Community antipatterns

CommunityAnti-patterns

Dave NearyNeary Consultingdave@neary-consulting.com

“Good artists copy, great artists steal”Pablo Picasso

Cargo cults

Community anti-patterns:Best Practices Run Amok

Cookie licker

Symptoms

● Community member volunteers for tasks● Progress reports are infrequent & vague

● “I'm working on a draft”● “It's nearly ready to go”

● When it's suggested someone takes over, the task owner resists● “I'll make time next week”● “I've almost finished”

Causes

● Desire to have things done well● Best community members always over-commit● Truly believes they can make time● Once committed, handing off task is admitting

failure

Treatment

● Set deadlines on tasks, and reassign when they run over

● Make failure OK

HelpVampire

Treatment

Good newbie docsEncourage recent newbies to answer newbie questionsTeach newcomers how to search for answers

See also:RTFM

Command and Control

Symptoms

● Joint Copyright Assignment● All committers from one company● No public roadmap, unannounced

features arrive regularly

Justification

● Have a company to run● We need to own the code for our business

model● The company paid for it, we should be

special● Community contributions are small

anyway

Treatment

● Define policies for community access to project resources

● Public roadmap process● Exchange influence for control

Headless chicken

Bikeshed

Leadership

Mob rule

Beware Dunbar's Number

How do your communitymembers self-identify?

Culture ofDoing

AvoidSmokeFilledRooms

TheWaterCooler

Fear ofcommunity

Work in a glasshouse

Open Design!=

Design by Committee

Black Hole

“Ironically, since I started working onSyncEvolution full-time beginning of this year, I seem to have *less* time leftcompared to the previous years when Idid it in my spare time"

Patrick Ohly

“I'm too busy to spend time answeringquestions on the mailing list”

OpenWengo developer

Treatment

● Ensure “doing things in the open” is part of the job description

● Train managers & engineers in community development

● Document who is doing what publicly – and explicitly leave some thing on the roadmap clearly marked “Not us”

Broken window

Symptoms

● Off-topic/bikeshed threads on mailing list● Wiki vandalism/decreased article quality● IRC Signal to Noise ratio decreases

Treatment

● Document Best Practices● Remind offenders early● Spread policing load around

Broken record

“I'm the bad guy??? How did thathappen? I did everything they told me to.”

Michael Douglas, Falling Down

Treatment: Don't be that guy!

(A gentle reminder is usually enough)

Final thought:Communities are emotional places

Community goal:Create a fun, friendly environment

where people feel safe sharing

Thank you!

Dave Nearydneary@gnome.org

dave@neary-consulting.com