Building reputation?

[llrs]

Great book, it reads fast and is very thoughtful. I had already read Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software and was surprised to find it recommended here. It is a great book too, but I felt it had missing some aspects you touched here. I'm reading the Producing Open Source Software now (which seems to have been written with a longer exposure to FOSS).

All these books seem to have in mind someone with authority within the communities/projects/code, this is helpful to outsiders who want to interact and contribute, but do you recommend any other book for someone who is not in such position?
Consistent good contributions, as mentioned on the book, are important but what other actions can a (willing to be) contributor/maintainer?

Many thanks too for making it accessible freely online.

[bagder]

I'm afraid I don't know that many books on this subject so I can't think of any that matches your description.

In general, you will find that anything (constructive) you help out with in a project will be appreciated and will build reputation over time. Answer questions, help diagnose problems, help reproduce problems, help ask follow-up questions on bug reports, help users find the right section in the documentation etc. Whatever seems to be needed really.

Of course, when you are a rookie in a community none of those things are easy to do or help out with since they will require some amount of knowledge. Then the best thing to do is to idle, read and learn what the more experienced members of the community do and say.

We are all rookies when we enter a new project we never joined before. We all need to do that journey in order to become a maintainer or someone with a trusted voice in a project.

[llrs]

Many thanks for your quick advice