Tell someone their free thing was useful
People maintaining open resources get bug reports and complaints. They almost never hear that it worked.
Not rated yet
The BeingKind editorsPublished How this is written
Why it lands
Anyone maintaining something free — a library, a guide, a dataset — experiences their audience entirely through problems, because satisfied users are silent by definition. The result is a distorted picture in which the work seems to generate only complaints, which is how maintainers talk themselves out of continuing. A message saying it worked is rare enough to be kept.
How
Say what you used it for specifically: “I used your script to process a year of records for a small charity, and it saved about a week.” No feature request in the same message — that converts thanks into a ticket.
Answer if you want. It changes which ideas are shown first.
Related
Ask again the person who always says no
People who decline every invitation are usually not uninterested. Often they are waiting to be asked a fourth time.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor3 people did this
Apologize without the second half
“I'm sorry I snapped.” Full stop. No “but I was tired”, no “but you had just”.
5 minutesFreeSomeone you live with1 person did this
Answer the message you have been avoiding
The longer a reply is owed the harder it gets, and the person waiting has usually assumed something worse than the truth.
5 minutesFreeA friend1 person did this
Plan someone's first week, not their first day
Onboarding is concentrated in day one, which is the day nobody retains anything.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Invite the new family twice
The first invitation is often declined out of uncertainty. The second is the one that establishes it was real.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor