👥 So what is a community?

A community is a group of people who share an identity-forming narrative and UNITE together to help each other out.

Eg: Eddiehub - An inclusive community that is spreading literacy about the Open Source and, helping beginners to get started.

🤝 Why get involved in the community?

Getting surrounded by like-minded people makes it easy to learn and grow at a faster pace because community people with always there for you. Some of the key reasons for getting involved in the community is Networking, Collaboration, Finding supporters., Friendly mentors, Recognized for your work.

🌈 What makes a good community?

Every community is good and serves its own purpose, but having some specific things makes it great and open and welcoming to everyone.

🔶 Inclusivity

Including all types of people, and things and treating them all fairly and equally. People should promote the use of gender natural words and give equal opportunity to everyone.

🔶 Collaborative

The community should promote and believe in a collaborative culture and also believe in growing and winning together.

🔶 Openness

People should not feel restricted and bound to ask anything or share their thought and suggestions.

🔶 Safety

People should feel safe and welcoming, so they can express their feelings and can share and talk about their work and well as personal stuff.

🔶 Zero barrier to entry.

Every person should allow in the community and also take part in the activities and conversation, no matter what's their age, level of knowledge, and experience.

👤 My experience with the community.

My first ever community was EddieHub (Founded by Eddie Jaoude), and it's the closest to me.

When I first entered the community, I was having very least knowledge about Open Source, collaboration, community, etc. But having the great ambiance of supper supportive and talented people around me, helps me nurture those skills.

🌐 "I started as an Open Source MENTEE and transform into a MENTOR."

It always fascinated me. When I joined the community to get started in the Open Source, I was not even familiar with setting up a repo, but after 3-4 months down the line, I am now advocating and mentoring people to do their first-ever contribution.

Things that helped me to grow faster in the community:

⭐️ Feedback:

Having constructive feedback and perspectives from different people in the community helped me come out with a refined solution with all the pros and cons.

⭐️ Healthy competition:

Seeing community members building, growing, and collaborating with several other members helps me push my limits and nudge me to try new things. For Eg: I saw many people reviewing code, I also started doing that and now it's my major cut/part of Open Source contribution.

⭐️ Fast answers and solutions:

As a developer, we always get stuck in some coding problem, and sometimes we need real people's perspectives and suggestions, instead of finding the solution on the internet.

⭐️ Moral and mental support:

As a developer, we sometimes get burned out and go through tough times, but people from the community keep holding our hands and helping us in regaining our mental strength and bringing us back on the right and normal track.

Want to say a few before ending this Blog.

"Get involved in any community, whichever you like, and feel safe. Take part in the conversation and start interacting with people. You will soon start realizing that your progress and wins get skyrocketed and that couldn't be possible without CommUNITY...." - Pradumna Saraf

Thank you for reading, COMMUNITY FTW