有研究表明，推特能够推动开源项目的普及
开源 推特
![推特](/data/attachment/album/202206/20/140137roz6t2njaaon5zev.jpg)


由 HongBo Fang 博士领导的研究团队发现，推特是一种吸引更多人关注和贡献 GitHub 开源项目的有效方式。Fang 博士在国际软件工程会议上发表了这项名为“‘这真是太棒了！’估计推文对开源项目受欢迎程度和新贡献者的影响”的研究，并获得了杰出论文奖。这项研究显示，发送和一个项目有关的推文，导致了该项目受欢迎程度增加了 7%（在 GitHub 上至少增加了一个星标），贡献者数量增加了 2%。一个项目收到的推文越多，它收到的星标和贡献者就越多。


Fang 说：“我们已经意识到社交媒体在开源社区中变得越来越重要，吸引关注和新的贡献者将带来更高质量和更好的软件。”


大多数开源软件都是由志愿者创建和维护的。参与项目的人越多，结果就越好。开发者和其他人使用该软件、报告问题并努力解决这些问题。然而，不受欢迎的项目有可能得不到应有的关注。这些劳动力（几乎都是志愿者），维护了数百万人每天依赖的软件。例如，几乎每个 HTTPS 网站都使用开源的 OpenSSL 保护其内容。Heartbleed 是 OpenSSL 中发现的一个安全漏洞，在 2014 年被发现后，企业花费了数百万美元来修复它。另一个开源软件 cURL 允许连接的设备相互发送数据，并安装在大约 10 亿台设备上。开源软件之多，不胜枚举。


此次“推特对提高开源项目的受欢迎程度和吸引新贡献者的影响”的研究，其实是 “Vasilescu 数据挖掘与社会技术研究实验室”（STRUDEL）的一个更大项目的其中一部分，该研究着眼于如何建立开源社区并且其工作更具可持续性。毕竟，支撑现代技术的数字基础设施、道路和桥梁都是开源软件。如果维护不当，这些基础设施可能会崩溃。


研究人员检查了 44544 条推文，其中包含指向 2370 个开源 GitHub 存储库的链接，以证明这些推文确实吸引了新的星标和项目贡献者。在这项研究中，研究人员使用了一种科学的方法：将推特上提及的 GitHub 项目的星标和贡献者的增加，与推特上未提及的一组项目进行了比较。该研究还描述了高影响力推文的特征、可能被帖子吸引到项目的人的类型，以及这些人与通过其他方式吸引的贡献者有何不同。来自项目支持者而不是开发者的推文最能吸引注意力。请求针对特定任务或项目提供帮助的帖子会收到更高的回复率。推文往往会吸引新的贡献者，**他们是 GitHub 的新手，但不是经验不足的程序员**。还有，**新的关注可能不会带来新的帮助**。


提高项目受欢迎程度也存在其缺点，研究人员讨论后认为，它的潜在缺点之一，就是注意力和行动之间的差距。**更多的关注通常会导致更多的功能请求或问题报告，但不一定有更多的开发者来解决它们**。社交媒体受欢迎程度的提高，可能会导致有更多的“巨魔”或“有毒行为”出现在项目周围。


（LCTT 译注：我觉得文章中有三句话写得很好，于是把它们加粗了，和大家分享。 —— 六开箱）




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via: <https://www.opensourceforu.com/2022/06/according-to-studies-twitter-drives-open-source-projects-popularity/>


作者：[Laveesh Kocher](https://www.opensourceforu.com/author/laveesh-kocher/) 选题：[lkxed](https://github.com/lkxed) 译者：[lkxed](https://github.com/lkxed) 校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)


本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出


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The research team, led by Ph.D. Hongbo Fang, discovered that Twitter is an effective way to attract more attention and contributors to open source projects on GitHub. The study, titled “‘This Is Damn Slick!’ Estimating the Impact of Tweets on Open Source Project Popularity and New Contributors,” was presented by Fang at the International Conference on Software Engineering, where it received a Distinguished Paper award. According to the study, tweeting about a project resulted in a 7% increase in popularity (at least one star on GitHub) and a 2% increase in the number of contributors. The more tweets a project received, the more stars and contributors it received.

“We have realized that social media has become more and more important in open source communities,” Fang said. “Attracting attention and new contributors will lead to higher quality and better software.”

The majority of open source software is created and maintained by volunteers. The more people who work on a project, the better the outcome. Developers and others use the software, report problems, and work to resolve them. Projects that are unpopular risk not receiving the attention they require. This mostly volunteer workforce is responsible for the upkeep of software that millions of people rely on every day. For example, nearly every HTTPS website secures its content with the open source OpenSSL. Heartbleed, a security flaw discovered in OpenSSL, cost businesses millions of dollars to fix after it was discovered in 2014. Another open source piece of software, cURL, allows connected devices to send data to one another and is installed on approximately 1 billion devices. The list could go on and on.

Fang’s study of Twitter’s impact on increasing the popularity of an open-source project and attracting new contributors is part of a larger body of work in Vasilescu’s Socio-Technical Research Using Data Excavation Lab (STRUDEL) that looks at how to make the open source community and its work more sustainable. The digital infrastructure, the roads and bridges that underpin modern technology, is open source software. That infrastructure may crumble if it is not properly maintained.

The researchers examined 44,544 tweets containing links to 2,370 open source GitHub repositories for evidence that the tweets drew new stars and contributors to the projects. The researchers used a scientific approach to the study, comparing the increase in stars and contributors of GitHub projects mentioned on Twitter to a control group of projects that were not mentioned on Twitter. The study also described the characteristics of high-impact tweets, the types of people who are likely to be drawn to a project by the posts, and how those people differ from contributors drawn through other means. Tweets from project supporters, rather than developers, work best for attracting attention. Posts requesting assistance with a specific task or project receive a higher response rate. Tweets tend to attract new contributors who are newer to GitHub but not less experienced programmers. And new interest may not result in new assistance.

One of the potential drawbacks of increasing a project’s popularity that the researchers discuss is the gap between attention and action. More attention frequently results in more feature requests or issue reports, but not necessarily more developers to address them. Increased social media popularity may result in more trolls or toxic behaviour surrounding the project.