Welcome new contributors ✨

[chris48s]

A lot of nice people have given their time to build shields over the years. According to GitHub 460 people have contributed to the project (OK a few of them are bots) but the vast majority of those have made one commit.

Over the last few months we've seen a number of new contributors to the project who have each made 5 or more commits to the project. Congratulations

• @DenverCoder1
• @PaulaBarszcz
• @pr7prashant
• @sunny0826

you're all already in the top 10% of most prolific contributors to the project.

I wanted to make a quick discussion thread firstly to say thanks, but also to find out a bit more about:

• what you're all hoping to get out of contributing to the project
• what sort of thing you'd ideally like to work on or learn by contributing
• how we (as maintainers/core team) can help to level you up as contributors (if that is what you're hoping to achieve)

We are all volunteers working in our spare time so it is not a guarantee that we will necessarily be able to help with all of those things but if we know a bit more we can try to identify areas where we can all help each other if and when they arise.

[PaulaBarszcz]

​Thanks @chris48s, that’s very nice to hear.
Both you and @calebcartwright have been very helpful, professional, friendly and responsive - from my perspective, it is a pleasure to contribute to Shields.

I am currently on maternity leave, and I want to do something valuable also for my professional development during this period (when I manage to find some free time from an infant 🤣). I only just started my adventure with open-source projects. I was lucky to come across Shields - when I saw how polite and smart your discussions are (and how great the introductory docs are!), I immediately knew I’d like to contribute my time and skills here.

•	what you're all hoping to get out of contributing to the project

​Fluency in open-source projects, working more with the backend and getting more acquainted with git.
For example, I didn't work with repo forks before -​ it creates a new level of complexity.
Just from the top of my head, my recent issues:

• Upstream origin? Of what?
• Did I create this branch in my fork or the main repo?
• Did this pipeline fail in my fork or the main repo, and how worried should I be?
• Is it a good idea to clone only some subdirectories of the repo?

And already, thanks to working on Shields, I learned how to work with Linux on Windows by using WSL.

•	what sort of thing you'd ideally like to work on or learn by contributing

​Working in pure JS on services is fine​ - but if the designs for the new frontend are completed, I would be happy to join the work on a frontend side too. I worked mainly in Angular, but I'd be happy to refresh/upgrade my React skills ;)

•	how we (as maintainers/core team) can help to level you up as contributors (if that is what you're hoping to achieve)

​You're already doing that, and I am grateful. I think that you are setting a brilliant example as to how an open source project can be welcoming and supportive to new contributors - thank you ❤️
​

[pr7prashant]

Thanks, @chris48s, this made my day :)

This is a fantastic project and I am grateful to contribute to it. The core team and community are very helpful and friendly. Special thanks to @chris48s and @calebcartwright. You guys have helped me from day 1 and are always available on Discord.

• What you're all hoping to get out of contributing to the project
  I'm new to open source. The initial idea was to give something back to the community and learn a few things simultaneously.

• What sort of thing you'd ideally like to work on or learn by contributing
  I am primarily a Frontend dev with some experience in Backend/DevOps but I'm happy to learn and contribute to anything.

• How we (as maintainers/core team) can help to level you up as contributors (if that is what you're hoping to achieve)
  Totally agree with @PaulaBarszcz here. You guys are already doing a great job. Any kind of advice from you guys is always welcome.

[sunny0826]

Thanks @chris48s , I am happy to receive this discussions. 😄

I work for an open source company, doing Cloud Native and golang-related work, and open source is what I do. Nevertheless, I'm still very excited to be involved in the shields project! As mentioned above, I'm not good at JavaScript, but I benefited from @calebcartwright 's very detailed explanation of the content and specifications.

• It's cool to be involved in the shields project, and I'm only involved because I think it's fun
• If there is anything I can do to help, please feel free to @ me directly in the Issue or PR

Thanks again to @chris48s and @calebcartwright for their detailed guidance and review in the PR, which was very beneficial to me

[chris48s]

Hey @jNullj - I'd like to extend the questions in the top post to you as well.

Thanks for the work you've been doing recently.

[jNullj]

Thank you, For leading this project and for being so professional and warm toward new contributors.

I love everything technical and enjoy writing software. I use Linux as much as i can and OSS.
I once fixed a bug for my boyfriend in an OSS he used, I made the fix into a PR and after it merged I got the idea to return love to projects I use.
Sometimes if i want a feature in a project I just go ahead and add it. regardless of the technology used.

what you're all hoping to get out of contributing to the project

• Returning some love
• Learning & Improving
• Growing a portfolio, although I am not in this field.

what sort of thing you'd ideally like to work on or learn by contributing

• I would want to improve my skills with Node and the common tools/technologies used today.
• I want to learn what makes projects tick.
• Anything and everything, I prefer developing and bug hunting but i could also help with non technical stuff, like docs, project management and translation.
• Not related to this project but I want to improve my hardware skills as well, let me know if you know some neat hardware and verilog/systemVerilog.

how we (as maintainers/core team) can help to level you up as contributors (if that is what you're hoping to achieve)

• I think you are doing a great job.

[krishna9786]

thank you