I've waited too long before committing to this.
I've always dreamed about what's like to build a community, a movement of people, around an initiative.
Turns out, the best way to understand, is to start doing something.
Planting the seed that is needed to let an idea find its first roots.
The history of this website have intrigued me, how it came to be, where it started, why...
I find myself wondering a lot during my days, thinking about projects I would like to start, things I would like to create, experiences I would like to experience and, most of all, how could I share all of this with someone else.
Now it's time to stop thinking.
This post it's pretty much a letter to myself. A recap, a black and white (depending on the theme you're reading 😂) statement that I've to write down, to last.
It's the beginning of something, a change.
Among all the ideas and goals I've, somewhere I had to start.
Splitbit!
Splitbit is what I came up with 😂, an "expense" manager between friends.
I would like Splitbit to be a Flutter project where beginners and learners can make their first steps with open source, maybe even development.
This project could become something that can have a great impact on many others. On the people that will eventually decide to work on it, on the people that may have the chance to try and use the thing that has been created.
This, I think, is a great way to start, a project, an idea, a commitment that could involve another person, just like me, that share the same spirit. Isn't it at the foundation of a community?
But, beside an idea, what are the next steps? How do you meet and stay in contact with developers?
Just a Slack channel? Is that really what it's all about?
Another mailing list?
What are your thoughts?
I want to share my journey, so keep in touch 😄
p.s.
If you're interested in the project.. follow it on github
Latest comments (1)
What approach to take in building your project's community depends heavily on your target demographic.
For example, Freenode IRC continues to be the central hub for many communities, including Python and Ubuntu. You'll find a lot of old-schoolers there (and plenty of new-schoolers). Discord seems to be a popular option among devs who are also gamers, while Gitter is popular for GitHub-oriented open source projects. Slack is a very "workplacey" option IME, used by a lot of 'business solution' projects. You want to go where your developers are.
(You can also link up Discord, Gitter, Slack, and Freenode IRC, so it's not necessarily one-or-the-other).
As to async communication, you should consider what development platform you need. GitHub? GitLab? Phabricator? (That's what I use on my projects.) What is the scale of your project? How many contributors do you plan on having? What workflows do you want for issues, pull requests, and continuous integration?
(Again, you can link up many of these platforms, although you should use ONE mainly, and just mirror to the others you need to support. Keep it simple.)
There's a lot to think about. Explore your options, thinking about the kind of developers you want, and what your project needs.