I'm new to this community

[Lonk]

When I join a community I like, I want to make sure I don't overstep bounds or do anything socially unacceptable since every online community is different.

I know this may be a weird post, but I am basically asking all the veterans if I'm being respectful and helping the community by being a part of it and acting the way I do. Or if there are things I could work on?

I know it's a weird question. But I can overdo it sometimes and I want to be as respectful and helpful as possible to people - so I always ask other's opinions to make sure I'm accomplishing what I want to accomplish (in this case, helping foster and further a better community vibe here on the forums and Cloudron in general).

[d19dotca]

@Lonk haha, I think you're just fine, you've been a great addition to the community!

[girish]

@Lonk I think you are a great addition as well I think your WP knowledge would be useful here. Some of the ideas like the VPN one is really creative and nice!

I know you are looking a lot into the box/dashboard code, but I wanted to set up some expectations up front. We don't run the Cloudron code base like a community project. Neither @nebulon nor I really have time to help you (or anyone really) really dig deeper/clarify things about the code. We don't have time to investigate and test PRs either. For example, someone already submitted a change for Azure Blob Storage 2-3 months ago but realistically this will take us a full 2-3 days to actually even test it (get azure account, test various combinations etc). You have to keep in mind we have thousands of customers and we handle support everyday. And not to mention, any change needs docs, tests, e2e tests and so on. And maintaining and supporting this feature forever. It's really important that @nebulon and I understand any code changes we do in depth (so I need to really understand blob storage and it's limitations to add that feature). Finally, we also have already have a good idea of what to do for next couple of releases (so it's already 2-3 months planned). We try to be as public as possible about our development but not everything can be. For example, things like multi-site, VPN etc would be great but it might be 2021 when we actually get to it (again, don't want you to get disappointed, because I know contributors in the past have).

This is not meant to discourage you from hacking away In fact, please do so, it's the reason the code is available. For learning, inspection and feeling secure about how Cloudron does things and as time permits we will help.

Finally, we encourage app contributions more because they are more self contained, non-controversial and easy to get published. Also, the packaging code is always 100% open source and useful even outside Cloudron, so everyone is happy.

[marcusquinn]

@Lonk You're good - I think it's all standard forum etiquette stuff; avoiding multi-threading, avoiding dupe posts, respectful tagging, nice markdown text formatting.

As I say, to help everyone keep up with their areas of interest and focus, I think that's just forum design evolution stuff, which sometimes only becomes apparent over time:

https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3476/can-i-just-say-how-wonderful-it-is-getting-to-be-part-of-this-community/25

Ultimately, everyone has the ability to Unwatch any Post or Category, so segregating in a way people can do that is the best way to let everyone choose their own signal:noise ratio.

[Lonk]

@girish Okay, yeah, that makes sense and I hear you on that. I got over-zealous with box changes when I started making them myself. But things like Dot the Repair Bot (the one that monitors all Cloudron apps and repairs them the once if they switch to an UNHEALTHY status), the entire code can just run inside it's own lil app and maybe even be an app on the store one day as an option for users who like the idea (though it just does feel more right being a "global" option). Hmmm, but if Dot was on the store, he'd be like an app a Cloudron add-on, never thought of asking if the community would want something like that. But his name is non-negotiable. He's Dot, the repair Bot!

As for me, you could tell me 2022 and I wouldn't be disappointed. I'd just be ready to code when you were. Now that I can make box hot fixes, I should be able to make any outer level changes I need if and only if an app I'm making needs them (which I hope the VPN Client will be the only one that needs them ). I'm incredibly grateful you accepted to us adding the needed hot fixes to box for the VPN Client to run stably in the actual app store. I'm super excited for that, but I don't mind if that's years away - just that you agreed to do it one day is fine by me.

And yes, I've thought about the irony of Dot the Repair Bot, all of the sudden, Not Responding and needing a repair to get back working for some unknown reason!

[Lonk]

@marcusquinn Thanks for responding! You've always guided me through this community and cheered me on in the beginning, I remember you and @girish and @mehdi really came through for me in the beginning and pushed me to finish the VPN Project that I really am glad I did dive into box code to finish. Not necessarily because I want to change it, just because I want to understand the "OS" (Cloudron) that all of my new apps are functioning in (not just convert current ones), like the concept of a VPN Client connecting via on a web app by web app basis I honestly don't think has ever been done. And I think people will be surprised at what that could mean for enterprises in the future (not that they'll use it, but if Cloudron becomes popular enough they might). We'll see. ️

Imagine my surprise though when I found out that the people who initially supported me in my VPN endeavor (@girish and @nebulon) were the actual developers. I am just very humbled and happy they responded and helped directly. If @nebulon never told me that the entire site used API endpoints and that most of them were private + @girish leading me literally to the first line of code that needed a "hot fix" to make the VPN Client work. I never could have done the RE needed to make such an interesting app work. I'm super happy the community that's been fostered here, but I'm always careful about how a new online community works (especially when the upvote button is too small to hit on mobile so most just view a post without voting making it very hard to know how the community feels about all the thingsss). Which is why I wrote this post, to make sure I was staying within my bounds and contributing in meaningful and not detrimental to a project I believe is going to be the future.

[marcusquinn]

@Lonk Haha, I'll add to that shorter sentences, more paragraphs and bullet or numbered lists

[marcusquinn]

I generally have this same "I'm new to this" issue after a few beers and trying to communicate in the real world

[Lonk]

@marcusquinn said in I'm new to this community:

@Lonk Haha, I'll add to that shorter sentences, more paragraphs and bullet or numbered lists

Noted. Definitely something I need to work on. My brain can run on a bit. But it's good to have an affirmation to learn that's a more organized approach to online communication. It's not like I can't take as much time as I need to write a message, ya know.

[marcusquinn]

@Lonk If you code faster and cleaner, it's all good