@hyc if you only want people that are already using software and have time to contribute to it, that's totally ok. I got no problem with that, it works for a lot of projects and has for a long time.

all I'm pushing back on is idea that no one showing up means that no one exists. it _might_ mean that, but it might also be a discovery problem (do they know you exist), or might be that your terms (prior interest or use case) don't align with what that person wants to achieve, or wants in exchange.

@hyc "I don't see any bears around here" doesn't mean "bears do not exist".

I personally know community managers and technical writers who care deeply about their particular open source projects, so at least, I know that some exist somewhere. I also know they would like to do more, or have had to do less, because they need to spend their time on things that bring in money.

I also know that we traditionally don't place much value on these roles, so it wouldn't surprise me to find tech writers out there who would like to contribute more, but then balk at the amount of their own time and energy they're going to have to sink into it, and go do something else.

Also, "tech writers who want to contribute to open source" is a narrow field to select from. If there's money on the table, we've now widened it to "tech writers who want to be paid". I can definitely find more of those.

It sounds like you might actually be in a good position! You say _almost_ never, so you do sometimes get doc contributions? Are they good? Have you asked those people why they don't contribute more? Have you offered to pay them to do more? On the other side, what kind of user requests do you get about your documentation? Is there stuff out-of-date, missing, confusing, etc? Enough to pull together a list of things you'd like to pay someone to do? Because if you've got money and a job description, you're already most of the way to finding someone to do it!

Including community managers and technical writers is a MASSIVE step in the right direction.

It may be hard as a programmer to get stable funding for open source work, but its even harder for not-programmer roles, and those are every bit as important for long term sustainability of our work.

Pass this on to the community managers and technical writers in your life

re https://mastodon.social/@sovtechfund/116165875657309832