Blog Post: Alex Pott and Drupal

[chadwhitacre]

The story is that the Drupal community decided to make Gittip their own and then they helped Alex Pott do a successful fundraising campaign. People to talk to are @greggles @wimleers @alexpott.

https://www.gittip.com/for/drupal/ https://www.gittip.com/alexpott/

[chadwhitacre]

Ping @heidigardner @ceboudreaux.

[heidigardner]

@whit537 I'll get on the info gathering tomorrow!

[greggles]

I'm on irc most of the day or you can contact me via http://drupal.org/user/36762/contact (after logging in on that site). I can also get you in touch with @wimleers and @alexpott

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @heidigardner! Some links to get you started:

• https://groups.drupal.org/node/307233
• http://alex.vit-al.com/node/15
• https://twitter.com/alexpott
• http://www.lullabot.com/blog/podcasts/alex-pott-and-working-drupal-core

[xjm]

Also see: http://buytaert.net/alex-pott :)

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @xjm. :-)

[heidigardner]

@whit537 @greggles @wimleers @alexpott @xjm

Thanks all! I am working my way through these links and do my homework so I know what questions to ask. Thanks for making that simpler. :)

[heidigardner]

I am going to paste in a draft/outline based on the info I just gathered. I will add links and/or images in when we are ready to publish. I didn't actually have conversations with anyone (yet)-- I thought I would let you look here and tell me what aspects of the story you want developed further. It's not long, but you might not want it too much longer for a bog post. We could also use this as an intro post and do two followup posts, one featuring Alex and one the Druapl community. Let me know what you think is best or what else you want included! edited to reflect suggestion by @greggles on clarification

Spotlight on Success: Alex Pott + Drupal + Gittip While Gittip does not require you to have or meet goals to receive funding, some are defining their dreams and expectations within Gittip and finding success. Recently, the Drupal community banded together to help Alex Pott meet a fundraising goal.

Beyond the legal limits, there aren’t any given rules for how to use Gittip: it is a tool. Gittip’s value as a resource is most often visible in direct correlation to the effort and enthusiasm poured into it. It was that energy that allowed Drupal to discover one of many successful formulas for using Gittip. In this case the formula seems to be: one extremely dedicated worker + a group of committed supporters + Gittip = a reward for a leap of faith.

In March Alex Pott quit his job and began working full time in a volunteer capacity on Drupal 8. By April he was invited by Dries Buytaert to become one of Drupal 8’s co-maintainers as they gear up for release. Alex has a history working in Drupal, but he only “met” Gittip about a month ago. In fact, as of July 10th the Drupal community on Gittip itself had only 30 members and was looking to reach the 150 member requirement for listing individual members on the Gittip site. By July 31 they had reached 95. With 371 members currently in the Gittip Drupal community, it is now almost four times larger than it was that day.

So it was that during the month of August Alex Pott set and met a goal using Gittip with the help of Drupal supporters. Even investing all the time and money he could, Alex calculated he would need to cover $475 a week. With a little encouragement from others he decided to try Gittip as a means to raise what he needed. Through the following four weeks Drupal supporters not only flocked to Gittip to contribute to Alex Pott’s financial goal, but they spread the word far and wide. The result: Goal Reached. Alex has taken to twitter to thank all the donors and supportors, as well as the Gittip team. Alex, we thank you. You took a leap of faith with Gittip and with the help of the entire Drupal community made us all a success.

[heidigardner]

@whit537 still no email from Medium. If you want to take action with this feel free to post however seems best.

[chadwhitacre]

@heidigardner Bummer, sorry. :-/

My feedback:

Spotlight on Success: Alex Pott + Drupal + Gittip

Can we use a more direct sentence for the title? Something like "Drupal Co-maintainer Funded at $475/wk." I'm think "spotlight on success" should be a regular theme for us, but it eats up a lot of valuable headline space to put it in the title. Secondly, the essence of a news story is an active verb, in this case, "funds." Drupal is a name most of our audience (at this point) will know. "Co-maintainer" is a Drupal-ism, but it should be recognizable enough to open-source-savvy folks outside the Drupal community as indicating a key figure in the community. Putting the actual dollar figure in the title makes it punchy.

