advantage of the "one click install" services like Simple Scripts will *definitely* help. And as for marketing, there's an ideal opportunity for folks that have no coding skills to help out.
- enlarge Y (and Z) the percentage of coders, by thinking about what would make FUDForum more attractive to them. I don't know, I have no coding skills - what would attract *you*, and what would attract more guys like JanRei? Making FUDAPI more fun or easy or powerful?
This is why I've mentioned Simple Scripts - that's how I got introduced into running a forum in the first place, the opportunity to install phpBB with one click. After I ran it for a while I found it unsatisfactory and resolved to dig deeper, which led me to FUDForum (and the worst, most inscrutable installation experience of my life - which thanks to your work is now a thing of the past). I'll be pursuing that shortly.
So basically you're doing all the right moves. We need to get those numbers up, but even non-coders can help there, so that might be a fruitful place to begin - finding a way to harness more "non-technical" volunteerism and put it to work boosting "X".
[Updated on: Sat, 29 August 2009 18:52] Report message to a moderator |
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