jc
Hi everyone! I’m heading to Taipei in a few weeks, and I want to spend my time there (Dec. 29 - mid March) learning more about and getting involved in the g0v community in person. Does anyone have suggestions about where to start, whether that’s regarding meet-ups or events I should keep an eye out for, or people who might be willing to grab a drink and chat?
patcon
Hi! Just so I can think on this better, do you have specific skills that you are most eager to contribute?
IMHO, from personal experience in my own local community as well as g0v, figuring out that part is always a negotiation between project members (who usually want to find a way to include everyone) and yourself (who usually want to contribute in a way that feels gratifying). So reflecting on your side of things can later help project members best think on possible contribution, when you do reach out :)
IMHO, from personal experience in my own local community as well as g0v, figuring out that part is always a negotiation between project members (who usually want to find a way to include everyone) and yourself (who usually want to contribute in a way that feels gratifying). So reflecting on your side of things can later help project members best think on possible contribution, when you do reach out :)
patcon
Maybe pretend you are getting to the hackathon, and rank your top 3 (?) stickers? https://github.com/g0v/summit-assets/blob/master/assets/stickers/skill-sticker.png
Project members have perhaps done some prior thinking, at least through encountering ppl with these labels, and so it might help ppl best navigate an outside offer like this (outside the hackathon context)
Sorry, I don't mean to be prescriptive! This is only one way, and if it doesn't jibe with you, there's an infinity of other ways to meet people and match up :)
Project members have perhaps done some prior thinking, at least through encountering ppl with these labels, and so it might help ppl best navigate an outside offer like this (outside the hackathon context)
Sorry, I don't mean to be prescriptive! This is only one way, and if it doesn't jibe with you, there's an infinity of other ways to meet people and match up :)
patcon
Tl;Dr -
- cofacts is super interesting, and I didn't have time to fully engage with them. They have a rad multi-tiered community model (my own interpretation and term). I would highly recco them!
- cofacts is super interesting, and I didn't have time to fully engage with them. They have a rad multi-tiered community model (my own interpretation and term). I would highly recco them!
patcon
Also, join #coworking, which is a new thing inspired by a practice in Toronto. Its just a general place to announce or invite others to cowork independently, outside any project/hackathon structure. It doesn't really have muscle memory yet for how it should work, but ppl have expressed excitement about having a reason to meet up more often. You might need to contribute to animating it, and not just wait for others to pipe up :)
patcon
vTaiwan is suuuuuper friendly and welcoming, but a little bit of a microcosm that I personally feel you'd do well to get outside of. Its where all the newcomer intnl ppl gravitate (me included, as i spent much of my time there)
jc
@patcon oh man, sorry for the late reply! I’m taking a look at the stickers now, and while there’s a few pieces of terminology I’m not familiar with (“Dig” and “fill”, for example) I want to say, off the top of my head - Python, CSS, and Design
jc
A more general description of specific skills I can contribute is that I’m coming from a technical background and have worked in Software Engineering (experienced with: Java, Python, Javascript - particularly React/React Native, and pick up new languages quickly.) I’m also excited about design - which I’ve done work in and is what I will be mainly doing at my internship in Taiwan. I would love to learn more about Gov and Law, but I don’t have specific experience in those fields
jc
I think I’m at the point where I’m just eager to help in anything and learn what I would need to learn so I can contribute. But I’m particularly excited about the intersections of unexpected fields (like what you said before about the project with eldercare!) so if there’s any projects that you think I should check out that would pertain, I would be super thankful to learn more 😄
jc
(Also, thank you so much!!)
patcon
Oh! This is an intersection maybe: https://youtu.be/NST3u-GjjFw
(Mainly uses your JS skill, but also design thinking imho, though not visual)
(Mainly uses your JS skill, but also design thinking imho, though not visual)
patcon
(Hubot is a chatbot written in JavaScript)
patcon
The intersection is operations (admin tasks) and automation and *community organizing*! The video explains it really well, but its about taking tasks that would normally become exclusive knowledge and bringing them into the chat tool, so that the act of doing the thing teaches others how to do it next time. In effect, ChatOps (as its called) becomes a process of listening for tasks the fall on single points, or that ppl don't engage with because they're limited access, and writing simple scripts to pull them into chat
patcon
There was interest in using something like this to let the community manage a calendar together. I shared a small thing I'd worked on, but it needs more features to work for g0v. https://github.com/CivicTechTO/hubot-toby/blob/master/scripts/calendar-add.coffee
patcon
g0v community uses kktix, so this would have to work with that (currently only works with eventbrite). But sorry, maybe its better to watch the video, and sew if it seems interesting to apply that domain to g0v :) if it does, I'm happy to share whatbi know and connect you with ppl who were in that convo!
patcon
Ugh. Oh man, my old documentation sucks. I really was bad at it back then... Realised that the "gcal add" not script that I linked did not mention this other little app, which is what parsers the event data from a provided event link: https://github.com/CivicTechTO/event-metadata-parser
jc
Ooh, thank you for all the good content! I’ll watch through the video and read through your documentation tomorrow morning (getting a bit late here in the States) but just from what you’ve talked about, it sounds like a very cool and useful project.
jc
If you’re comfortable with sharing, when you first got to Taiwan, how did you first start getting to know people? Are there any important physical offices/locations where people meet? (And out of curiosity, since I did some work with them in the past, do people work with/at the Mozilla TW office? Saw it mentioned in conjunction with jothon at some point)
patcon
No worries!
patcon
Hm, I had been active in slack for a year, so I think I was a known quanity. Plus I'd presented at conferences with ppl. Your best bet is to just ask in #general, and mention that you're looking to join projects that meet regularly, and are looking for suggestions
- #vtaiwan meets weekly
- #jothon organizing group meet weekly (though not sure if its an open invite, maybe just ask)
- #cofacts meets weekly
- #coworking seems willing to meet regularly
- prob more, but you'll need to ask :) honestly the calendar project would put you right at the centre of figuring this out, so it might be perfect. You would be creating the space for future yous to know :)
- #vtaiwan meets weekly
- #jothon organizing group meet weekly (though not sure if its an open invite, maybe just ask)
- #cofacts meets weekly
- #coworking seems willing to meet regularly
- prob more, but you'll need to ask :) honestly the calendar project would put you right at the centre of figuring this out, so it might be perfect. You would be creating the space for future yous to know :)
jc
This is super helpful, thank you so much!! I’m excited to start 😄 and yeah, that sounds about right to me too. I’ll get back to you in (timezones suck but) less than a day and let you know any thoughts/questions I have!
patcon
Not rush! Glad if its helpful 🎉
jc
Hey @patcon, I took a look at the stuff you sent on ChatOps - would love to work on it and talk with some of the people who contributed. Any suggestions on where to start?
patcon
Yeah! Ok, I'll pull you into #infras and intro ppl, which is where ppl talk/work on community infrastructure
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