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Discussion on: I'm an open source enthusiast at Mapbox, the creator of Leaflet and 40+ other JS libraries, and a rock musician. AMA!

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Vladimir Agafonkin

Feeling guilty about unsolved issues piling up is a big pain point, and so is dealing with toxic people. What I found as a good strategy is:

  • Set up standard reply templates in GitHub, and close issues without hesitation. If a user feels entitled to your time while not willing to make any effort, such as filling out an issue template, providing a minimal test case, etc., it just takes away from people and issues that actually deserve your attention.
  • Never feel guilty about open issues and messages you didn't respond to. You are a human being, with lots of things to worry about and take care of, and any issue can wait. Projects don't have to be perfect all the time. If an issue is critical and important enough and you can't find enough time to deal with it, other people will come to help you — it's open source after all, and otherwise it can always wait.
  • Lock toxic discussions and block toxic people without hesitation — arguing with such people is not worth the emotional investment.
  • Embrace and grow new contributors. Cherish people who show enthusiasm about your project, be patient when reviewing their issues and PRs even if they lack experience and technical skills, and they will grow to be an amazing help. Give away admin rights to your repos generously — putting trust in other people pays off big time.

At the beginning, I tried to reply to everyone, but when you have an inbox that looks like this, you just have to stop worrying and blaming yourself for not responding, otherwise I'd burn out and stop doing open source a long time ago: