This weekend (March 22-23), I attended two different community meetings in a row, namely the “Community Base Camp” hosted by CSDN and the “Open Source Community Alliance” hosted by Beijing GNOME User Group. For the convenience of discussion, these two meetings are collectively referred to as the “Community Two Sessions”. The main ideas of these two meetings are similar, the content is similar, the participation form is the same, and the shared topics are all about one question - how should community activities be carried out? This question was already covered in the previous blog post, which mainly discussed offline activities. In this article, I will try to consider online and offline activities together.
The participants of CSDN’s “Community Base Camp” (event details) are mainly community managers from major companies, as well as leaders of small niche communities like me. The discussion questions are obviously more commercial.
The “Open Source Community Alliance” (event details) organized by Beijing GNOME User Group invited leaders of major Linux distribution communities in China, including Aron Xu / Eleanor Chen from Ubuntu Chinese Community, Alick from Fedora Chinese Community, and Wang Yuguo, David from OpenSUSE Community, etc. (Unfortunately, Queen Margaret Su didn’t come in person!)
CSDN’s “Community Base Camp” focuses on commercialization, so there are more discussions on offline activities; GNOME’s “Open Source Community Alliance” inherits the tradition of free open source, so there are more discussions on online activities. The two meetings can be said to have different styles, but they sparked sparks. Everyone was offering suggestions for their respective community construction. It can be said that after two days of participation, I really gained a lot. I also put forward some small ideas of my own, please correct me if there is anything inappropriate.
What is “Community Building”?
At this “Two Sessions” of the community, the topic that everyone talked about most was “community building”, so what is “community building”? In my opinion, it is the “metabolism” of the community, just like an organism needs to have a perfect metabolism to stay healthy forever. The community is also an organism, and it also needs perfect “metabolism” and renewal. People who have experience in participating in school clubs in college know that everyone in the club will eventually leave because they have to graduate and leave the campus. This is a passive handover process, but the reason why some clubs have been operating well for ten or even decades is largely due to both using this passive process and having an active “metabolism”. The same is true for technical communities, except that there is no stable passive “handover” process, and it is difficult for people to actively handle “metabolism” when they are there, but it is necessary.
- Build a complete organism for the community The community is like a human body. Humans have internal organs, and the community also has different people, including project managers, developers/code contributors, testers, translators and localization L10n, promoters, users, and onlookers. Wang Yuguo from OpenSUSE said that “each community is also a small society”, which is very accurate. Because the community is a microcosm of society, the community is also an organic whole. Therefore, it is necessary to build a complete and healthy community structure. Currently, the main problem faced by open source communities in China is that there are the most users and onlookers, but there are very few contributors who really do things (not just code contributions, but also translation, localization, and promotion). As a result, open source projects are difficult to sustain, and the community is difficult to organize effective participation. Therefore, the key to community building is to increase the proportion of contributors in the community, and through various means to convert some users and onlookers to the ranks of contributors.
- When is community “metabolism” needed? In one sentence, when the community is running best and reaches its peak. It takes a lot of courage to dare to carry out metabolism at this time. Daring to hand over at this time will experience some pain, but it will soon create new glory. It is precisely because of this that there will be communities that are constantly approaching perfection. When I was in school, I found that many campus clubs have the phenomenon of “generational inheritance”. What does that mean? That is, the club may have organized some activities in a certain session, or did a good job and had a big reputation, but the next session is often not good, but the next session (the so-called “generational”) will continue the spirit of the seniors and seniors, have innovation and development, and then work hard again and prosper. It can be said that the essence of the “generational inheritance” phenomenon of university clubs is a benign metabolism manifested in passive handover, which is very interesting and worth remembering.
- What to “metabolize”? Wang Yuguo from OpenSUSE quoted three sentences that Margaret Su believes in how to treat community members:
Ignore those who randomly post spam
Ignore those who are full of complaints
Let those who rely on their seniority disappear
Three sentences, simple and clear explanation of methods and attitudes. For those who post spam and are full of complaints, you can treat them as not being there, and they will naturally disappear, but the most troublesome ones are those who “rely on their seniority”, but at this time, for the development of the community, decisively driving away such people instead of being concerned about face will have a good effect. Many people who have made great contributions or once led the community through glory cannot continue to lead or hold important positions, because such people only have “relying on their seniority” left! This is about personnel, and the same is true for others. The GNOME project suddenly stopped when it reached the peak of GNOME 2.32 and changed to GNOME 3. I don’t agree with it abandoning official support for GNOME 2, but it is a wise move to strongly support the new GNOME 3 despite objections. Although it experienced more than a year of pain, as GNOME founder Miguel de Icaza defected to Mac (he should have left long ago, relying on his seniority for a long time), and many big cows who once opposed GNOME 3, such as Linus Torvalds, returned to GNOME 3, it is only a matter of time before GNOME 3 continues its glory in the future.
