Thanks to any maintainers who read this. You do important work.
Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#32It was more than a thank you. It also gave some details about how much time it saved them, etc. That's gold.
Makers sometimes exist in a void. They create and wonder if it is accomplishing anything. They wonder what it gets used for.
A few words can speak volumes. It creates a dialogue. The maker is no longer howling into the void, no longer wondering if their felled tree makes any sound.
That hi 5 is a thunderous clap that takes their one hand silently clapping to a warm and enthusiastic embrace of connection with another living, breathing being.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#33I’d prefer a usage description in the form of “we’re using this software in X to do Y and it handles Z payload every day”. A simple thanks is just a distraction that you need to click through and acknowledge, zero useful.
Although clearly in this use case it was useful.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#34I get the occasional thank you email for a site I run and it always makes my day and I always try to make that clear.
I've only sent two such emails and got a nice response on one and like a single word "thanks" or something on another.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#35It was more than a thank you. It also gave some details about how much time it saved them, etc. That's gold. Makers sometimes exist in a void. They create and wonder if it is accomplishing anything. They wonder what it gets used for. A few words can speak volumes. It creates a dialogue. The maker is no longer howling into the void, no longer wondering if their felled tree makes any sound. That hi 5 is a thunderous cl…
Couldn't say it better myself. I'm the maintainer of a fairly popular open source utility and the motivation that people provide by actually telling you the work you're doing is useful to them is invaluable. By contrast, it's worth saying that abuse or "your things crap, I'll use something else" has exactly the reverse effect and actually hurts.
Consequently I try hard to encourage people as they work on open source. Remember, we're doing this for love and we should remember that when we interact with maintainers who have given us a free gift at no cost to ourselves. Much love to all OSS contributors!
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#36And on the other end of the scale, here's what not to say :) https://github.com/remy/nodemon/issues/824#issuecomment-2178...
Not sure if that can be said in general.
The maintainer is cited complaining about people using a +1 - which is there to notify that a bug bites me too or i agree with something someone else wrote. If the problem (which i looked not into now in detail, i just state this as general rule) is already described in excess, why should someone add more text?
If even someone already sent a PR and it’s not merged because the maintainer has other priorities?
Then i agree with the content(maybe not exactly the form) of the message: if you have no sufficient capacity anymore or will to continuously and properly maintain a widely used open source tool, hand over responsibility and power over publication and source control to someone or better a team that has.
Great power comes with great responsibility.
What is actually true is that comments that really say „go and fix that asap (i need that for my work which earns me money)“ are pretty egoistic.
Especially without offering any kind of help - be it detailed report and analysis, a patch or even less a readily prepared Pull Request including tests and adhering to the projects Coding and Contribution standards - that is really gross and against the spirit that we create Open Source together, there’s no producer/consumer relation. And sure it’s said too many people behave as it was.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#37And on the other end of the scale, here's what not to say :) https://github.com/remy/nodemon/issues/824#issuecomment-2178...
Not sure if that can be said in general. The maintainer is cited complaining about people using a +1 - which is there to notify that a bug bites me too or i agree with something someone else wrote. If the problem (which i looked not into now in detail, i just state this as general rule) is already described in excess, why should someone add more text? If even someone already sent a PR and it’s not merged because the…
I think the maintainer was referring to +1 comments, which are so annoying that they must have been one of the main reasons GitHub introduced reactions.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#38I think it's the same for startups. Sometimes you aren't making enough money yet. Maybe your spouse is telling you you should work on something else. But if users keep taking the time to write in and say thank you, you need to persevere. That's my situation at least [1].
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#39This is a great reminder that simple manners and gratitude can go a long way. What I hope is also apparent is that thank you notes will not be enough on their own to fix the unfortunate trend of entitlement, underfunding, and burnout that is attacking open source maintainers. Any step is progress, though, so long as we don't fool ourselves into thinking it's literally all we need to do.
This, a thousand times this. As an ex-contributor to some old school Apache projects, I know too well the over-whelming feeling that the marathon of maintenance can elicit. Open source becomes open-ended. For sure, start with a thank you. People appreciate thanks for their efforts, no matter the result. It can make all the difference for some people. Want to go beyond and be a little helpful? It's easy -- just take a…
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Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#40@amingilani Thank you for posting this. There are tons of valuable comments here.