While Gittip does not require you to have or meet goals to receive funding, some are defining their dreams and expectations within Gittip and finding success. Recently, the Drupal community banded together to help Alex Pott meet a fundraising goal.

Beyond the legal limits, there aren’t any given rules for how to use Gittip: it is a tool. Gittip’s value as a resource is most often visible in direct correlation to the effort and enthusiasm poured into it. It was that energy that allowed Drupal to discover one of many successful formulas for using Gittip. In this case the formula seems to be: one extremely dedicated worker + a group of committed supporters + Gittip = a reward for a leap of faith.

Unless we're ready to list the "many" successful formulas, I suggest we dial this back and say: "[...] to discover a successful formula for using Gittip: one extremely dedicated [...]."

In March Alex Pott quit his job and began working full time in a volunteer capacity on Drupal 8. By April

I try to use relative time intervals so that readers don't have to compute it themselves. In this case I would say, "Six months ago, Alex Pott quit his job and began working full-time in a volunteer capacity on Drupal 8. A month later ..." The important thing is how long it took, not what time of year it happened. No?

he was invited by Dries Buytaert

Let's add a note explaining who Dries is.

to become one of Drupal 8’s

Let's add the number of co-maintainers here, or otherwise indicate how important of a position this is. Maybe @greggles @alexpott @davereid can shed some light here?

co-maintainers as they gear up for release. Alex has a history working in Drupal, but he only “met” Gittip about a month ago.

"A month ago." No math, happy me. :-)

In fact, as of July 10th the Drupal community on Gittip itself had only 30 members and was looking to reach the 150 member requirement for listing individual members on the Gittip site. By July 31 they had reached 95. With 371 members currently in the Gittip Drupal community, it is now almost four times larger than it was that day.

I like what you're trying to do here, but this wording is confusing to me. The point is that Alex Pott's fundraiser coincided with the Drupal community's general embrace of Gittip. As above, let's go with relative dates, so I don't have do math as a reader. Let's also link back to the "Introducing Communities" blog post from four months ago. We want to show this to be a rousing success for the Gittip communities feature. The 30 ... 150 ... 95 ... 371 numbers in prose aren't punchy enough to make the point, imo.

So it was that during the month of August Alex Pott set and met a goal using Gittip with the help of Drupal supporters. Even investing all the time and money he could, Alex calculated he would need to cover $475 a week. With a little encouragement from others he decided to try Gittip as a means to raise what he needed. Through the following four weeks Drupal supporters not only flocked to Gittip to contribute to Alex Pott’s financial goal, but they spread the word far and wide. The result: Goal Reached. Alex has taken to twitter to thank all the donors and supportors, as well as the Gittip team.

How about a paragraph break here, to set the conclusion apart?

Alex, we thank you. You took a leap of faith with Gittip and with the help of the entire Drupal community made us all a success.

How about including a link near the end to @alexpott's pointer to @patrickd-?

https://twitter.com/alexpott/status/370840615552307201

[chadwhitacre]

@heidigardner As we figure out how to best use GitHub for this sort of task, could you post a new comment with your revision instead of editing the initial comment? That will help with history tracking, I think.

I'd like to give you the keys to Tumblr to actually post this. Let's coordinate that in IRC.

[wimleers]

Nice :)

[greggles]

re comment 11: Drupal 8's current core committers are Dries Buytaert, Angie (webchick) Byron, Nathaniel (catch) Catchpole, Jennifer Hodgdon, and Alex Pott. Blog posts about their assignment can be found on buytaert.net.

It might be good to re-post this article on OpenSource.com (a Drupal site). See how to submit an article. Jason Hibbets is a drupaller engaged with OpenSource.com.

[chadwhitacre]

@heidigardner Are you still thinking you'll be able to land this? Or shall I pick this one up? I'd like to get this out this week, and I'd love for you to do it, but I understand if the timing's not right. :-)

[heidigardner]

I had a Github notification message failure. They got rerouted to Spam.

