As a maintainer of the open source MXCHandbook, you become the face of the project to a community of users and potential contributors. Your actions as a maintainer reflect on the whole project. Before you begin this journey, consider what it means to be a maintainer:
A great maintainer:
- Takes responsibility for the health of the handbook.
- Takes in what they have built, maintains quality to a level befitting the handbook.
- Responds to issues and pull requests in a timely manner.
- Helps users understand how to use their project through documentation and reference implementations
- Helps contributors understand the work to be done and the type of contributions you will accept
- Helps new contributors find meaningful, helpful contributions
- Responds to and supports users reporting bugs or making contributions
- Identifies who will address bugs
- Speaks with respect and consideration
- A good maintainer treats users and contributors fairly, kindly, and with respect.
- They show appreciation for contributions and are compassionate when offering feedback.
- Enforces the code of conduct to provide a safe, supportive community
An Open Source project is stronger when it has an active and passionate community. However, it can be challenging for new contributors to get started. Here are a few tips to help you build a stronger community:
- Add labels such as
good-first-PRorhelp-wantedto Issues and Pull Requests to encourage contributions - Hold virtual office hours for the project to allow the community to connect and discuss challenging problems
- Create great documentation that helps users understand how to use of the handbook, this will make community support a useful task for new contributors
- Add a roadmap to your project so others can see where it is heading
- Celebrate contributions by listing contributors in your repository or on the wall of fame.