I have always admired those who write the open source programs I use. The ideal of a group of individuals working together to build resources by contributing what they can is so cool.
For the most part I have always been a user rather than a contributor. The skill level of those who write WordPress, Mediawiki, Drupal, Scuttle and the other software I run is far beyond my own. It is enough to make you feel a little guilty.
Today someone wrote and asked me for the code I wrote to allow those who use my educational resource database to rate the value of the resources I include. I sent the code. I am not sure anyone will be able to interpret my code – I pretty much just hack around until what I want to do works. Still, I now feel like I made a contribution.
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[...] Back in 2006, I took an open source, social bookmarking product and added my own modifications. I wanted to create a service that prioritized search suggestions. So, I extended the social bookmarking product by adding a system that counted the number of times suggested links were followed and also allowed users to rate the value of sites they visited. These data were saved and search results were ranked by a combination of these data. My little project continues to be used by those who find it and I was even asked for my code. [...]
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