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Comment by thunderbong | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of the comments are concluding from the title that open source maintainers should be working on the projects during office hours.

That is not what the article is suggesting.

From the article -

>> anyone can book a 25 minute conversation with me on a Friday to talk about the project. I’m interested in talking to people who are using Datasette, or who are considering using it, or who just want to have a chat.

>>A challenge of open source is that it’s easy to be starved of feedback. People might file bug reports if something breaks, but other than that it can feel like publishing software into a void.

>> Hearing directly from people who are using your stuff is incredibly motivational. It’s also an amazing source of ideas and feedback on where the project should go next.

I think that's really a fantastic suggestion.

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I thought "office hours" is a common term in universities?

It is where I went at least

Some people didn't go to university, or are too young (I'm 15 but I wanna go one day)

Back in my day I.T was learning how to use microsoft word.

It is a common term in different areas, however not everybody here comes from an English speaking country and is knowing all English terms. For many English is second or third language.

In this case, you need to be American to make sense of this. And possibly you need to have been to a US university. Took me years of seeing people put a confusing number 101 on the end of guides on blogs or whatever before I realised that meant introduction to Americans.

I went to University in Australia and I don’t recall this term being in use. (Could be my faulty memory, though. It was a long time ago!)

I’m still a little puzzled by exactly what is meant when people and orgs offer an “office hours” concept.

I’d love a clear but concise definition that’s not simply “like office hours in university”.

I’ve come across it in various largely-Americentric writing and figured out the concept, but yeah, it’s not something I’ve seen practised in Australia.

It means “I will always be available in my office during such-and-such hours every week, for anyone to come and talk to.” I think it’s normally a walk-in affair rather than involving making appointments. First come, first serve, but now you don’t have to go through the bother of making appointments and such and comparing your timetables. Makes life easier for both parties. This article is talking of making appointments, but most of the benefits still remain of having a known block of availability.

It's common in Germany, called "Sprechstunde" ("speaking hours").

"Consultation hours" in some EU countries.

That's a better name for it than "office hours" I think!

I went to university in the UK 20 years ago.

A few of our lecturers had "office hours". It was a new phrase, and invariably they were younger and had worked in US universities. We could drop in between 3 and 5 one day a week to ask questions.

We thought them snooty.

The other faculty staff had an open door policy.

Now I'm their age, I appreciate how sticking to office hours helped these researchers to be productive. But as a student, open door flet more friendly.

In my experience, US professors generally were open door as well but it was about catching them being in their office. They could be lecturing, faculty meeting, lunch, etc, etc, etc.

Office Hours is a way of saying I will DEFINITELY be in my office at my desk during this block of time.

that means they have to commit to those hours on a regular basis

Beyond unversities, it's also a term sometimes used by Y Combinator, which also contributes to its spread.

(That's how I learned it can mean something else than "when the workplace is open". English is not my first language.)

I think in this case it’s meant to be ‘hours when I’m guaranteed to be in my office’.

Mostly applicable to academia, because who the hell has their own office right now.

Well, at the moment my office hours are 24/7, but I'm not going to be pleased if somebody drops by.

I've never come across the phrase "office hours" outside of describing contractual work hours for a job.

UK if it helps but also I only work for smaller startup sized companies maybe it's a corporate thing

That is how I took it.

I suspect it might also be a synonym for "working hours" or 9-5, aka a job.

Do any of the comments actually make that conclusion? The other comment you replied to is the only one I saw that even comes close, but it mentions "if you can offer office hours..." so the poster clearly knew the "office hours" idiom.

I came into the comments section to see what this article is all about and whether I want to read it, thinking it would be about working on open source projects only 9 am to 5 pm. So this comment helped me a lot, and I'm voting it up so that it may stay on top.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I definitely think it's helpful to explain the idiom for those not familiar. I just found the description "a lot of the comments..." rather weird when I didn't see any.

> People might file bug reports if something breaks, but other than that it can feel like publishing software into a void.

Easy, request they have a quick 5min feedback chat with you and you'll bump their issue on the priority list.

ok, gonna make a meta-comment here: Can you point to such comments? Somehow I keep seeing people say things like this despite there not being any (or only 1-2) comments actually doing the thing they say "a lot of" the comments are doing, and I don't understand it.

Office hours are work. Soliciting feedback is work. Having a chat about your project is work. Rhetorical jujitsu to make that work sound like not work is at best a failing of empathy.

The tautology that if you want feedback then you want feedback is true. The rest is bullshit.

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