The Layer5 community grows on a daily basis, which means that each day community managers, MeshMates, and other existing community members field the question of "how can I contribute to your project" any number of times everyday. The good news is that there are many what is to engage - all of which are important to the health of both the projects and the community.
Upon joining the community Slack workspace, individuals are warmly greeted and encouraged to browse the community handbook, join the weekly newcomers meeting, and to begin familiarizing our open source projects. We have heavily invest in each individual that shows up to participate as we consider their success, our success. Part of doing so is ensuring that everyone understands the variety of ways depending in which they can contribute. Any and all of the possible ways are encouraged.
Community Engagement & Management
As a Community Manager
- Foster discussions and interactions on community platforms (Slack, forums, social media).
- Onboard new members, answer queries, and organize community events.
- Curate and share community-generated content, news, and project updates. Help draft and send newsletters, announcements, and other community updates.
- Recognize Contributors: Assign badges, recognize achievements, and celebrate milestones.
- Moderate social media: Monitor and respond to comments and messages on Layer5's or it's project's social media channels @layer5, @meshery, @smp_spec, Layer5, Meshery, Performance, YouTube
- Curate content: Share relevant news, articles, and project updates on social media.
As a Discussion Forum Moderator:
- Ensure that discussions remain constructive, respectful, and on-topic.
- Moderate comments and posts, addressing any inappropriate or offensive content.
- Encourage participation and create a welcoming environment for all users.
- Guide discussions and help resolve conflicts if they arise.
Meeting Host or Event Organizer:
- Plan, schedule, and facilitate community meetings, workshops, or webinars.
- Prepare agendas, moderate discussions, and ensure smooth execution.
- Record and share meeting notes or summaries for those unable to attend.
- Help organize and coordinate Layer5 events, whether online or in-person.
As a MeshMate (a mentor):
- Mentor new contributors: Guide newcomers through the contribution process, answer their questions, and help them get started.
- Review code contributions: Provide constructive feedback on pull requests, ensuring code quality and adherence to project guidelines.
- Triage issues: Help identify and prioritize issues in the project's issue tracker.
Technical Contributions
As a Maintainer:
- Take ownership of specific projects or components.
- Review and merge code contributions, ensuring quality and adherence to standards.
- Triage and address issues promptly.
- Guide and mentor other contributors.
As a Code Contributor:
- Fix bugs: Address reported issues and bugs in the codebase.
- Implement new features: Contribute code to add new functionalities or enhancements.
- Triage Issues: Ensure timely validation of new issues, ongoing assignment, and removal of incidental issue squatters.
- Offer Peer Review: Review and comment on pull requests. Collaborate with other contributors to improve the project.
As a Performance or Test Engineer: Optimize performance: Identify and implement optimizations to improve the performance of the projects, like layer5.io performance issues.
- **End-to-End Testing: Write, review, and test code contributions, following project guidelines and best practices.
As a Build and Release Lead:
- Manage the build and release processes, including versioning, packaging, and deployment.
- Ensure smooth and timely releases, addressing any build or dependency issues.
As a Bug Hunter:
- Actively identify and report bugs or issues in the software.
- Provide detailed information to help developers reproduce and fix the problems.
As a Technical Writer:
- Create clear and comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and guides.
- Improve documentation: Update and enhance project documentation to make it easier for others to understand and use.
- Translate project documentation or user interfaces into different languages, broadening the project's reach.
Project Engagement and Advocacy
As a User Ambassador:
- Showcase your achievements: As a user, this is how you demonstrate your prowess, milestones, and meaningful engagement.
- Share your enthusiasm: Share your Layer5 project experiences on social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, or relevant forums. Highlight your favorite features, use cases, or success stories.
- Create content: Write blog posts, record videos, or create tutorials about Layer5 projects. Share them on your personal channels and within the Layer5 community.
- Attend and present Participate in conferences, meetups, or webinars related to cloud-native technologies. Represent Layer5 and share your knowledge.
- Engage in online communities: Answer questions on Stack Overflow, participate in discussions on GitHub, or contribute to relevant online forums.
As a Writer:
- Craft Five's Adventures: Contribute to the ongoing story of Five, the Layer5 mascot, by writing engaging short stories.
- Develop tutorials and Learning Paths: Create clear and concise written tutorials or guides to help users understand and use Layer5 projects.
- Write blog posts: Share your insights, experiences, and knowledge about Layer5 projects through informative blog posts. Have an idea? Pitch it by opening a writing issue.
As a Designer:
- Design brand materials: Contribute to the design of project logos, website layouts, social media graphics, or presentation slides.
- Create wireframes and mockups for any of our frontend projects.
- Improve user interfaces: Leave your UX mark and help refine the user interfaces of Layer5 projects to make them more intuitive and user-friendly (open Figma invite).
- Illustrate Five's World: Create captivating visuals for the Five's Adventures stories.
- Meshery is the #1 most popular Linux Foundation internship, offering invaluable hands-on experience in the cloud native space.
- Layer5 is continuously offering internships, providing opportunities to learn and grow alongside a passionate community.
Remember:
All contributions are valuable and every skill set has a place in open source. Don't hesitate to ask questions or reach out for help. Most importantly, have fun and enjoy being part of the community!
Every contribution, big or small, is valuable and helps strengthen the Layer5 community and its projects.
