Bug Trackers and Professional Networking

While looking through my contact list today, I realized that many of those contacts were initially made on the WordPress bug tracker. Regular contributors to WordPress hang out there to perform the daily chores of testing, fixing, and designing. It’s a good place to get a feel for someone’s skills and style. Unlike other forums open source projects use to communicate, the noise is low and the work really stands out. The folks who consistently contribute to the bug tracker keep popping up in my feed reader and reminding me of the great work they do. When we have dollars to spend on people, these folks are on my mind. The tracker is probably my most valuable resource when it comes to professional networking with the people who do the work that matters to me.

Contributing to open source as a means of showing off your skills and making a name for yourself is nothing new, of course. My realization here is the central role the bug tracker plays in how I make and develop professional relationships within the WP community. Mailing lists, forums, and IRC channels are useful venues, but the bug tracker is where the folks who do the grunt work and get things done go.

What’s the professional water cooler for your project? Anyone else gather around the bug tracker?

9 thoughts on “Bug Trackers and Professional Networking

  1. How can you use WordPress Trac for networking? I don’t see any way to directly contact another Trac user. There’s no contact information, nor a “send email” facility (at least not that I can find).

  2. hey there yes the bug tracker is pretty good for open source projects but I would say their for me is a major difference at least to me those with trac and those without… trac makes life easy and having to use bugzilla at work I now really like trac…

    regrads

    John Jones
    http://www.johnjones.me.uk

  3. Ryan,

    You gave one of the most candid explanations of the mindset of an open sourcer:

    “The folks who consistently contribute to the bug tracker keep popping up in my feed reader and reminding me of the great work they do. When we have dollars to spend on people, these folks are on my mind.” (Ryan B)

    Awesome! Although that shouldn’t be the only motivation for open source work (passion is my favorite), it’s a good thing to relate on the topic of networking.

  4. Ryan,

    I agree with you, hands down the WordPress Bug Tracker and Community is one the most helpful on the web. The extensive knowledge the users know is great, especially when I was working with the wordpress MU! Thanks to all and Cheers!

  5. Coincidentally I sent this to a friend today: “A typical gnarly Moz/Firefox Bugzilla exchange …“. We had been chatting about heavy-lifting VS rainbow-coloured smoke … snake-oil … “marketing” VS “sales” … light/heat and signal/noise (which, BTW, in the industry is called SNR).

    BTW: Andy Skelton’s “WP Hackers” from early October.
    “There has been much discussion of the “low signal-to-noise ratio” on the wp-hackers list of late. Not that we need to move that discussion off wp-hackers, but …”

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