Jeff Nippard (the science communicator you watch if you want to spend your evening reading scientific papers and going to the gym) wrote a beautiful post recently about handling harassment and bullying at Gyms. One part that really stuck out to me was:

Also, every gym has at least one “big [person]”. Almost every big [person] I know is a good person. I’m sure big [person] already all know this, but people find you intimidating. Even a simple smile toward new members can do a LOT.

While I’m not a ‘big guy at the gym’ at the gym, often I do find myself being a ‘big guy at the gym’ in many of the open source communities I have been a part of. I have been writing code for 23 years, been part of various open source communities, and have a lot of power in many of them. I recently realized that I am one of the original creators of about 1/4th of the various projects in the jupyterhub GitHub org, for example!

This means I have a lot of power to make people feel welcomed. Open Source communities can be an intimidating space, especially if you aren’t a cis white man. I’m not, and I also have a lot of power! A nice and welcoming word from me here and there really helps. I know because others have done this for me in the past (Kyle in particular for example). I have historically tried to do this as well, but didn’t have a proper term for it other than ‘be nice’. Now I can say ‘be the “big person at the gym” for your community’.

There was an opportunity to practice this yesterday, and I think I did well! It was fulfilling to me, and took me only a few minutes.

You are probably a “big person at the gym” for some community you are a part of too, wether you realize it or not. If you aren’t a cis white man, it’s more likely you don’t realize it. Think about it, feel proud of yourself, and smile at the newbies.