On the other hand, as a community leader, many times you have to be brave enough to revolutionize yourself. When you find that you are “relying on your seniority”, it means you should have withdrawn and retired to the mountains long ago. It takes the courage of “a strong man breaking his arm” to revolutionize yourself at the peak of glory, but for personal development and community development, carrying the burden of past glory is also very tiring, and you will eventually be crushed. It is better to unload the burden and move forward lightly. The next glory may be just around the corner.
- Principles and methods of bringing in new blood For the healthy development of a community, it is necessary to both eliminate the old and bring in the new. Therefore, how to attract loyal community members is the biggest headache for leaders of major communities. Here is a principle: every community member may eventually become a person who “relies on their seniority”, and the more people who “rely on their seniority” in a community, the more it shows that the community is successful, or was successful. Therefore, the community should give new members a hope - they will also become that “relying on their seniority” person in the future. There are many methods, which are expanded below:
Promote the Community
This is a big problem, and it is a problem that most communities face. But in the eyes of community managers of major companies, recruiting more participants is his/her work performance, while for open source communities, more participation also means more digging for contributors and strengthening themselves. Traditionally, when we discuss promotion and expanding the community, we often treat online activities and offline activities separately. In fact, according to my observation: offline activities have a huge promoting effect on online activities, and online activities are the foundation and supplement of offline activities, so the two cannot be separated.
- Member classification Margaret Su has made a very detailed subdivision of users who play various Linux distributions, especially for novice users. Through the classification of user groups, targeted publicity can be carried out, and commercial publicity methods can be used in the community. Precise publicity can achieve twice the result with half the effort. The traditional method of casting a wide net has low precision and poor effect, which is difficult to meet the needs of the community. Often, there is no one to communicate online, and few people respond when attending offline meetings. At the same time, publicity for novice users in the community is more important, because novice users are likely to strive to become contributors, especially technical novices in science and engineering and women (to be detailed below). The attitude towards novice users basically judges how far the community can go. Novices are often wavering, so the loyalty of novices is also an important assessment parameter for the development of the entire community.
- Create a cultural atmosphere The cultural atmosphere of the community is very important. This cultural atmosphere is accumulated through online communication little by little. A healthy and lively community atmosphere requires everyone’s participation and contribution. At the same time, there is also a competitive relationship between communities (competing for novice users). A personality and friendly cultural atmosphere can easily unite community members, attract new members, and expand the community scale. A good online communication method for the community is very important. Although major operators provide various communication methods including QQ groups, Weibo groups, WeChat groups, Tieba, Douban, Weibo, etc., the main communication methods of open source communities are still forums, IRC and mailing lists. These “three old things” have not changed over the years, first because Westerners are more accustomed to and adapt to this communication method, and at the same time, it has both the efficiency and real-time nature of communication. As for other IM and IM groups that are more popular in China, I don’t recommend them, because the community should be separated from personal life, and the key to IM is personal-centered communication, or socializing. Community communication has the nature of technology and more project completion, and the social nature is relatively less, so IM, Weibo, Tieba Douban, etc., which are mainly for entertainment, are not suitable as online communication tools. Moreover, the cultural atmosphere of these communication methods provided by operators is often solidified by other users, such as the “special function” of WeChat shake. Because of this, it is not easy to create a personalized cultural atmosphere that conforms to the community, so it is not recommended. Instead, traditional IRC, mailing lists and forums are recommended. Another point is that the real communication of commercial communities is also these three old things.
- Mobilize the campus The main purpose of mobilizing the campus is to find that students are a large “high-quality novice” main body, so the battlefield for communities to compete for novices naturally burns into the campus. Today’s students are more concerned about immediate interests, especially Chinese students, such as future employment, career income, entering large companies, etc. At the same time, open source is “sharing” resources for them, and the opposite example is that CSDN’s resource download requires payment. But in fact, open source emphasizes individual contribution rather than individual gain. In the face of pragmatism, Chinese students often choose the most beneficial way. For example, Beijing Maker Space has introduced a volunteer mechanism. Of course, “volunteers are not voluntary”, that is, volunteers have basic meal subsidies. The level of meal subsidies is often a competition. For wealthy commercial companies or large foundations, this is not a problem, but for niche open source communities with little money, this is a considerable expense, or volunteers can participate in the post-meeting “corruption” of offline meetings, and their meal fees will be shared by others, because Chinese people’s communication at the dinner table will be more in-depth. Therefore, the development of niche communities relies more on the penetration of free open source ideology and culture, so the creation of a personalized community atmosphere mentioned above is very valuable.
