Re: [DISCUSSION] Growing the Git community

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Sep 20, 2019, 14:36 UTC
Message-ID: <20190920143614.GB20698@genre.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <71fba9e7-6314-6ef9-9959-6ae06843d17a@gmail.com>

On 2019-09-19 at 16:30:13, Derrick Stolee wrote:

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> 1. Improve the documentation for contributing to Git.
> 
> In preparation for this email, I talked to someone familiar with issues
> around new contributors, and they sat down to try and figure out how to
> contribute to Git. The first place they went was https://github.com/git/git
> and looked at the README. It takes deep reading of a paragraph to see a
> link to the SubmittingPatches docs.
> 
> To improve this experience, we could rewrite the README to have clearer
> section markers, including one "Contributing to Git" section relatively
> high in the doc. We may want to update the README for multiple reasons.
> It should link to the new "My First Contribution" document
> (https://git-scm.com/docs/MyFirstContribution).

I think there's a lot of improvements we could make here, and I know that many folks are already working on contributor documentation. That's enormously valuable work, and I'm pleased to see it going on.

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> 2. Add more pointers to GitGitGadget
> 
> We have a reference to GitGitGadget in the GitHub PR template to try and
> get people who try to submit a pull request to git/git to instead create
> one on GitGitGadget. However, that captures contributors who didn't read
> the docs about how to submit! (This is somewhat covered by the "My First
> Contribution" doc as well, so making that more visible will also help.)

I think GitGitGadget is a useful tool which I haven't really had the time to learn how to use. I appreciate that many people prefer a patch-based workflow, and that using a patch-based workflow and a mailing list provides the project independence and avoids favoring any hosting platform or tool, which I agree with.

I think also that many folks find a pull request-based workflow to be easier and more familiar and supporting this a bit better may lower the barrier to entry, so I'm in favor of bridges that make contributing easier, even if one still needs to subscribe to the list to get feedback.

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> 4. Add an official Code of Conduct
> 
> So far, the community has had an unofficial policy of "be nice,
> as much as possible". We should add a Code of Conduct that is
> more explicit about the behavior we want to model. This was also
> discussed in the meeting with wide approval.

I think this is a good idea. We already document how to contribute to the community by sending a bug report or a patch: how to format your emails, how to sign off your patches, and how to write a good commit message. I see a code of conduct as another way to do this by documenting our social norms much as we document the way our contributions should look technically.

I also know in the past we have had problems with a contributor who was being argumentative and disagreeable. I think documenting the kind of behavior we want to see both helps individuals ask themselves if their own behavior is helping us provide a positive community and helps other contributors provide feedback about unhelpful or unacceptable behavior on the rare occasion that we see it.

Lest I give the impression otherwise, I think that overall the Git community is quite welcoming and positive, and I anticipate that it will continue to remain that way. I expect that the difference in behavior on the list if we adopt a code of conduct will be small, since so far pretty much everyone seems to be engaging in productive, helpful ways.

However, I know that many folks from underrepresented groups in tech feel more comfortable when there's a code of conduct because it signals to them that the project cares about fostering a respectful, healthy community and that their contributions are likely to be welcomed. I recommend the Contributor Covenant for this purpose, since it is well known, well accepted, and is used by numerous other FLOSS projects.

-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204