A slideshow of a presentation I gave at DrupalCamp Colorado regarding jumping into the community using IRC, the forums and issue queues.

1. Plugging in to the
Drupal Community
E s s e n t i a l To o l s
Presented by Chris Shattuck (chrisshattuck)
Sunday, June 28, 2009

2. Drupal Learning curve
Sunday, June 28, 2009

3. Drupal
Social solution to a
technical problem
No schisms
The Drupal
community
Sunday, June 28, 2009

4. JOE: “Hey Cindy, how do I set an automatic
URL for a node?”
CINDY: “Use the pathauto module. Hey,
how do I change my home page?”
JOE: “Hit up the Site Information page”
Sunday, June 28, 2009

5. 60d x 5q x 8m = 40h
Sunday, June 28, 2009

6. 1. IRC
Live chat
2. The Forums
Questions and answers
3. The Issue Queues
Problems and solutions
Sunday, June 28, 2009

7. IRC is a big deal in Drupal
Members at one time Channels
500 40
375 30
250 20
125 10
0 0
#joomla #wordpress #drupal #joomla #wordpress #drupal
Sunday, June 28, 2009

8. Client Server
Channels
My nick is #drupal-support
chrisshattuck
#drupal-themes
Sunday, June 28, 2009

9. What’s happening on IRC?
1. Support exchange
2. Collaboration on ideas, code, or events
3. Local Drupal User Groups
4. General banter and time wasting
Sunday, June 28, 2009

10. Sunday, June 28, 2009

11. QWantTUM
• So, you have a Question...
• What do you Want?
• What have you Tried?
• What do you Use?
• What reference Material might help?
Sunday, June 28, 2009

12. Super Quickstart
http://drupalchat.net/
1. Select a nick (your Drupal
username)
2. Click connect
3. Chat it up
Sunday, June 28, 2009

13. Firefox Chatzilla Plugin
http://is.gd/15tJF
1. Download and install
2. Restart firefox
3. Go to Tools > Chatzilla
4. Select a nick if prompted
5. Click the freenode link in
the chat window
6. Go to IRC > Join Channel
7. Type ‘drupal’ in search
Sunday, June 28, 2009

14. Members
Topic
Discussion
Channels
Nick Message box
Sunday, June 28, 2009

15. IRC Clients
Colloquy xChat
colloquy.info www.xchat.org
Wikipedia comparison
is.gd/15vNY
Sunday, June 28, 2009

16. IR C is Fun!
licon, the bot
Mee t Drup ink s and mor
e!
e teas ers from l
n stuff, mak
It can lear
F actoids ick roll? pon
y?
m plicity? r ?
x- topic? si l? crickets
x -team? u drupal hel
on e? art? u ack core?
42? any stebin? h
pa
and m ore
es, fac toid list
Archiv .com/bot/
disobey
Pastebin
zy
er people cra
Drive few
Sunday, June 28, 2009

17. Ad
egister y our nick
va
R pass email r
/msg nick serv registe
nc
Pi ng / pong
ed
ng
/C indy: joe: po
Joe : cindy: ping
IR
Private message
C
me
/msg userna
Tell
ge
rna me messa
Druplic on: tell use
Seen
ame
seen usern
Sunday, June 28, 2009

18. The Forums
http://drupal.org/forum
Sunday, June 28, 2009

19. Why forums instead of IRC?
1. A great place to flesh out complex issues
2. A good place to learn by helping
3. Forums get indexed, so a question is
answered forever(ish)
Sunday, June 28, 2009

20. Question
Answer
Sunday, June 28, 2009

21. Forum Tips
• QWantTUM
• Avoid a roast, don’t cross-post
• Track discussion via drupal.org/user/[id]/track
Sunday, June 28, 2009

22. The Issue Queues
http://drupal.org/project/issues
Sunday, June 28, 2009

23. Problem
Solution
Sunday, June 28, 2009

24. The Finder
•Verifies the problem
•Searches for possible duplicates
•Creates and classifies the issue
Sunday, June 28, 2009

25. The Fixer
Provides a:
Patch
Mockup, or
Copy
Sunday, June 28, 2009

26. The Polisher
Provides feedback based on
understanding of Drupal standards
Sunday, June 28, 2009

27. The Greaser
• Keeps discussion on track
• Provides gentle, positive feedback
• Helps clarify misunderstandings
Sunday, June 28, 2009

28. Creator / Destroyer
Makes the final call
Sunday, June 28, 2009

29. Do it!
• Save time, reduce stress, impress your boss.
• Develop relationships in the community
(think jobs, support, employees, friends)
• Contribute. It feels good, and if everyone
does it, magical things can happen.
Sunday, June 28, 2009

30. This is me:
Chris Shattuck
chrisshattuck.com
twitter.com/chris_shattuck
These are the links used in this presentation:
api.drupal.org - Drupal API documentation
drupal.org/handbooks - Drupal handbooks
drupalchat.net/- Quickly connect to IRC
is.gd/15tJF - Chatzilla Firefox plugin
is.gd/15vNY - Wikipedia IRC client comparison
drupal.org/forum - Drupal forums
drupal.org/user/[id]/track - Your subscribed posts
drupal.org/project/issues - Drupal issue queues
Sunday, June 28, 2009