this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
159 points (88.0% liked)

Asklemmy

43336 readers
954 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Disclaimer

Not trying to blame anyone here. I‘m just taking an idea I‘ve read and spinning it further:

Intro

A lot of people use free open source software (foss), Linux being one of them. But a lot less actually help make this software. If I ask them why, they always say „I don’t have the coding skills!“.

Maybe its worth pointing out that you don‘t need them. In a lot of cases it’s better to not have any so you can see stuff with a „consumer view“.

In that situation you can file issues on github and similar places. You can write descriptions that non technical people can understand. You can help translate and so on, all depending on your skills.

Other reasons?

I‘d really like to know so the foss community can talk about making it worthwile for non coders to participate.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I would be happy to give feedback, but I have no idea how to do so. On a few occasions, I have responded to posts, such as like on Lemmy where someone asked for suggestions to improve KDE. I still have no idea how to use GitHub at all, much less to provide feedback. I know GitHub is something I can work on to learn to interact with the FOSS development community, but it's probably a major barrier to the non-tech people that use FOSS.

Now that I think about it, I'm thinking it would increase non-tech interaction if developers of FOSS engaged the community through social media. Like, get on Lemmy, Mastodon, even Reddit, FB, and Instagram, and engage the community in these discussions. I think that will definitely increase engagement from the non-tech users, though some of those sites may feel like a betrayal of values. It seems like an interesting ethical dilemma.

Edit: So I looked into it for KDE in particular. They actually have a Wiki that simplifies user engagement. Maybe promoting these avenues will also help engagement.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Thanks for the elaborate explanation. Learned a lot today. :)

We definitely need more integration between say github and social media. You can already comment on github stuff but devs would probably puke if john commented that he‘d like the button in red.

Not sure myself how this would work. Probably a sliding scale of integration and ease of use so peeps dont just comment for fun or to let off steam.

Edit: DUDE! I just realized its you! Hahahaha thanks for replying! :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You're welcome! The more I think about it, I think it's mostly an exposure thing. Unless I'm really invested in tech, I'm not going to be going to those sites regularly. But I do go to my social media sites often, so if I regularly saw discussions/posts on the topic, I'd be more like to engage since it's in my awareness more often.

DUDE! I just realized its you! Hahahaha thanks for replying! :)

Right‽ Isn't it exciting when you see someone you know doing there thing? It's like, "Hey, that's my friend!"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah! Absolutely. Actually, a couple people are getting inspired by this and I‘m very happy to have made a little difference. Your message helped as well.

Lets see where this goes. Would you want to beta test some new approach as well? Someone is making a python questionaire or such.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Would you want to beta test some new approach as well?

Yeah, for sure! I can't be using this awesome OS without contributing to it somehow.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Neat! Will let you know once i hear back!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Stupid question who is he? Sounds like you either know him or know of him.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

A friend! :) also someone with great ideas and a lot of insight.