- Small activities, public publicity The more niche offline activities are, the more publicity should be carried out for the public, otherwise it is impossible to grow. Therefore, niche communities or communities that are not easy to be accepted should pay more attention to popularization for the public, which is essentially the solicitation and conversion of novice users. Attract curious people through social media, and at the same time lead suitable people to the community’s internal communication platform. This is a process of gradual adaptation and publicity.
- Advantages of open source communities Because open source communities rely heavily on Internet resources, they have greater online advantages than traditional communities. Many online communication modes that traditional communities do not have are first realized in niche open source communities, and then slowly promoted. In addition, vigorously building open source communities can improve overall competitiveness, which is compared with commercial and closed source communities under the same conditions.
One Girl is Worth Ten Boys
When I gave a speech at CSDN, everyone remembered this small tip I put forward. At that time, because I was interrupted by the host Li Li, I didn’t finish what I was going to say.
- Create a women-friendly community In fact, the role of women in the community is not to attract men as vases, but to develop and introduce a women-friendly community atmosphere that is more inclusive, more free, more creative, and more likely to stimulate the creativity and innovation desire of other male members.
- Community contributions based on female characteristics Due to their natural differences from men, women can complete many tasks that men cannot complete or do not do well, such as art design, documentation, translation, event promotion and copywriting planning. These tasks are often trivial and complicated and require careful and patient handling. Obviously, women have more opportunities to show their talents in these community tasks. For example, the website of the GNOME Foundation was designed and participated in by Ms. Yu Liansu from Beijing GNOME User Group. At the same time, the tenderness and consideration of women can better resolve conflicts and disputes in the community, and more effectively avoid community division.
- Women are often the main body of novices As mentioned earlier, a community that is friendly to novices has a community atmosphere and community culture that is positive and vibrant, and women are often the main body of novices in technical communities. Therefore, being friendly to women is being friendly to novice users. Striving to create a community atmosphere that is friendly to women’s participation is also an important part of community development. At the same time, due to women’s sensitive character, respect for women reflects the noble character of the community, and also allows community members to better appreciate the community’s respect for individuals, so it can attract more members.
- Attach importance to the construction of visual elements Generally, people think that women are auditory animals and men are visual animals, but in the community, women are more sensitive and picky about visual elements. Even when writing code, few use command-line editors like Vim or Emacs, and more choose graphical editors. Therefore, in view of this feature of women, attention should be paid to the design and arrangement of visual elements during community construction, from web design to community VI, from venue arrangement to publishing more photos and videos, all of which are a kind of attraction to women. Here, “one girl is worth ten boys” does not mean using women to attract men, but attracting more community members to participate by building a women-friendly community atmosphere. In a word, it is not because of women that community members are attracted, but because of the open, free and inclusive community atmosphere in the community!
Cooperation with the Government
Regarding cooperation with the government, I hold a permanent negative attitude, but it is not impossible to support the government’s transformation and functional transformation in certain areas, especially when such things are conducive to the development of things in a good direction (Ubuntu’s cooperation with the government is not in this category, I will elaborate in another article). At the CSDN event, I met an official from the China Open Source Software Promotion Association. From his consistent official language and tactful attitude, it was obvious that he was not expressing his true intentions. I think that any totalitarian government is incompatible with the free and democratic style of open source, and even conflicting. A BBC reporter once optimistically thought that accepting open source and developing open source communities would make the government change, which is absolutely a daydream!
We all know that the government’s cooperation with open source is completely out of the pragmatic thinking of open source’s low cost, low risk, and high return, not its connotative spirit. Therefore, the government’s cooperation with open source will not make itself change, but will instead bring bad community atmosphere, and will inevitably use administrative means to interfere in community affairs, bringing totalitarian privileges and closed thinking into the community, and finally overthrowing all the community constructions listed above. At this time, the community will also enter an abyss of no return!
How to Organize a Community Alliance?
At this “Two Sessions” of the community, both CSDN’s “Community Base Camp” and GNOME’s “Open Source Community Alliance” put forward the concept of community alliance. Why put forward the concept of community alliance? Because now each community’s resources are scattered and autonomous, and activities often cannot form effective organization, so it is hoped that by integrating existing community resources, strengthening alliances, and achieving the purpose that the whole is greater than the sum of parts. This idea is good, but it can also be seen that this is a typical “programmer thinking”, that is, the so-called “treating the head for headaches and the foot for foot pain”. As already clearly stated above, the key to community building is, first, to build a complete organism and carry out “metabolism”, and second, to create a personalized, open, free and inclusive community cultural atmosphere. Both have nothing to do with whether resources are integrated, and the community alliance is nothing more than integrating resources to improve resource utilization and increase the number of people participating in activities.
