Would like a slightly more optimized "first hour" for new contributors to flutter

[zoechi]

@eseidelGoogle commented on Fri Mar 16 2018

@timsneath and I were brainstorming today about successes in other projects at fostering community growth. There are many great open source examples.

I would like to think that Flutter has done the fundamentals of open source pretty well (happy/healthy community, fully open development, good docs, tests, etc.) but I suspect we could throw out the red carpet a bit more than we do and make our "first hour" be a bit more welcoming.

If I'm new to Flutter from flutter.io or github.com/flutter/flutter where do I?

• Learn how to contribute?
• Learn how to help (other than just maybe coding)?
• Get suggestions on places to help and/or starter bugs?

I don't think we need a lot here. But I didn't see anything obvious in flutter.io and
https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
seemed to be mostly technical focused if that's our "come help with Flutter" page?

Thoughts? I would love comments from others pointing to great "come help!" or "getting started" pages from other OSS projects.

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@escamoteur commented on Sat Mar 17 2018

In ReactiveUI we have easy issues marked as for first time contributors.

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@xqwzts commented on Sat Mar 17 2018

FWIW the easy fix label exists and is used here.

Maybe it could get more visibility if CONTRIBUTING.md suggested that people look at issues under that label if they're interested in diving in?

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@xqwzts commented on Sat Mar 17 2018

I would love comments from others pointing to great "come help!" or "getting started" pages from other OSS projects.

I'm a fan of Django's contributing docs. Particularly the guidelines for new contributors.

They even have a walkthrough tutorial on writing your first patch for Django.

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@InMatrix commented on Sun Mar 18 2018

We've previously discussed linking to source code on Github from API docs to lower the barrier to making small improvements (e.g., fixing typos or adding a usage sample), since such changes can be made via the Github Web editor. The tracking bugs are dart-lang/dartdoc#1454 and flutter/flutter#10416.

We did something similar for flutter.io pages by adding a link to edit the source of each page, which I've seen being used by contributors.

Cc: @jcollins-g

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@irrigator commented on Mon Mar 19 2018

React has a pretty good "how to contribute" documentation..

1. It writes clearly on how to contribute.
2. It has a detailed overview of the code base and some details.

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@Hixie commented on Wed Jun 13 2018

cc @Sfshaza @RedBrogdon @mjohnsullivan

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@Sfshaza commented on Wed Jul 11 2018

More suggestions that can impact the IA, @InMatrix.

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@InMatrix commented on Wed Jul 11 2018

We'll consider where a How to Contribute section should go. Cc: @galeyang

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@Sfshaza commented on Wed Jul 18 2018

Making a note to myself that I should take a look (and probably update) the website README.

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@Sfshaza commented on Fri Jul 20 2018

Talked to @InMatrix. For the short term, we'll probably change the GitHub link on the front page to Contribute, and link to the Contribution page on the repo. I should probably check that page and make sure it's sufficient.

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@galeyang commented on Fri Oct 19 2018

Update: from the study, we suggested to retain the Github link on the top nav. The reason is that some developers who are new to Flutter have a good interest to visit Github. They want to get a sense of full features available and the update frequency (which means the team's commitment and activeness of community).

For the short term, we can consider adding an external link (to the current Contribution page on Github) both in the footer and on the Community page.

In the future, if we have more detailed content (like the above examples from React), we may consider adding a new section to the Doc's side nav.

What do you think @Sfshaza ?

[sfshaza2]

This could be a good project for the intern.

[timsneath]

Adding @csells as he might like to dogfood whatever we come up with.

[galeyang]

#1628 (bug-reports page) seems be relevant.

[Piinks]

cc @Piinks
I recently spoke with the community about writing code samples for API docs as a good first contribution opportunity... There seemed to be some good reception to it. I'll start documenting feedback as this progresses. :)

[Hixie]

#5155, #5156.