Matplotlib New Contributors Meeting July 2022

###### tags: `new contributors meetings` # Matplotlib New Contributors Meeting July 2022 Welcome to the monthly call for new contributors to the Matplotlib project 🎉 * Next meeting: July 5th, 2022 (Tuesday) @ 5PM UTC * Join via [Zoom](https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81285851006?pwd=Tks2QjRkNWh5NGw0TmU1RUwwOVluZz09) * if you need a passcode for zoom MPL should work * Our next meeting will be on: * August 2nd, 2022 (Tuesday) @ 5PM UTC ### Code of Conduct We want to take a moment to remind you that this meeting, like all project spaces is meant to be open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and it's important for us to have a healthy community. Like all matplotlib spaces, and everyone participating in them, this meeting will follow our [code of conduct](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). If you haven't read it yet, please take some time to do so later on as it already applies to you. For now, in short, please be kind and generous towards one another. ## Agenda **Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Melissa (@melissawm), Johnny Gill (@swfiua), Andrew Fennell (@andrew-fennell), +2 *Feel free to add items for discussion to this agenda!* * Introductions: * [name=Noa Tamir] Contributor Experience Lead, she/היא/sie * I joined Matplotlib in March so I'm relatively new as well. At the moment I am mostly working on documenation, and contributor exprience related issues (for example organizing this meeting). * [name=Andrew Fennell] New Contributor * I have been contributing for a few months on various issues. * [name=John Gill] old contributer, working on personal projects using matplotlib interactively. Github id: swfiua * [name=Melissa] Contributor Experience Lead (multiple projects), she/her * Newish to matplotlib * How do you pick a first issue? * We reviewed the [Good first issue](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22Good+first+issue%22) label and how one can combine it with [the difficulty labels](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/labels?q=difficulty%3A) * Difficulty: Easy is suited for people with little Python experience. It could anything from fixing a typo in the docs, to adding a test, or modifying something simple in the codebase with clear instructions. * Difficulty: Medium and Difficulty: Hard are not trivial to solve and require more thought and programming experience. What's appropriate to whom is an entirely personal decision and would likely change overtime as your experience and familiarity with the project develops. * How do you take an issue? * In general, the Matplotlib project does not assign issues. Issues are "assigned" or "claimed" by opening a PR. * If there is an existing PR for an issue but it is very old and not yet completed, you can comment and ask the author if they would be happy to have you collaborate or start a new PR refrencing theirs (you can cherry pick commits which you find useful if you don't need everything). If they still intend to return to it but were just stalled, because hey, we're mostly volunteers here, then look for another issue. * More information about [issues for new contributors](https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/contributing.html#issues-for-new-contributors) is in our contributor guide. * Who merges the PRs? * The maintainers do =) * Documentation improvements get merged by 1 reviewer * Code changes and significant changes to documentation, like new tutorials, will be reviewed by 2 reviewers * No self-merges unless it is a small patch to unbreak the CI, or it was explicitly allowed by another reviewer * You can read about merging policy in detail in the [Merging section](https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/coding_guide.html#merging) of our contributing Guide ## Useful Resources * [Our contributor Guide](https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/contributing.html) * This is where we keep past meeting notes from the new contributors meeting [on github](https://github.com/matplotlib/ProjectManagement) * You will soon find today's meeting notes there * You can also have a look at topics and links that were shared before 🧐 * If you are curious, here's an article about [the architecture of Matplotlib](http://www.aosabook.org/en/matplotlib.html) ### Communication channels How will we communicate asynchronously while working on the project? * [Gitter](https://gitter.im/matplotlib/matplotlib) * A chat platform which is useful for shorter questions * #incubator channel, our non-public communication channel for new contributors * Ask Noa on chat now, or later on gitter to be invited * [Discourse](https://discourse.matplotlib.org/) * A forum platform which is useful for longer questions that are harder to ask on chat * [Developer mailing list](https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-devel) * We publish information which is important for contributors on this list. People from other projects might also share useful information or questions here. That said, it is also mirrored on our discourse 😉 (unless we there's a technical issue like happened recently 🙄)