I will have a bit of time later tonight. Let me see what of these changes I can make reality. Then I will repost and any further changes you are welcome to just make if it's easier and then post. I don't want you to have to report changes for me to make that wouldn't take any more time than the reporting. That's twice the effort. :)

[heidigardner]

Here's a new version with modest additions and corrections. Feel free to further expand definitions or introductions as you see fit. I never did get Medium to love me. At publish I would probably do screenshots and more links, but I don't know if it would help for me to add them in this format.

Drupal Co-maintainer Funded at $475/wk While Gittip does not require you to have or meet goals to receive funding, some are defining their dreams and expectations within Gittip and finding success. Recently, the Drupal community banded together to help Alex Pott meet a fundraising goal.

Beyond the legal limits, there aren’t any given rules for how to use Gittip: it is a tool. Gittip’s value as a resource is most often visible in direct correlation to the effort and enthusiasm poured into it. It was that energy that allowed Drupal to discover a successful formula for using Gittip: one extremely dedicated worker + a group of committed supporters + Gittip = a reward for a leap of faith.

Six months ago Alex Pott quit his job and began working full time in a volunteer capacity on Drupal 8. A month later he was invited by Drupal co-founder and lead developer Dries Buytaert to become one of Drupal 8’s co-maintainers as they gear up for release. He joined Dries along with the other Drupal 8 core committers Angie Byron (webchick), Nathaniel Catchpole (catch), and Jennifer Hodgdon.

Alex has a history working in Drupal, but he only “met” Gittip a little over a month ago. It seems that the rally to help one of their maintainers meet a goal boosted the entire community. Though they were experiencing steady but modest growth, the Drupal community on Gittip is now almost four times larger than it was when Alex announced his Gittip goal.

In just three to four weeks Alex Pott set and met a goal using Gittip with the help of Drupal supporters. Even investing all the time and money he could, Alex calculated he would need to cover $475 a week. With a little encouragement from others he decided to try Gittip as a means to raise what he needed. Through the following four weeks Drupal supporters not only flocked to Gittip to contribute to Alex Pott’s financial goal, but they spread the word far and wide. The result: Goal Reached. Alex has taken to twitter to thank all the donors and supporters, as well as the Gittip team.

Alex, we thank you. You took a leap of faith with Gittip and with the help of the entire Drupal community made us all a success.

In the wake of hitting $475 weekly on Gittip, Alex has expressed the desire to support another Drupal developer with a funding goal. Keep the momentum going! https://twitter.com/alexpott/status/370840615552307201

[chadwhitacre]

Awesome, @heidigardner, thanks. Can we change "modest growth" to "modest growth on Gittip"? I know we repeat that right after the comma, but I want to be careful to recognize that communities exist quite apart from Gittip.

What's your email? I'll send you our Tumblr login and you can post a draft there.

[heidigardner]

absolutely. send email to heidigardner@gmail.com

[chadwhitacre]

@heidigardner Done (sorry for the delay). Per #1431 the Gittip Blog is not the "primary" blog, so you'll have to select it from the drop-down at upper-right in the Tumblr dashboard. Look for "Untitled" (the primary blog) and click to drop-down. You want "Gittip Blog."

Click "Aa | Text" to start a new blog post:

Then be sure to click the arrow and "Save as draft" instead of "Publish":

[heidigardner]

No problem using tumblr, though the interface and I had words. lol. It's there. Manipulate at will. Publish whenever. :)

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @heidigardner! Unfortunate timing as Alex is currently at $424/wk, after peaking at $511. I've gone ahead and published anyway. I did make a few small tweaks:

• Linked "Alex Pott" to his Gittip profile instead of his blog post about Gittip.
• Added a link to https://www.gittip.com/for/drupal/.
• Added the embed code for the tweet rather than using an image.

Success! Our first collaborative blog post! :dancer:

[tshepang]

good article, thanks