Common Working Group Renamed to Metrics Development Working Group
In order to better represent the work that this group is currently doing, we’ve decided to rename the group to the “Metrics Development Working Group.” This change is currently being implemented, but the “Common Working Group” name appears in many places (such as the repository, Slack, Calendar, etc.) so we appreciate your patience as we phase in this change.
Helping to develop metrics is a great way for newcomers to contribute! You don’t have to be an expert in any particular field to collaborate with us. Please join us every other Thursday at 10:00 am US Central / Chicago on our CHAOSS Zoom channel.
New Way to Surface and Measure Non-PR Contributions
The CHAOSS project seems atypical from other open source projects in that the majority of our contributions are not tracked through GitHub in the form of a pull request. These contributions are incredibly important to our project, and so we are experimenting with a community-contributions.md document. If you are spending time working on something CHAOSS-related, and that work is not captured elsewhere in a PR, please add your name to this document through a PR.
We can also use this as a way to make sure we are capturing all the types of contributions in our Types of Contributions metric.
Recent CHAOSScasts of Note
In case you missed it, we have released a few CHAOSScasts that are well worth the listen!
- Episode 76: CHAOSS Goals for 2024 and Beyond (Dawn Foster, Sean Goggins, Matt Germonprez, Georg Link, Elizabeth Barron)
- Episode 77: Open Source Metrics at Microsoft (Dawn Foster, Emma Irwin, Justin Gosses, James Siri)
You can also listen to our podcasts through our CHAOSStube YouTube channel.
Help us Celebrate our CHAOTIC of the Week – Yigakpoa Ikpae
A little about Yiga:
Hi I’m Yigakpoa Ikpae, you can call me Yiga. I live in Lagos, Nigeria. I am a Product Manager, Digital Marketer & Accessibility/ DEI Evangelist. I am also an Open-Source mentor with Outreachy & a 1x Google OSPB awardee. I joined CHAOSS in May 2022 and, I’m really happy to be a CHAOTIC because it’s such a warm & welcoming community!
Fun facts about me: I am a fine artist (I could stare at art all day!), a member of the Nigerian Red Cross Society(7+years), I had a bird as a pet while growing up (I think that’s unusual), & I am a polymath.
What Yiga works on at CHAOSS:
CHAOSS DEI working group: Currently, I am collaboratively doing something that makes me really excited by ensuring that every part of CHAOSS or our other websites is always accessible to everyone & anyone! I contribute my quota to ensuring all CHAOSS websites are accessible by performing accessibility checks on the Web, IOS & Android versions of all our websites.
CHAOSS Africa project: At CHAOSS Africa I serve by being a note taker from time to time. I also collaborate with other team members to organize programs that will be beneficial to the growth of the CHAOSS Africa Open-Source Community &/or its members.
CHAOSS Project Management: I’m super excited about this one because I am actually a PM & it’s great to see that we have this. Here, I collaborate by ensuring newcomers to the team find their way around and are able to contribute effectively by creating documents, and getting on calls to show them how to go about “PMing”. In collaboration with other PMs, I create issues, project boards, and follow up with other contributors working on the different sub-projects to ensure that tasks are going on smoothly. I currently collaborate with fellow PMs on three sub-projects: Onboarding Course, Grimoirelab Repos and Docs, & CHAOSSCon NA.
CHAOSS Metrics Development WG:
I currently serve as a context Group liaison Officer. I attend the University & Scientific Software meetings in order to give updates related to the development of metrics & models.
Yiga’s advice to newcomers to open source:
- Take that first step and do something no matter how little eg. note taking like i do in CHAOSS Africa.
- If you’re new, don’t be shy. Ask questions & DYOR. Open source is super welcoming so be rest assured that there’s someone who can help you. An additional tip is that by doing your research before coffee chats, your mentors or colleagues can see that you’re eager & willing, but you’re simply stuck just like they were a few months or years ago.
- Keep trying & be patient with yourself. Everyone started somewhere without knowing what they were doing but here we are, still learning, failing sometimes, but also winning some, simply because we tried.
- This one is specifically for CHAOSS: If you feel stuck or you don’t seem to understand how things work in a particular working group, you have two options:
- Go through our Knowledge Base
- Be like me. I simply watched as many Youtube videos as I was interested in while listening attentively during live meetings. This helped me know where the project was coming from, where they currently were and gave me an idea of how I could be of help. Remember that no idea is too small & your ideas are welcome!
- Lastly, remember to do what you really love & shine like the star you are. But, don’t forget to take breaks when you feel overwhelmed! ❤️
Special thanks from Elizabeth and the CHAOSS Community:
Yiga is everywhere in CHAOSS, but I know that didn’t happen overnight. It took some time for her to feel comfortable participating and contributing, and we are absolutely thrilled that she stayed in the community long enough to do so. Joining any open source community can be overwhelming, and among all the work she contributes here, Yiga is above all, such a great ambassador to our newcomers. With her wide area of expertise, she is also proof that every type of skill is valuable in open source.
Yiga, it’s been so fantastic to get to know you, and the smile in your voice when you join CHAOSS meetings just lights up the whole room. You bring such positivity and enthusiasm to our project, it makes me all the happier to be a part of things. You exude welcomingness, belonging, and friendliness here, which makes others want to be a part of things. I love how you make our community better with your spirit and your contributions. THANK YOU for staying with us and for being such a huge part of what makes CHAOSS a great place to be! ????
If you’d like to connect to Yiga, you can do so here:
Reminder: CHAOSScon is Happening February 1
We have our schedule locked down for CHAOSScon EU 2024, happening in Brussels on February 1, 2024. We are excited to be hosting some fantastic speakers, and this year includes a fun social event after the conference. This happens 2 days before FOSDEM, so if you’re traveling we hope you can make plans to come into town a little early. You won’t want to miss it!
We will be livestreaming this event on YouTube, so if you can’t make it, you’ll be there with us virtually. If you’re planning to attend in person, don’t forget to register!
Reminder: Discourse is No More
Sometimes you try things that just don’t click. Discourse was one of those things. We struggled with adoption and engagement from the beginning, and we never got over that initial hurdle. We shut down Discourse on January 20, 2024, and Slack continues to be the primary place where our community interacts. Please join us there!
Upcoming Meetings
All calls use our CHAOSS Community Zoom link (https://zoom.us/my/chaoss). All meetings listed here are in US Central / Chicago Time Zone, currently not on Daylight Savings Time (UTC -6). (The only exception is the CHAOSS Africa Community Meeting on WAT, which will not change with Daylight Savings.) You can convert to your local time here. You can also subscribe to the CHAOSS Calendar or watch for meeting reminders that are posted daily in the #general channel in Slack.
Tuesday, January 30
9:00 am Newcomer Hangout (no agenda)
11:00 am CHAOSS Weekly Community Meeting (agenda)
1:00 pm App Ecosystem Working Group (agenda)
Wednesday, January 31
4:00 am CHAOSS Africa Designers Sync
10:00 am DEI Working Group (agenda)
12:00 pm CHAOSS Africa Developers Sync
Thursday, February 1 (CHAOSSCon EU!)
10:00 am Metrics Models Working Group Meeting (agenda)