However, I am not opposed to the form of community alliance. On the contrary, I strongly support it. And I personally think that the community alliance should organize homogeneous communities with common needs together, increase online coverage and communication, and jointly organize offline activities. At present, there are two organizational forms of community alliances, one is the “activity series” model represented by CSDN, and the similar ones include HiBuzz; the other is the “contributor paradise” model composed of domestic Linux distribution communities led by GNOME User Group. Both models have their own advantages and disadvantages, but from the perspective of community alliance development and future trends, I recommend implementing the GNOME’s “contributor paradise” model with a little modification, because the essence of the community alliance is the community, and it should also have the common attributes of the community, and should be constructed in the way of the community. In programmer’s terms, the subclass “community alliance” inherits from the parent class “community”, and should have all the attributes and methods of “community”. The only difference is that the members of “community” are people, while the members of “community alliance” are “communities”, not just integrating resources and organizing activities. The community alliance should also be like community building: build a complete organism and conduct regular metabolism, while creating a personalized, open, inclusive and free atmosphere.
Since 2011, Beijing GNOME User Group, under the leadership of Li Zhenning (community manager of China Standard Software), has begun to explore the community alliance model, connecting with GNOME User Groups in Chongqing and Linux User Groups in Taiwan, integrating resources from across the Taiwan Strait, and completing the community alliance model based on online integration while taking into account offline activities. According to this model, the GNOME 3 Release Party was successfully held in May 2011, marking the initial establishment of this model. In the past two years, under the leadership of the current chairman Li Bin, the online integration and offline cooperation model between communities has been further deepened and improved, with the responsibility of promoting the development of open source software in China, and guiding the localization of world excellent open source software in China as the main content, with joint development (mainly input method framework), localization, translation and promotion as guidance (because most Linux distributions use GNOME desktop environment, which has inherent advantages). At GNOME Asia 2012 (Hong Kong), Beijing GNOME User Group shined at the conference, and then further established this community alliance model at the “Cross-Strait Open Source Community Gathering” held in August.
Therefore, summarizing the community alliance concept of Beijing GNOME User Group, there are the following points:
- Online integration of homogeneous communities;
- Highlight display of personalized communities;
- Gather various community groups such as contributors, localization and promoters to form an organic whole;
- Complete the resource integration of offline activities and play combination punches.
Finally, it must be said that any community alliance model now needs good online services. CSDN’s Community Base Camp provides a website based on community display + community activities, and similarly, HiBuzz.net is completely activity-oriented, which subdivides and summarizes activities, making activity organization and participation reach a very pure level. However, neither of these two solutions considers the most fundamental and key content of community building, that is, the metabolism of the organic whole of the community and the personalized, open, free and inclusive cultural atmosphere of the community as emphasized in this article. At the same time, through the online platform, community members can experience their contributions and sense of achievement within the scope of multiple communities. Plus certain social functions. Building a comprehensive community alliance portal that integrates open source contributions + community display + event publishing + post-event news can refer to foreign SourceForge (which can provide mailing list services and simple website building) and Ohloh (which provides contributors to show their contributions in various projects, while the community can also show itself, and the website is very beautiful). Which one is more suitable for such transformation between CSDN Community Base Camp and HiBuzz? Obviously, CSDN is not suitable because CSDN has a history of more than ten years, and it has rolled very fast like a snowball. At this time, it is obviously impossible to turn and change. At the same time, the Community Base Camp will inevitably be affected by other CSDN channels, making it difficult to adapt to the diverse needs of community alliances. As a small team startup product, HiBuzz’s development future is still unknown. At this time, it is very easy to transform to meet the development needs of community alliances.
In short, through this article, I want to express that community building includes not only activities, but also various aspects, especially the contribution of community members to the community and projects is crucial. Therefore, in the future, the performance evaluation of community managers should not only look at the scale of offline activities, the number of participants, the quality of activities and activity services, but also examine the proportion of contributors in the community and the overall cultural atmosphere of the community. The community is a complex organic system. Splitting any part is not good community building, and it requires overall consideration and multiple cooperation.
I attended the community “Two Sessions” and had three meals. I hereby use this article to repay my meal money. Special thanks to CSDN’s simple Geek version buffet lunch and Chaoshan-style dinner, as well as GNOME’s Dalian seafood dinner. I still have fond memories and salivate.
Reprinted with permission: Developer Relations »
