The Djangonauts were very productive this session 💪, landing 37 PRs safely across the four projects 🙌. If you’re curious about some of the work they did you can check it out here: Django, Django Packages, Django Taggit and Unicorn.
But numbers are only part of the mission. Our goal is to bring new contributors on 🤗 and we do this by making people feel more comfortable contributing to open source software and by engaging with the Django community. At the end of the session 89% of the Djangonauts responded they were more comfortable and 11% responded they felt the same as they did at the start. There were no responses that a person felt less comfortable at the end of the session.
We also asked our Navigators and Captains some questions about their experience. 80% of responses were that they were more comfortable in a mentor/leader position within the Django community while 20% said they felt the same. Considering that all six of the Captains were Djangonauts from session 1, that’s incredibly encouraging about the future of Django! 🥳
And since we’re calling out positives about the future of Django, Djangonaut Space was able to help 17 people (8% of the total) contribute to the Django 5.1 release! 🧑🚀
However, Djangonaut Space doesn’t operate in, well space 🌌. It takes a community to be successful ♥️. So thank you to all the applicants who believe in the program and applied, thank you to all Navigators and Captains for volunteering your time this session, thank you to all the community members who responded to issues and performed code reviews, and thank you to the Djangonauts who carved out time from their schedules for the program!
Djangonaut Space is the product of the community and any success is due to the community as a whole being welcoming, respectful and encouraging. 🥰
For anyone thinking about applying to Session 3, here is some advice 🔊 from the crew:
- It's a great experience. You get to be part of a community of really smart people that care about the project, but maybe more about each other and their development. It's great just to see all the communication with so much humour and kindness.
- I encourage anyone who wants to experience being part of a software community with good vibes. It's been great. Thank you so much.
- Don't count yourself out. If you want to contribute to Django, this is the best place to start.
- Try first and if you can not figure it out in reasonable time, try asking questions or do something different and come back to the problem.
- You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being part of the Djangonauts program. You have wonderful people volunteering their time to help you become a little bit better developer, and you gain a community of awesome people along the way!
- If you want to start making open source contributions and you love Django, this is a great start! It will help you lose your fear or give you the push you need. You will be supported by very nice people who are always looking to help you. But don't put pressure on yourself, you are working at your own pace and any time you can dedicate is great!
We also have some advice from Tushar, a past Djangonaut, Captain and now Session Organizer:
- I have always felt a personal connection with Djangonaut space from the start. I was the Captain Coordinator for this session. I think the whole structure of Djangonaut space, with Navigators and Captains, contributes to its success. But the part I love the most is, that the community is not just people discussing Django issues - but also folks sharing about their lives, and achievements and having fun random conversations!