Dear H5P community,

as you’re probably aware of, I spend quite a bit of my free time doing things related to H5P – fix bugs, add features, create content types, host sessions at BarCamps, upload videos to YouTube, answer questions on the H5P forum, etc. I am pretty present. That probably is where my problem begins …

Total strangers write me emails and sometimes even phone me asking for help with installing or patching H5P in my spare time, asking if I could write them new functions or content types for free to solve their specific problems, asking to consult them with H5P related business issues pro bono, or asking to run a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for them, so they can pay me to create the code that they need. True stories. I am not making them up.

I know that this is part of being a member of an open source community. That’s totally fine! It wouldn’t even be a problem if it was just a small request from time to time that reaches me, but it has been getting out of hand lately. I receive about a dozen requests per week asking if I could „just quickly answer this H5P related question“ – that often cannot be answered that quickly. But even if it could: It’s simply getting out of hand.

I love H5P, I like the community aspect and the openness, and if you describe your issue on the official community forum, I will gladly help you out there when I have some free time to kill and feel like answering questions. But please, be aware that I am not Bruce Wayne who’s all settled and who can be Gotham’s savior all night long.

Please stop contacting me directly if you need help with H5P and expect it as some kind of favor if we don’t know each other in some way beyond you following me on Twitter or just having said hello to me at some event or something like that. It’s not just you who is asking, it’s a lot of people and I can’t handle it anymore.

Thanks!