Crowd Funding – JJJ's Blog

January thoughts, BuddyPress 2.2
With each new software release that I’m fortunate enough to contribute to, I usually take some time (or lots of time) to reflect on a few different things that I think are critical to the project and myself:
- What went right?
- What went wrong?
- What did I learn?
- What can I do better?
With BuddyPress 2.2 imminent, here’s a brain-dump of my random and unrelated thoughts for January 2015, in no particular order:
- Significant improvements have been made to cache-coverage, but many more are necessary, and some of our existing implementations are not ideal.
- User statuses are pretty messy. A user’s status is a numeric value in the users database table, and there is no API in WordPress for interacting with it. Just like post statuses, anyone concerned with workflow (or activation flow in this case) is pretty much on their own.
- The Member Type API is sweet, and I’m excited to see how developers use it. Hopefully I get to use it myself soon.
- It seems like each ticket takes longer to test, confirm, fix, patch, and push.
- How strictly do we enforce cache coverage, unit-test overage, inline documentation coverage, and all of the other nuances? I fear we are over-complicating each others lives with anti-progress and slowly forgetting what made BuddyPress fun to work on in the first place.
- I need to write more unit tests.
- I need to increase cache coverage.
- I need to write more inline documenta… Ehh… maybe I’m okay here.
- I sure wish PHPUnit were faster and easier to run. Netbeans has decent integration, but I haven’t figured out how to efficiently implement it into my workflow.
- It’s been really great not juggling immense client and customer expectations in January, thanks to the funders of my recent IndieGogo campaign.
- The old BuddyPress Default and Legacy templates are starting to look really out-of-date to me now. I wish we didn’t have so many templates to style and that creating themes was easier.
- I continue to struggle with the cost of switching contexts during the day, between writing code, impromptu meetings, and random pings. Working nights used to help with this, and I need to come up with a healthy plan to improve my ability to come back to things once I switch away from them. I feel like I used to be better at this when I was younger.
- That squirrel outside my window is looking pretty well fed considering it’s January.
- I bought too much Lego over Christmas.
- I need to take more small breaks and be more physically active during the day.
- I need to prioritize blogging.
- I need a nap, and it’s only 11am.
- BuddyPress 2.2 is going to be sweet.
- Boone did a really good job juggling both WordPress and BuddyPress core development. Note: be more like Boone, at least in this capacity (I don’t think I can eat that much pizza anymore.)
- I’m excited for a vacation my wife and I are planning in March to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It will probably be much needed by then.
- I broke my ankle 1 year ago, and it’s still not quite right. Likely won’t ever be the same I suppose. Guess I’ll never play the piano again.
- Penny (our new rescue puppy) tested positive for heart-worm. Poor thing. Hopefully it’s not too bad and we get her all fixed up.
- You are great. <3
JJJ

January 24, 2015

BuddyPress, Software, Crowd Funding
IndieGogo Breakdown

Here’s the breakdown of where your IndieGogo contributions have gone so far.

And… I received a deposit from IndieGogo this morning in the amount of $47,895.00, which means we are all-systems-go for a January 2 start-date of volunteering full-time attention towards BuddyPress, bbPress, & GlotPress!

JJJ

December 22, 2014

Crowd Funding
Fully Funded – Week 3

Check out what y’all did together

The folks at WebDevStudios win the day by being responsible for pushing the campaign up over the $50k mark:

We are proud to have completed @JJJ’s campaign for BuddyPress, bbPress, & GlotPress development. 100% FUNDED, BABY! pic.twitter.com/jU1CniZtxr

— WebDevStudios (@webdevstudios) December 4, 2014

Several people expressed extreme confidence that we’d hit the $50k mark together, but I wasn’t prepared for it to happen so quickly; definitely not with 7 full days remaining still.

I’m elated… encouraged… energized… And so, so incredibly excited.

I’ll post a more comprehensive update when I can catch my breath (probably around Tuesday, December 9 or so) but until then, thank you again everyone for making this possible.

JJJ

December 4, 2014

Crowd Funding
IndieGogo Campaign – Week 2

11 days ago, I talked a bit about the rapid (and unbelievably generous) influx of donations that happened in the first two days. Since then, donations have continued to come in at a steady pace of a few hundred dollars per day, which is still hugely impressive considering this is a community-powered endeavor.

A few people have very politely asked if I’m at all worried about not achieving the $50k goal, and my response to them is a two-parter:

First, it would be a shame to come all this way and miss the mark by such a small percentage. With IndieGogo’s “Flexible Funding” option, being underfunded costs us an additional 5% (around $2k) which is a not-insignificant difference.

Second, we’ve already achieved so much together, it’s impossible to be disappointed. We’ve proved that years of volunteering to open-source software are valuable, and we’ve attached a real-world number to what that value might look like.

In an industry so heavily weighted on the shoulders of volunteers, this campaign serves as a public example of an opt-in, peer-powered, donation-based compensation package – the first of its kind that I know of, and hopefully not the last.

The 174 funders of this campaign are not only investing in the future of BuddyPress, bbPress, and GlotPress; they’re empowering me to do the best work of my life, and providing a landmark achievement to prove others can and should attempt to do the same.

For the data-conscious among us, I’m including some screenshots from the IndieGogo campaign dashboard below. The interface is fairly comprehensive, and provides interesting perspectives that aren’t generally made available to non-campaigners.

JJJ

November 24, 2014

Crowd Funding

January thoughts, BuddyPress 2.2

IndieGogo Breakdown

Fully Funded – Week 3

IndieGogo Campaign – Week 2