[This article was first published on rOpenSci - open tools for open science, and kindly contributed to R-bloggers]. (You can report issue about the content on this page here)Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.Read it in: Español. rOpenSci turns 15 and I’ve been a part of this community for a good chunk of that time. As I reflected on those years, a lot of great memories came to mind, and I realized some of them taught me some lessons that I would love to share.Stretch your comfort zoneEarly in 2018 I came across this post:Apply to attend rOpenSci unconf 2018!We’re organizing unconf18 to bring together scientists, developers, and open data enthusiasts from academia, industry, government, and non-profits to get together for a couple of days to hack on various projects and generally enrich our community.In hindsight I was a good fit. I had recently transitioned from academia to my first job as a research software engineer. And yet, did I think I was a solid candidate? Oh no, I had lots of doubts.But I know the greatest things often happen a little stretch outside your comfort zone. So I applied anyway, got invited, and spent two days collaborating with an incredible bunch of people. Some of them were already rockstars, many others eventually became influential in their own niche, and all of them had this great attitude that at the time I lacked words to describe. I now do: they were respectful and kind.Be respectful and kindIn 2022 rOpenSci launched the first cohort of the rOpenSci Champions Program. By then I already had a few years of experience as an associate editor of rOpenSci software peer-review, and Yani invited me to talk to our champions about the process.As I prepared that talk and discussed some ideas with Yani, she made me realize how much the rOpenSci community cares about the way we communicate with one another1. So much so that our guides for reviewers and editors open with this message:rOpenSci’s community is our best asset. We aim for reviews to be open, non-adversarial, and focused on improving software quality. Be respectful and kind! See our reviewers’ guide and code of conduct for more.Coming from such a deeply technical guide, that opening might surprise you. But it makes sense to me now; broken code is way easier to fix than broken human relationships.Contribute in your own wayAt rOpenSci you can contribute in so many ways. We have a community contributing guide but here’s a list of some of my own contributions:Attend events.Help to welcome and onboard new members.Ask or answer questions on Slack, or share or discuss ideas or jobs.Improve our documentation, e.g. fix a typo.Write a blog post.Translate or review some work in your native language.Pilot a new process.Author, review, or edit an R package.Lead a workshop.Build a tool to enhance some process.Give and get support, e.g. mentor, review grant applications or talks, advice or recommendations for jobs, help unavailable or overwhelmed people.As you can see, most of my contributions did not involve any code, and only a few required an invitation. Some of them are the kind of thing you could add to your CV, and the most important ones only belong in your heart.Attract great peopleGreat communities are made of great people, and you can play an active role in growing it in the direction you want. If you know someone that would fit in and enjoy the rOpenSci community, you can try to find a way to bring them in. For example, I’ve encouraged and helped people to submit and review packages. Also as an editor I have the occasional privilege to nominate other editors. Using this super-power I’ve attracted two editors and I now get to enjoy interacting with them quite regularly.Keep the human in your human connectionsAI is changing the way we contribute to open source software. But we don’t know much about its effect on the open communities around that software. Earlier this year rOpenSci published a preliminary set of policies, and you may want to watch rOpenSci’s newsletter and this Openscapes community call:Open Communities in the Age of AI{Open communities} help us connect on a human level around science and data and the things that we are passionate about. They change careers, they change lives. (…) But now, people are not necessarily finding their communities and getting the benefit of those communities in the way that they used to, because they’re more easily able to get help and answers by using AI. (…) These connections and communities are more important than ever, as we need to find ways to support each other and ourselves as AI rapidly changes the landscape right under our feet.Personally, over the past year I’ve used AI heavily and learned several lessons. The most relevant here is that I don’t want AI to impersonate me or the other person in a human-to-human connection. The humans of rOpenSci are real and wonderful people. Here are some that I’ve recently met in person:Noam Ross, Yanina Bellini Saibene and me at the 2024 CZI meeting in Boston, USA.Monica Gerber, Stefanie Butland, Sean Kross, Julia Stewart Lowndes, Kelly O’Briant and me at the 2024 Posit conference in Seattle, USA.Luis D. Verde Arregoitia, Diana Garcia Cortes and me at the Georgia Aquarium after the 2025 Posit conference in Atlanta, USA.Ronny A. Hernández Mora and me at Ronny’s family gathering near San José, Costa Rica in 2025.Beatriz Milz and me after coffee and pastries in São Paulo, Brazil in 2025.Thanks for joining me in celebrating rOpenSci. And if, like me, you self-identify with our community, then happy birthday to you!Two books I like are How to Win Friends and Influence People and Crucial Conversations (Third Edition): Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. ︎To leave a comment for the author, please follow the link and comment on their blog: rOpenSci - open tools for open science.R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials about learning R and many other topics. Click here if you're looking to post or find an R/data-science job.Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.Continue reading: Celebrating the rOpenSci Community