People on forums are sometimes the worst. Sarcastic, dismissive, rude. Or are they? Free yourself from the dark cloud of assuming they’re all out to get you. Some women are afraid of StackOverflow because they don’t want the emotional price tag. Others avoid open source projects because after 8 hours in the office who needs thankless labor? Come learn from my forum experiences: the good, the bad, and most important– the changeable. Let me outline my framework for after-work work. Yay! Use my actionable tips to find ways to make open source projects and developer forums work for you. I’ve only been very active in the tech scene going on 8-10 months. I’ve been very lucky to attend events like Write/Speak/Code that kicked me into really doing open source projects. It started as quite a mixed bag. In forums I’ve encountered mean people. I don’t really have a good constitution for that. I shrivel. But recently it’s really turned a corner and not because the internet is getting nicer. I’m getting faster. I’ve had tremendous success DM’ing gently offensive posters. I’ve started advocating for clear codes of conduct. I’ve started setting time limits for open source work. It all adds up to a more livable after-work coding life. It’s really quite pleasant. I know my experiences can be useful and enc