As ONA12 gets going in San Francisco, we’re hitting the last stretch with Source, the OpenNews community and index for news development. We even have a launch date, and it’s…really soon.

On our end, we’ll be spending the next couple of weeks dropping many (so many) new projects and updates into the code index, tweaking UI and content structure, and beginning formal Q&A.

We need you

The craziest and most exciting thing about this project has been that from the very beginning, working news developers and data journalists have been so enthusiastic about it. All year, at hackathons and conferences—and a mud-filled tent at SXSW—some of the smartest people I’ve ever met have said the same thing: “how can I help?”

And I’m really happy to finally be able to say: here’s how.

First, please hit the dev site and send bugs, comments, and questions as Git issues. Source is for you, and as we lock down a stable set of features for our first release, we want to make sure they’re as useful to you as they can be.

Second, send us your stuff. Got a project writeup you’ve been meaning to do and haven’t quite finished? We want it. Thinking about a quick walkthrough of a technique you just used on a newsdev project? Send it our way. We’ll be happy to talk structure, edit rough drafts, and interview you or your team members—whatever it takes to get the knowledge out of your head and into the world. We’ve all done enough share-your-work documentation to know how much time it takes, and we’re here to make it easier.

I’m erin@incisive.nu and @kissane on Twitter, and our community manager, Erika Owens, is at ONA, so stop her in the hallway or find her on Twitter at @erika_owens if you’d like to discuss any of this in person.

Cross-posted from Tumblr.

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