And you? What are you doing for the community?

During one of the endless flame wars, somewhere over Twitter, one idea hit my mind - it is surprising how much time we spent on so many trivial and fiddling stuff. And moreover, what could happen if instead of flame war, we spent this time actually doing something for our community. Whether the world would not be a better place?

If we will try to count how many hours we spent unproductively by reading this bullshit or even worse - participating in it (I’m not talking about rest, holidays and spare time - that is a different thing, you should rest, your Github streak is not more important than your friends or your life). We should be at least saddened (and actually I was pissed off on myself because of that). At the same time, we are whining that this or that library or framework has not got enough tests, has poor examples or almost no documentation.

So I have got an idea, and if you have the same problem - let’s try to do it with me - instead of talking, start doing. Instead starting a flame war or answering in the hot topic on Twitter, open an IDE. Instead of trying to convince someone about superiority one technology over another, search for a small thing to do in your favorite open source project. Take the initiative, be proactive - being a contributor is not that hard. Of course do it mindfully, you should not patch a Linux kernel source code if you have not got any idea how to start there - but I am sure that there are plenty of smaller libraries which are begging for help.

You can even extrapolate this policy, to other things like:

• Giving back your precious time as a mentor or lecturer.
• Cooperate with your local meetups or CoderDojos.
• Try to not waste time on useless rants, it will be also beneficial for your daily attitude.
• JavaScript is better than Java? Or maybe the other way? Who cares! Instead, build something valuable with any technology that you’d like.
• Do not waste others time! Especially when you are asking for a help, and you don’t want to listen - you can easily become an askhole.
• Respect even the free activities - if you’ve subscribed or RVSPed on a free event, and you can’t go - please, click that you won’t go.
• Give, not only take! Spent just 30 minutes with backlog or documentation of your favorite library. It is not that hard to contribute.
• If you are learning, take an example from your trainers! After a while you’ll become a one, so pay it forward.
• No community or interesting meet-up group? Build one - start small and use social media to grow.

How can I help?

Just do something for others.

Spent some time with open source projects, help with documentation, prioritize and clarify bugs and theirs description (triage), implement a missing feature or missing integration in your favorite library or framework. Share your knowledge and experience on the local events, across local meetups, publish articles on your blog and share it on social media. Be a true participant of your community!

I have also prepared links to many aforementioned initiatives (I focused more on Silesian events, but you’ll get the idea):

• Triage Node.js bugs in your spare time
• Participate in NodeSchool
  • Help with nodeschool/silesia
• Got to the Quality Excites
• Build with us a community around HackerSpace Silesia
• Participate in DWO
• Look at other silesian events
• How to create a meet-up?

And many, many others - you probably know better which projects need help. It is matter of time, there is nothing more precious than your time that you can give to others.