I think a Slack channel is a good idea - (revealing one aspect of my ignorance here) I’ve been meaning to give Slack a go for years, but hadn’t found a project until now that made it compelling enough to do so…
Picking up on the title of @fireproofsocks’ article, which echoed @pragdave’s comment to me in a side conversation, I’m inclined to agree that this would be better framed as “Developers for Good” or “Developing for Good”, which places the emphasis on the people or the activity, rather than the particular language used. I’ll assume that Dave is OK with me quoting his additional comment on that topic here:
But it wouldn’t be an organization of developers. I’d see it as an exchange, where charities could register their needs, and developers could register their talents, and DfG could marry them up.
So, perhaps the DfG dating service, then?
Oh, and just quietly, I don’t think it’ll be hard finding worthy real-world projects for devs to sink their teeth into. I’ve got half-a-dozen semi-formed project ideas rattling around in my head right now, as I’m sure is the case for a number of folks on this thread…
As an aside, I’ve just ordered myself a hardback copy of the MacAskill’s “Doing Good Better” book, as Everett recommended in the article above. Given current circumstances, it might take some weeks to get here on camel back to Central Australia… maybe this might be the beginnings of another book club on this forum?
Also, Randall Thomas’ talk at Lone Star Elixir 2020 (“Yeah, but should we?”) seems to be quite relevant to the spirit of this thread…
Actually, maybe there’s a better option than Slack - what about Discord?
Pro’s of Discord:
there’s already a number of Elixir folks* on Discord - I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with a few of them;
similar use case as Slack;
these days, increasingly used by not-for-profit org’s and not just gamers;
happens to be written in Elixir as well, I understand…
As for negatives (or other suggestions), my ears are open.
K.
*not that coding in Elixir would be a pre-req for Developing for Good (of course!), simply that we’re having this chat on an Elixir forum after all, and it looks like we can usefully get the ball rolling, or maybe even get lots of concurrent balls rolling, complete with schedulers and back-pressure if need be…
This functional programming caper is turning out to be quite a lark, even at this early stage!
I’m happy with either. On slack we might find it easier to get other elixir devs to join our cause whereas on discord we might set it up as being “more generic”. Either way, I don’t think we should let us get blocked by this. Please just make a decision and let’s get going
Sure thing, @PJUllrich. I don’t have a firm preference either, but my gut says Discord, so let’s run with that.
So, if we want to set up a Discord server under “Developers for Good”, does anyone know offhand if there’s a quick and easy way to get one going? I’m going to assume it can be tweaked as we go along.
***Evidently, we’ve already got a bunch of like-minded developers already operating under various banners… e.g Ruby for Good folks, Code for America, Girls Can Code, and others. And, I see we’ve got some fellow travellers at https://developersforgood.org/ where the homepage says it’s:
…a community of technologists who use our skills to make the world a better place.
I’m sure they’ll be keen to connect with like-minded folks, and quite potentially on the new Discord channel. In short order, we’ll want to be doing some outreach / networking kind of work, which I’m happy to do a bunch of, alongside anyone else who’s keen of course! I’ve no particular experience in software development specifically, but I’ve helped co-ordinate technical projects before, which is probably close enough to be useful somehow…
So, it seems that “Developers for Good” is shaping up as the rallying point. I like where this is going!
I’ll have to leave that question, Sebb - let’s see who else pops up with an answer.
Meanwhile, the Discord server is now up and running, though configuring it is a work in progress, esp. automating things with bots:
If this link isn’t sufficient to get you on, then send me a private message and I’ll see what I can do. Will be back on the weekend to do some more tweaking. I’m using this very handy Youtube tutorial as a guide.
Great initiative!
I joined the Discord but still need some approval I guess.
We are using Elixir to create a free software licensed action tool for progressive campaigns (think: petitions, reach out to your representative campaigns, raising awareness campaigns, distributed volunteer organizing support, donations etc), especially focused on privacy and coalition building.
It’s called Proca and we have started to build a community around this software (but mostly campaigner, not tech community) as https://fixthestatusquo.org
So would that be a foundation, or would that be a company? I have never heard about “Ruby for Good” and they are not making it clear what is the legal status in an obvious way on their site (where I admittedly spent 2 minutes searching for it).
