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Sarah Mei edited this page Jan 20, 2012 · 10 revisions

Become a part of the Diaspora Commuintiy

Diaspora* is an eclectic community. We have artists, teachers, moms, children, designers, hackers, and activists from all over the world. This is important because if we are going to build an innovative way to communitcate online, we need to think very differently than our predicessors, both Open Source and propriety.

There is only three requirements to join the Diaspora community.

  1. Be excellent to each other. We all are here to make the internet a better place to share with people on the web.
  2. Have fun. The core devs started this in their free time because it sounded entertaining (and hard). If we can't have a good time together, shouldn't you be doing something else?
  3. Learn something. Diaspora is not a simple endevor, and our mission is not something we can complete in a day, a year, or maybe even a lifetime. That also means it is a constantly evolving, dynamic project with lots of hard problems, all of which require different types of expertise. Every one of our contributors is an expert in something, even you!

If these sound like you, venture forth fair reader!

DIASPORA* It is easy to get involved!

No matter what you want to do, no matter how much time you have, you can become a Diaspora contributor.

If you have 5 minutes...

as a user

as a hacker

  • file a bug
  • confirm someone else's bug
  • close a finished bug
  • join the Diaspora-dev mailing list

If you have 30 minutes...

as a user

  • write a blog post about Diaspora
  • make some fan art
  • come chat with us in Diaspora on IRC
  • contribute a translation in your favorite language

as a hacker

  • give a code review to a recent commit
  • fix a 'quickfix' bug
  • come hang out with us on #diaspora-dev
  • document some code to get a better idea of how the code works
  • add posting to your favorite service to Diaspora*
  • backfill tests
  • get your development enviroment set up

If you have a couple of hours

as a user

  • make a tutorial (written or video)
  • confirm bugs
  • come up with new feature requests
  • Learn to code! Diaspora is a great way to get your feet wet programming!

as a hacker

  • Build a new feature
  • Write a paper on Diaspora's federation or authentication protocols
  • Refactor and improve code

If you have a couple of days

as a user

  • throw a Diaspora party
  • ???

as a hacker

  • write a new JS widget framework
  • add likes
  • add (video)chat
  • run your own pod for the community
  • give talks about Diaspora

Places we talk about Diaspora

Diaspora User stuff

  • Diaspora Discuss google group

Diaspora Development

  • Github issues
  • Diaspora Dev google group
  • IRC

Diaspora in your community!

We are an international movement. If you would like to participate or help organize one in your area join us at Meetup

  • Reporting Bugs

Currently, there are two outlets for this: GetSatisfaction and GitHub Issues.

GetSatisfaction should be used for user feedback, feature requests, ideas, and questions. On the other hand, GitHub Issues works better for bugs/issues/features involving source code/logs/UI elements.

With both of these tools, it's helpful to provide as much information as possible.

  • Starting Meetups

  • Translating

Diaspora is translated into over 50 languages. Jonne Hass has been championing managing all of them. For more info: How to contribute translations

  • Doing UI mockups
  • Spreading the Word
  • Participating in Weekly community meetings
  • Blogging about Diaspora
  • Writing copy
  • Writing documentaion
  • Making How-to guides/videos
  • Design/User Interface work
  • Donating
  • Running a pod
  • Helping others installing pods
  • Running Diaspora for your company or community
  • Making Fan Art

These are just a few ideas, and we love people who want to donate their skills to make our community more amazing.

Any questions?

Come talk to us. The best ways to get in touch in realtime in IRC. Tell us what you're interested in working on - code, tutorials, feature ideas, mockups, running a pod, helping with the wiki, other - and we can help you figure out how to get going.

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