Meet the fascinating individuals behind the most recognised avatars here on Meta with our series of #user-interviews. This week, we speak to:
Bhanu Sharma @itsbhanusharma
Location: New Delhi (India)
Tell us a bit about yourself! When you’re not hanging out on Meta, what do you do?
I’m just another college dropout entrepreneur currently exploring opportunities into Open Source Software.
When not on meta, I’m usually doing either of the following:
- Scheduling meetings or travelling
- Motivating the team
- Making food (weekends thing)
- Playing Pokemon Go (Yeah, I know)
How did you first find out about Discourse?
One of our client wanted a robust solution for a modern discussion board to go along with their website. I did checked out all the available open source forum solutions and discourse was the one that most appealed to me.
What are you using Discourse for?
Discourse plays a crucial role in our business’ Internal planning and management. We also have recently started a public facing forum at discourse.orng.co . Apart from this, I do occasionally participate on communities like Level1Techs, Twitter, Vyos, Flightaware, Mastodon, Mailinabox etc.
How did you get so involved in the Meta community?
Meta has been proven a lot of help in figuring out a lot of problems that I’ve had with my discourse installs lately. What keeps me motivated to help others is that I do get very prompt responses when I come across various issues.
What compels you to contribute to Discourse?
It just feels the right thing to do when half of your work life depends upon discourse.
Tell us about a non-Discourse community that you’re involved in!
I’m an overweight introvert. I mostly don’t go out much except for our local Pokemon Go group with which, I do go out for raids n stuff.
What kind of significance does the open source movement have to you?
Open source is a pivotal component of today’s internet standards. A lot of the modern day enterprises build upon the Open Source model, they make tools that add up to the available OSS stacks and have so far made it a lucrative choice for a majority of consumers. I do personally prefer open source because the source code is always available to be audited and verified.
What has been the greatest challenge in learning about Discourse and its community?
It has been the contrary. Discourse was the easiest to get used to and all the communities that I’ve been into so far are very welcoming.
Any ideas on how to improve the Meta community?
Revitalize the idea of discourse hub (Please?)
Any advice to future contributors?
I don’t find myself to be the right person to give advice. However, a new contributor has to be more precise and vocal towards their idea so that everyone could understand what they are up to.