[documentation] Hitchhikers guide to Drupal

[Dries Buytaert]

> awfull from a marketing perspective?
>
> Who ar ewe marketing for? I think we indeed agree that pure  
> hitchhikers (=
> people who give nothing back) are indeed welcome, but purely  
> because it does
> not matter if they use drupal.

Last year, the number of users has grows exponentially, but the  
number of active contributors has not.  That is troublesome because  
there is more work to do per active contributors then there was a  
year ago.  As a result, many of the contributors are maxed out, work  
has been piling up, and people are getting frustrated.

We do have a marketing goal.  It is not selling Drupal.  It is  
growing the community of active contributors.  The former grows the  
latter, the latter grows to former, but the latter is more important  
than the former.  Still with me?

Each of us has a responsibility to help new users and to make them  
stick.  Quite some contributors have been around for 3-4 years; some  
of them I personally assisted making their first steps in Drupal- 
land.  I showed them code, offered them concrete insights as how to  
fix a problem, and encouraged them to provide a patch.  Want me to  
dig up some of the questions you asked when making your first steps?   
Make no mistake, you've been a newbie too, and not always a pretty  
one at that.  ('You' not being anyone in particular.)  I spent days  
looking and thinking about your code and problems.  I helped dozens  
and dozens of people learning how to use CVS.  Call me arrogant but  
I'd like to believe that some of the long-term contributors would not  
have 'sticked' if it wasn't for the fact I literally sucked them in.   
I cared about having you on board.

Don't expect new users to be omniscient.  Don't expect new users to  
get it from the minute or day they join our community.  Don't get  
frustrated because you have to repeat things.  How many times did I  
had to repeat some of the coding conventions to you?  How many times  
did I told you Not To Cap Individual Words?  Be a friendly mentor,  
rather than a frustrated support monkey.  One thing you should know  
about new users is that they are often very passionate and motivated  
to learn and help.  Go out, care about them, suck 'em in, make them  
stick.

Frankly, if you are unwilling to spend some time helping new users,  
I've probably wasted my time helping you.

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/