[Events] Brainstorming for an event idea: Earn a nice person

[Gregg Lind]

I love the idea.  Not sure where I fit in on it, but holler as it coheres.

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org> wrote:
> Hi all OpenHatch-y event people, and other people on this list,
>
> I wanted to think aloud for a bit about a possible online-based event that
> OpenHatch could run that would make free software projects more enjoyable
> and productive. (We've run other online-based events before: e.g.,
> ttps://openhatch.org/wiki/Build_it )
>
> The theory behind it: Nice people are a scarce resource. There are many
> resources that open source communities have in small quantities and could
> use more of; one of them is people hanging around on email lists and IRC
> channels (and bug trackers) who are skillled at making people feel welcomed.
>
> ("Nice people" is actually a misnomer; the scarce resource is the feeling of
> inclusion.)
>
> Let's spend a few weeks teaching people how to be nice, and then unleash
> them on other projects for a short while.
>
> This is modeled after a program in Boston "Earn A Bike" run by Bikes Not
> Bombs: http://bikesnotbombs.org/EarnABike . It's also modeled after the
> success of my and Niels Thykier's "Four Days" program, in which we promised
> to answer people's emails within four days
> <http://www.asheesh.org/note/debian/four-days.html>. This resulted in a 100%
> increase in mailing list traffic and a 90% reduction unanswered threads, and
> moreover the general tone of the list improved.
>
> Here's what I envision:
>
> We create the "Earn A Nice Person 2011 Working Group" to create resources
> and manage people for the event.
>
> The Working Group invites people to join the Earn a Nice Person program:
> either people who want to actually get a nice person in their community, or
> just people want to be nice in public and want nothing in return.
>
> The program has two phases: Phase 1 is "Nice People Training", and Phase 2
> is "Nice People Deployment."
>
> Both phases last for N weeks (say, N=4).
>
> Phase 1: Nice People Training. During this, all the Trainees commit to hang
> out in the community of a chosen open source project. Their goal is to be
> welcoming without being annoying. The Working Group will write up some
> documentation on exactly how to do this. Over the course of the N weeks, the
> Trainee's goal is to learn more hands-on about how to make a community
> happier, and also to to improve his/her own skills in doing so. (The
> Trainees should send an email to their host community's mailing list saying
> that they are there to be nice, and that they are aiming to be friendly and
> not intrusive.)
>
> Phase 1.5: Graduation. There is a one week break between Phase 1 and Phase
> 2. In this period, the Working Group reviews the public activities of the
> Trainees and publicly writes a blog post that lists all the great people who
> successfully were nice.
>
> Phase 2: Nice People Deployment. You'll recall that during Phase 1, some of
> the Trainees joined the program because they wanted to earn a nice person in
> their own community. The Working Group creates a list of those communities,
> and Trainees pick among themselves who goes to which community. Then for M
> (maybe M=4) weeks, the Graduated people are embedded in one of those
> communities, where they use the skills they've learned.
>
> After Phase 2, the Deployed people don't have to stick around in those
> communities they've joined. We hope they might, but that's beyond the scope
> of the program.
>
> I have some questions for the people on this Events list:
>
> * Do you think that this would improve open source communities?
>
> * Would you be willing to be on the Working Group?
>
> * Are there specific suggestions you would make to improve the project?
>
> If I don't hear much in reply, I'll try to get this going myself with just
> me on the Working Group. I'm prety excited about that already. More
> conversation, discussion, and help on the Working Group would be lovely.
>
> -- Asheesh.
> _______________________________________________
> Events mailing list
> Events at lists.openhatch.org
> http://lists.openhatch.org/mailman/listinfo/events
>