Hello!
I stumbled on Aaron’s talks at LibrePlanet and FOSSY a while ago, and have been a bit obsessed with crowdmatching ever since. I really appreciate the time and care taken to analyse and discuss the problem in such a precise way. I think you’re really onto something here.
Your description of the problem matches my experience. I have donated to some FLO projects for a couple of years, and gradually increased my donations over time, hoping that would help the projects. But I got burned out doing that, when I realised that no amount I could individually afford would realistically make a difference. Crowdmatching seems like an elegant solution to avoid that.
If there’s any way I can help, I’d love to get involved! I’m based in the UK, my day job is as a software engineer, and I have some exposure to Haskell from university (although I am definitely a beginner in the language, I have a soft spot for it and willingness to learn). I also have a bit of experience running services for friends and family as a hobby. I don’t have too much time to spend - maybe one or two evenings a week - but if there’s a way to make it work, I’d love to.
Thanks to the very clear docs, I was able to clone the code, set up the environment within docker, run the service locally, modify some things on the webpage and see it reflect. I was also able to intentionally break some tests both in crowdmatch and website, so I have enough knowledge to be dangerous 
I had a look at both the good-first-issue tag and top two milestones. As a suggestion, what do you think about me taking the makefile good first issue, and then discussing where to go from there? Especially while learning the ropes, I don’t really have any preference for what to work on as long as it’s vaguely technical. So I’m completely happy to be directed towards another issue too!
Finally, presuming it’s still running, is it ok if I drop in on one of the weekly mumble team meetings? And is the Matrix room the best place for me to join, over IRC?
2 Appreciations
Hi @stingrayj!
The current status of things is: I have moved to part time (24 hours per week) at my day job, and am working approximately 2 days a week on Snowdrift. But I’ve been a little behind on email and just noticed this today. Sorry about the delay!
Everyone else is pretty busy with other commitments. So, I appreciate engagement, since I prefer working on a team to working alone 
Weekly team meetings are still running, but sometimes we skip if we don’t have an agenda; this mostly depends on whether I want opinions or help with whatever I’m currently working on. I just updated the post to reflect this.
We aren’t really using IRC any more, but Matrix is still active. Codeberg is also a good place to get my attention (IMO we could stand to use issues more and Matrix less). There was also another new potential volunteer who showed up in Matrix last week, who it might be good to coordinate with. (And you can look at what I said to them in Matrix as an introduction).
The technical area I would most appreciate help with (because I am least looking forward to working on it) is “infrastructure” stuff. Concrete example here, and those types of issue are often tagged on Codeberg with type:chore. I am not sure how many of them are a good fit for an evening or two per week commitment though, unless you already have expertise in that area. The Makefile issue is definitely a good place to start, though!
Also, @chreekat (the team’s experienced Haskeller) has been busier in the last month or so; I’d appreciate code reviews. No Haskell expertise required— I am trying to make the code base more approachable to beginner Haskellers, so “this part is confusing to me” is valuable feedback.
Hi @stingrayj
Nice to get your introduction post here. A side note is that we just figured out that something is wrong with Discourse in that it never sent me any email for forum activity I missed though my settings are supposed to have that working. I don’t know what changed. We might have more forum activity in general if people were getting emails about activity…
So, apologies about the long delay replying anyway.
May your involvement here be fruitful. Of course, we most wish for real progress and more full launch success, but I also can wish for any outcome to be one of learning and growth and feel worthwhile no matter what rather than be something that risks burnout. When a project has been going (or stagnating without dying) as long as this one, we certainly are not here to stress out and burn out. I can confidently say that having some fresh energy from new volunteers is something that helps the rest of us keep shoveling…
Welcome!