Community isn’t about asking for help. If the first thing you think of when someone mentions “Joomla community” is a forum post or a pull request, you’ve already missed the point. Real community is noticed before questions are asked, help is offered before it’s requested, and contribution is defined by care, not by code.
Joomla and similar open source projects talk a lot about community, but far less about what that word actually demands of us. We have a definition problem.
We proudly point to forums, repositories, chat channels, issue trackers, and events as evidence that a community exists. That definition sounds generous, but in reality it sets the bar incredibly low, treating community as a reactive service rather than a shared responsibility.
What we are really describing is a collection of contributors sharing the same tools, rather than a group of people taking responsibility for one another. Availability is mistaken for care, and activity is mistaken for belonging.
Community Is Not About Asking for Help
One of the most persistent myths is that community exists so users can ask questions and contributors can answer them. That framing quietly turns community into a support system with unpaid staff and an endless queue of requests. If you have to pause, second-guess yourself, and summon the confidence to ask, the community has already placed the burden on the person who is most vulnerable in that moment.
A healthy open source community works the other way around. It notices when someone is stuck before they post an issue, when a contributor goes quiet, or when frustration starts leaking into a pull request or forum post. In a genuine community, support is not something you unlock by asking the right question. It is something that flows naturally because people are paying attention.
A Crowd With Tools Is Still Just a Crowd
It is easy to mistake activity for community, especially online. A busy forum, a lively chat channel, or a well-attended event can look like a community while still functioning as nothing more than a crowd. Crowds share space and resources, but they do not share responsibility. Communities do.
In a crowd, people wait to be asked before they engage. In a community, people look outward as much as they look inward, noticing who is missing, who is struggling, and who might need support before they ever say so.
Behaviour Creates Community, Not Platforms
No platform creates community by itself. Forums, mailing lists, chat tools, and social networks are only containers—and containers do not care. Community is created through behaviour, through repeated acts of attention, empathy, and generosity that signal to others that they are seen and valued.
This is why rules, documentation, and onboarding, while important, are never enough on their own. Without people who are willing to notice and act, the most perfectly designed space will still feel cold and transactional.
Contribution Is More Than Code
Joomla, like many open source projects, measures contribution in commits, pull requests, and lines of code, but communities are not sustained by code alone. They are sustained by the unglamorous, often invisible work of welcoming newcomers, offering context, answering the same question for the tenth time with patience, and gently guiding someone rather than correcting them. These acts rarely show up in contribution graphs, yet they are often the reason people stay or leave.
The Problem With Drive-By Contributions
All too often, open source projects such as Joomla are littered with what I call “drive-by contributions,” where someone submits a pull request, fixes a bug, or adds a feature, and then disappears without engaging with the broader community. There is no awareness of who else is working on the project, no effort to mentor newcomers, and no time spent helping others understand the context of the code. Drive-by contributions may improve a project in the short term, but they erode community in the long term because they treat contribution as a transactional act rather than a shared responsibility. They assume that the project exists solely for the contributor’s benefit rather than for a collective effort.
Shared Ownership, Not Shared Space
It is easy to create a shared space in Joomla. It is much harder to create shared ownership. A repository can be cloned in seconds, but a community only forms when people feel responsible for more than their own work. That sense of ownership shows itself in small ways: noticing when documentation has confused someone, stepping in when a conversation turns unkind, or helping someone succeed even when it does not directly benefit your own contribution. These moments define culture far more clearly than any code of conduct ever will.
The Problem With Transactional Contribution
When contribution becomes purely transactional, community begins to erode. If people are encouraged to think in terms of what they get in return for their time—whether that is influence, recognition, or status—participation becomes conditional and fragile. The strongest open source communities are the ones where people give without keeping score, where help is offered freely, and where contribution is understood as an act of care rather than a means to an end. Trust grows in those environments, and with trust comes longevity.
Belonging Changes How People Contribute
You can tell when there is a real community because the behaviour feels different. People are comfortable admitting uncertainty, asking naïve questions, and offering help outside their area of expertise. Disagreements still happen, but they are handled with the assumption of shared intent rather than competition. At some point, contributors stop thinking of themselves as individuals working on a project and start thinking in terms of stewardship, recognising that the health of the community matters as much as the quality of the code.
Community Is an Act, Not a Claim
In Joomla, community should not be something you declare on a website or in a README file. Community is not defined by access to answers or the speed of responses. It is defined by care. It is something you demonstrate repeatedly through how you treat people, especially when they are new, confused, or struggling. It is about people choosing to look out for one another simply because that is what members of a community do.
Take Action
If you want to be part of Joomla’s real community, don’t just contribute code—contribute care. Notice when someone is struggling, offer guidance without expectation, mentor newcomers, and help others understand the project’s context. Every interaction matters, whether it is answering a question in a forum, improving documentation, or fostering a respectful and inclusive environment.
Don’t just participate: pay attention.
Don’t just contribute: care.
Don’t just join: belong.
That is how Joomla will not only grow as a project, but thrive as a community.
