Why are you here? 🤔

[Kate Pawlak _Appsvio_]

As autumn evenings inspire reflection, I began to wonder why people are active on forums. I'm thinking of our community, but also sites like Reddit, Quora, or StackOverflow. I had such a passionate discussion about it at home (my partner is a developer and an active member of StackOverflow) that this is probably good material for a post 😂

What does it do for you? Why are you here and contributing to this community? What motivates you? Nobody pays us for it, and we often spend a lot of our free time actively participating here. I'm curious about your opinions 🙂

[Bhanu]

I never forget my days when I started out as a Jira admin when I got help from the community. I want to give back to the community and Helping others always makes me happy and improves my knowledge as well. It’s a win win 😀

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Pretty much the same as @Bhanu for me.  I got handed a Jira 2 installation amongst a massive pile of other developer tools and only a month with the person I was replacing to teach me how to look after them all and think about how to upgrade when the looming version 3 came out after they had left.

I asked the community for help a lot while I was learning, and eventually got to a place where I could help others in it.

I was actually being completely selfish there - if I answered some of the more simple questions, it meant people like Neal Applebaum, @Matt Doar and @Jamie Echlin _ScriptRunner - The Adaptavist Group_ had more time to answer mine!  (And Mike Cannon-Brookes, but my memory is old and hazy, that  was probably a support call, not a community question)

If you look at my profile here, you'll see I've only asked a handful of questions, but this platform did not import my entire history (it's the fourth one the community has used since I "joined" and the migration to new has lost older questions each time).  if you could find the archives of the original Jive forums, you'd see me posting beginner questions all over them!

But I realised I enjoyed solving the problems people were posting about.  So I carried on.  Especially the difficult ones that forced me to think.  I eventually landed a job that is mostly doing that!

[Jimmy Seddon]

This is a great question.  Personally, I didn't find the community until much later into my Atlassian Journey.  I stumbled on my own using the Atlassian tools for about 6 years before I found my way here.

Personally, this started as an outlet or means for me to share what I knew and to prove that I actually had the knowledge to help others.  In addition, it gave me to warm and fuzzies to see people so happy and grateful for helping them figure something out that was critical to their operations.

What has kept me here are the people.  If you are in the online community daily, you are bound to run into some familiar faces (avatars).  Everyone that is here on a regular basis is friendly, helpful and encouraging.  I have tried to be that way myself and I feel like that relationship is what has truly transformed this from a "Customer Forum" to a Community.

[Dave Liao]

I'm a late joiner, too!

I took a mini-break between jobs and decided to cut my teeth on unanswered questions on the Community to have public proof that I (think I) know what I'm doing. 🤣

[Paul Wiggers]

I found the community because I was looking into answers on how to achieve certain tasks. I got asked to take care of our Atlassian products while I knew nothing about it. 

Finding this community was the best thing that happend in the Atlassian journey. There is so much knowledge and the community is friendly and helpful. After a while I noticed that I was able to answer some basic questions and give back to the community.

Since teaching is the best way to learn about a subject, I continued to participate and intend to keep participating and giving back as much as possible.

So in short, I like to help people. 

[Andy Gladstone]

Similar to @Jimmy Seddon I started contributing to the Atlassian Community  as an outlet and escape. I am forced into my 9-5 (I really mean 24*7) and its not always the most fulfilling personally or professionally. Somehow the altruistic volunteering in my Community participation provides that to me where my professional position does not. I feel that I contribute value, and I enjoy helping others and learning from the rest of community at the same time.

My participation started its upward spike (not sure I have reached the apex yet) towards the end of 2020. Perhaps it was the isolation during the pandemic that finally allowed me to open up virtually when in person workplace interactions were still at a minimum. Or perhaps the judgement free zone of the community allows me to be more vulnerable. I don't know. Either way its a place I can go that is safe for me to express myself and benefit from the expression of others.

[Jimmy Seddon]

Ohh that's a really good point @Andy Gladstone!  The online community and any videos I publish paint an inaccurate picture of who I am in person. 

There's something about the anonymity of the internet that allows me to appear more social and outgoing, but in a group setting I will be in the corner chatting with a smaller group avoiding the crowds.

[Dave Liao]

I love the community and how engaging they've been - Leaders and general contributors alike!

Answering questions in a public forum is a scaleable way to handle support. It's rare that someone has a truly individual use case, so being able to help someone and then hundreds of future users is kind of cool.

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I live in a small country where the job title "marketing" is associated with tall, beautiful girls in high heels walking around an office and talking about billboard ads.

However, marketing in the Atlassian Ecosystem is something entirely different and, to me, absolutely fascinating. Here we talk technology, creativity, improvement, and adaptation to a constantly changing environment. 

As one of the few in my country who work "here," Atlassian Community was my place to share experiences, gain knowledge and meet like-minded people while helping users by answering questions about my company's apps or any area I'm skilled at (without leaving my desk which is a very important element).

[Andy Gladstone]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ you may be from a small country and may be small in stature, but your impact in the community has been larger than life. One of the highlights of joining this community has been meeting (and reading) you!

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

@Andy Gladstone your words always make my heart feel cozy. I came for the questions and stayed for the people, I guess. People think it's weird, but I prefer spending quality time with my community friends once a year than searching for a way to "fit" in my local but foreign environment.