Thank you for reporting Rich [An Apache project called *Help Wanted!* was announced in 2016](https://lists.apache.org/thread/xl2f7l12pp1zf14h337n9vsf5pvdxv4b). Discussion about that project make it clear that helpwanted.apache.org was not just focused on solving issues. Recruitment was an important goal. Perhaps because recruitment is non-trivial, [helpwanted.apache.org was abandoned years ago](https://lists.apache.org/thread/5nxl49wbt7mpx8nmdcf1xnjznq4hkrxr).
## Rewards As this ticket shares origins with helpwanted.apache.org, recruitment is probably its main goal. However, if we focus on the challenge of matching tasks to potential workers, the priority for each worker is their rewards divided by their costs. This ticket's body already treats most of the elements influencing costs (language and task mastery), although supervision/assistance from existing volunteers is another important one. What is more neglected is the rewards side. In CBPP, bounties are on average a very small part of rewards, and rewards for the same accomplishment vary a great deal for different workers/volunteers. Some of the greatest incentives are the intrinsic hedonic rewards and the value of a solution to a certain worker (or the organization they serve). This personal value―and the interest one finds in a task―largely depends on the project’s goals. For example, I contribute(d) to several Apache projects, but I have no interest in most. At my age, I have very little interest in contributing to games. But I am highly interested in communication, science, knowledge, governance, contributor experience, productivity and quality, and I get way more hedonic reward when contributing to projects which improve these, such as Apache Allura, than to games. Similarly, someone serving a music corporation will have more interest in audio compression, streaming and mixing projects. So, while categorizing software is non-trivial, I think an efficient mapping relies on tracking how much interest each worker has in different types of software. A large part of the interest in a task is also to develop the necessary skills. This represents a difficulty: if I am asked for my skills, I may say I know C and master PHP, but these are not languages I wish to develop. I would much rather work on Java, Kotlin, Python or C# projects, even though I am far from proficient in these. [🅭🄍](https://www.philippecloutier.com/Common+infrastructure+licensing#its) --- **[tickets:#4218] Help Wanted tool** **Status:** open **Milestone:** unreleased **Labels:** p3 for-community helpwanted **Created:** Thu May 17, 2012 07:17 PM UTC by Rich Bowen **Last Updated:** Tue Jun 09, 2026 12:49 PM UTC **Owner:** nobody We need a tool that helps connect projects with developers. This would include the following features: * The ability of a developer to indicate their strengths and skills, e.g., Perl, Database, Documentation * A project may post a "help wanted" listing for a particular bug, feature, or task, and tag it with certain accompanying skills that would be required. This should probably always be associated with a ticket. May possibly associate a bounty with this listing. (?) * A developer may be notified of listings that match their profile (email, twitter, listed on user's page when they log in, or otherwise actively notify them as they use the site) * Anyone may search for listings by language, skill, or other keywords. * Keep track of when the loop is closed (ie, a developer is successfully connected with a project) so that we can follow up on success stories. * Track developer statistics. i.e., user_x has responded to this many Help Wanted postings, and has closed this many tickets as a result of their involvement. --- Sent from forge-allura.apache.org because [email protected] is subscribed to https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/ To unsubscribe from further messages, a project admin can change settings at https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/admin/tickets/options. Or, if this is a mailing list, you can unsubscribe from the mailing list.
