Giving back to Joomla

Troy Hall (aka Bear) has been actively involved in many areas of the Joomla Community including the Bug Squad since the early days. He is often found helping users in the Joomla Facebook group. He knows Joomla well and from the very early days. He has forgotten more about how Joomla ticks than many of us will ever know.

One of Joomla's greatest weaknesses is the lack of volunteers.

Many of us make a living in one way or another from Joomla but never give an ounce of energy back to the project. We see a problem or lack of ... yet never do anything to correct it other than complaint or privately rant.

This makes it almost impossible for an all-volunteer volunteer project to achieve all it can be.

There are so many areas & ways we can contribute back.

Here's just a few:

• Sponsor Joomla financially. https://www.joomla.org/sponsor.html
• Do bug testing. https://docs.joomla.org/Testing_Joomla!_patches
• Create bug fixes, new/better features. https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/
• Work on documentation. https://docs.joomla.org/JDOC:Documentation_Translators
• Create tutorial videos (Like myself, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX4I0Qiq24W_h-uIXYQo-dQ/videos)
• Create magazine articles. https://magazine.joomla.org/faq
• Participate in Joomla forum (https://forum.joomla.org/) or Joomla Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/joomlanospam/)
• Create artwork for/about Joomla
• Join a Joomla team. https://volunteers.joomla.org/help-wanted
• Pray for guidance for the Joomla teams.
• Write a song about Joomla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9u-_xjY1xE

These are just a few ways. There are opportunities for just about every profession to give back. Perhaps you are disabled and use a screen reader, your resources would be highly valuable in Joomla testing! This doesn't have to take up a large chunk of your time. Even an hour a month would benefit all.

But Bear, I don't know programming! You don't need to! To do bug testing you need to be able to read & comprehend English, install Joomla, and report your findings. That's it!

I, for one, don't make a penny off Joomla. But I have friends that do and like volunteering. As a disabled person, I have a LOT of time on my hands so I keep busy doing something I find fun, MOST of the time 😛. I'm not an excellent programmer but I can dabble. Being blessed with logic abilities, I find bug testing extremely easy and helps keep my brain sharp. I often don't know the fix but I know why its broken and explain it to those who do understand these things. I visit Joomla's Facebook page and try to help those who I think I can help with their issues.

Bear, don't you understand there are toxic people volunteering? Yes, there are! We try to weed them out whenever we find out about them but like any gathering of people there will always be a difference of opinions. The beauty of a large project is we don't have to interface in ways & areas we find uncomfortable. Be kind!

UGH! Bear why did you bring up prayer, thought this wasn't a religious organization! It's not. I, as a Christian, find prayer helpful even when it doesn't bring about the result I wish it would. If you don't believe in prayer or religion then don't pray 😃. That's ok too!

2021 is rapidly approaching and with it, we can put the ugly year of 2020 behind us. We can commit to giving back to that thing we love and give life to that which we call Joomla. Many hands make for light work. Let’s all lend our hands.