If it’s a company that targets NGOs that’s fine too, there’s plenty of for profit organizations like that tha NGOs have to hire.
If it’s a foundation / charitable / non-profit that’s also fine, there’s a place for NGOs in each civil society.
But if it’s a for profit company pretending to be non-profit that’s actually pretty bad.
Do you know what they are and what your project would be?
any reason why you created a separate server, rather than a channel/topic on the elixir server? Might get a lot more folks from the elixir group to join in if on same server
Hi @dlobo, I did that for a few reasons, the primary one being my high degree of ignorance and naivete! I’ve got plenty of skills to bring to this endeavour, but deep technical chops are not among them. I’m very new to this whole scene, and am sufficiently “fresh off the boat” to be unaware of the Elixir server (for a moment I thought you meant the Elixir language server), or that I had the ability to create anything there. I welcome any and all help in getting this thing off the ground and pointing in a useful direction! (@PJUllrich has raised his hand, and there are openinigs for others to do the same…)
My other consideration here points to @pragdave’s observation that “Developers for Good” has a lot more scope and potential than " for Good", which I’ve come to agree with. If the Elixir server would be a good home for a discussion with devs of all stripes / languages, then I’m happy to see it hosted / re-homed there.
Some sort of steering group will likely be a helpful thing indeed…
@hubertlepicki I’m envisioning this thing as a not-for-profit org (and not necessarily a non-profit org - there’s a key difference there). I don’t see why it can’t be a working group hosted under some existing structure, maybe like the Erlang Ecosystem Foundation. If we can avoid creating a new silo / new organisational overheads, then we should seriously consider that.
@marcin, hi! I’m glad to hear of your project - thanks for announcing it. I’m aiming to create a channel in this discussion specifically for folks to introduce their projects, such as you’ve done here. Some people seem to have successfully joined the Discord without needing me to approve them - I’m not sure why that seems not to have worked for you. I’ll have a look…
By the way, I’ve just started to read a book which seems aligned with fireproofsocks’ earlier book recommendation, called “Getting it Done: how to lead when you’re not in charge”, which happens to be co-written by one of my personal heroes. This will likely be a very helpful handbook for organising a community-driven effort like this one, for anyone who is interested!
Thanks for setting up the discord server. Unfortunately all channels are „read-only“ for me. Is it a fault on my side or are these channels maybe lacking a configuration?
Thanks to @wolf4earth for sorting out some config issues! I’m grateful.
As a way of starting to make the Discord server a bit more hospitable, I’ve added a channel for folks to introduce themselves & their interests, and one for thumbnail sketches for projects, seeds for ideas, etc. Swing on by!
Both books are written by Jono Bacon, who some here will remember as community manager (or some similar title) at Ubuntu for many years - I remember reading an interview with him in Linux Format magazine on the topic many years ago. I will be adding both of these books to my burgeoning reading list, because I’m sure what Jono has to say can help us avoid some unnecessary mis-steps & pitfalls, and put us on The Happy Path…
And these books could make for good candidates for a book club, no?
HI Marcin,
I wonder if there’s any possible application for Proca in assisting Developers for Good itself? And is it open-source? Perhaps this warrants a discussion…
Yes, Proca is a drop-in element but also a building block of tools for organisations, informal groups and communities to engage their members in online action.
An action tool cycle is this:
present a relevant online action to people who care about something
facilitate the action
perhaps collect action data and/or member email/phone to get back to them
There is some abstractions and heavy lifting here that every action tool should implement - Proca is a toolbox that packages these mechanisms and complexities, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
For example: how to handle scale (wave of interest after viral social media video), privacy/GDPR, member action screening, sync to CRM, collect donations via Stripe/PayPal, sending thank you email in the right language when your audience is multilingual and many similar details.
Proca is Free Software - so an organisation can host their server, or Elixir for Good can, or if neither want to bear the maintenance cost, we do suck paid hosting (this being our business model).
Last but not least: Proca is not meant to fill every need. For example, if a group needs a survey on their website, then maybe it’s better to embed Typeform, as they have really beautiful and polished surveys
