Episode 130: OSCA, Docs, and Burnout with Anita Ihuman and Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Kayode (Bami)

Guest Anita Ihuman | Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Kayode Panelists Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we’ll be talking to two guests who are a part of the Open Source Community Africa (OSCA), which has a conference every year or so in Nigeria, where a lot of people come together. We’ve invited people who facilitated workshops at this event to talk about what they facilitated, what they’re interested in as far as sustaining open source, and to share their personal story. Our first guest is Anita Ihuman, who’s a Developer, an Advocate for open source, and an open source contributor. We also have Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Kayode (Bami), who’s a Python Developer as part of OSCA, a Community Manager at Tunga and Layer5, and she helped facilitate a workshop on Burnout and Mental Health at the last Sustain event. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more! Anita: [00:02:23] Anita shares her story how she got involved with open source and how she got to where she is today. [00:06:05] At OSCA, Anita was asked to facilitate the open source documentation workshop as part of the Sustain group, and she fills us in on how it went and how many people were at the workshop with her. [00:08:25] Anita wrote a blog explaining ten steps for the approach people can take to build better documentation, and she highlights a few of them. [00:13:36] We hear how engineers can get help to get better at documentation. [00:14:42] At the end of the blog post, Anita talked about how we can sustain open source communities and projects through documentation, and she shares her thoughts on the three main points. [00:17:20] Find out what’s next for Anita and where you can find her online. Bami: [00:20:18] Bami shares what she does as a Community Manager at Tunga and Layer5. [00:21:56] We hear how Bami ended up at OSCA and how she ended up in the Sustain track as the facilitator for this session talking about burnout. [00:25:53] Find out how the role of self-awareness plays in burnout, and the role that companies in the ecosystem play in stopping burnout for maintainers and developers. [00:32:19] Bami tells us about setting boundaries which are super important. [00:35:01] Find out where you can follow Bami on the internet and she shares advice on the importance of taking time for yourself and communicating to others. Quotes Anita: [00:06:21] “I was able to attend and learn so much, and it made me realize that I could actually teach.” [00:06:53] “Do you actually read documentation for a project? And I found that so many people don’t. And the reason is that it’s either out of date or it’s not informative enough.” [00:15:02] “[We should] put together a standard for documentation for every open source project.” Bami: [00:27:23] “We have to rest at some point and it’s okay to have that rest.” [00:31:11] “If the community is not healthy, contributors will not come back.” [00:31:19] “How do you want to sustain open source software if the communities are not healthy? So, it is important that organizations take effort in helping, in creating awareness of how to handle mental health because we know mental health burnout is inevitable.” Links SustainOSS SustainOSS Twitter SustainOSS Discourse [email protected] Anita Ihuman Twitter Anita Ihuman LinkedIn Anita Ihuman website Open Source Community Africa-Sustain Africa 2022 Community Report Scalable Onboarding Let’s Talk Docs Podcast [email protected] Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Twitter Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Kayode LinkedIn Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Kayode website CHAOSS Tunga Layer5 OSCA Report: Burnout and Mental Health Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound Special Guests: Anita Ihuman and Atinuke Oluwabamikemi Kayode.