JMW advice on OSS & credibility

( advice from @johnmyleswhite; ministorm starts with https://twitter.com/johnmyleswhite/status/766657182582513666 )


I keep planning on writing a post about contributing to OSS effectively, but I'm starting to doubt I ever will. So here's some tweets.
(1) Credibility is everything. People are busy, so they heavily use personal trust to inform their decisions. You must become credible.
(2) Credibility starts with technical competence, rather than shared aesthetics. Do *not* start contributing by engaging in design debates.
(3) Instead, work on simple projects where success or failure will be clear. Write unit tests. Write docs. Improve a function's performance.
(4) That kind of work will allow you to demonstrate skill, which will make you credible. After, people will want to hear your design goals.
(5) Don't engage in debates that are long-standing without being familiar with the entire past history of the debate.
(6) Especially don't focus on the shallow part of a debate where you can participate without knowing anything (e.g. syntax wars).
(7) Last, but not least, remember that, in the long run, interpersonal relationships are more important than technical correctness.
(8) If you keep telling people that they're wrong, they'll eventually decide they don't want to work with you.
In short, get people to trust you and do work that makes them excited to see that you're involved in the project. The rest is secondary.