Opensource.guide: [RFC] Marketing > Spreading the Word

[nayafia]

Hey open source maintainers! We would love your feedback on the Marketing > Spreading the Word article. We will leave this open for comments until Sep 1, 2016.

Does anything seem inconsistent with your experience? What is missing? Are there any other helpful resources on this topic?

Feel free to comment and discuss here, or even open a pull request to suggest changes.

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[wooorm]

Hi @nayafia, I still have some notes lying around from when I read through everything. I’ll see if they’re still useful and if so add them to the correct issues. Here’s the first:

This section states the following:

A website, along with clear documentation and tutorials, makes your project **seem** friendly
and easy to navigate. It also **suggests** that your project is active and supported, which will
make your audience feel more comfortable using it. Adding tutorials and examples gives people
ideas for ways they can use your project.

(emphasis mine)

Although it’s true that not all websites _are_ those things, this particular sentence stood out to me as particularly weakening.

I’m not entirely sure what I’d suggest instead though, maybe:

A website, along with clear documentation and tutorials, makes your project friendlier and easier
to navigate. It also show that your project is supported, which will make your audience feel more
comfortable using it. Adding tutorials and examples gives people ideas for ways they can use your
project.

I can open a PR for this if it’s a heading your OK with?

[MikeMcQuaid]

No comments from me beyond 👍

[benbalter]

Consider creating a website for your project.

Do we want to suggest GitHub Pages here (this is what it's designed for) and maybe link out to https://github.com/showcases/github-pages-examples?

[lee-dohm]

Should the emphasis in the titles be on the project rather than the person?

• "Be able to convey who you are (and why it matters)" → "Be able to convey what your project is for (and why it matters)"
• "Help people find you and follow your work" → "Help people find your project and track its progress"
• "Go where your audience is" → "Go where your project's audience is"

I feel that putting the focus on self-promotion risks incentivizing the wrong behaviors _a la_ "No More Rock Stars".

[joshsimmons]

The best way to invite people to share and contribute to your project is to share and contribute to their projects. There is no better way to convince people of your project’s value than to invest time into your community. Helping newcomers, sharing resources, and making thoughtful contributions to others’ work will earn you a positive reputation.

This paragraph confused me a bit at first. Are you suggesting people invest time into the community of contributors around their own project? Or invest time into the community's around projects that are relevant to their own project? Both great, just a bit ambiguous.

[gr2m]

related to what @joshsimmons says, I think you can write that most likely your Open Source project does not exist in vacuum. Maybe it is using other Open Source projects or it plays well with others. If that is the case, writing tutorials that include these other Open Source projects is a great way to market your project in these communities.

Related to that, a common quote (in different variations) I keep hearing is "If your project has no tutorials it does not exist", so tutorials are a good investment either way :)

[gr2m]

Also http://speaking.io/ is a good resource for all things about giving talks

[nayafia]

@joshsimmons @gr2m ahhh, good question. I originally meant it as "invest your time in other projects/people outside of your own", though both are actually important. I will clarify!

@wooorm thank you for the edits! yep, feel free to open a PR. One tiny typo: "It also shows" (not "show")

[wooorm]

@nayafia 👍 PRed in GH-84.

[nayafia]

Closed per https://github.com/github/open-source-handbook/commit/bfe2a98e59bfbd6f8e7d254d2523dea3f04d046a