If you'd like learn about getting involved in the Ethereum Classic community, you're in the right place.
Not at all. While developers provide critical value in building infrastrucutre, an arguably more important role is played by non-developers. Whatever your talents, you can help in other ways, such by coordinating and helping to spread the word of Ethereum Classic, in turn recruiting more developers and other recruiters.
You don't need to ask for permission to join. Just start contributing!
A list of things that the project could use your help with is maintained in the Ethereum Classic Volunteer GitHub repository.
The english speaking ETC community is mostly active on Discord. You can find other community forums, including those in other languages, in the Social Channels section.
To suggest protocol upgrades, you can use the Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposal process, but it's worth brainstorming with other community members in one of the ETC Social Channels first.
Because nobody needs permission to be part of the ETC community, it attracts all kinds of characters, from extremely nice to, on occasion, a little more disagreeable. Also, many ETCers and participants in the wider cryptocurrency space are pseudoanonymous, so have less of a filter. Don't take one person's attitude to represent the entire community, and please don't let this dissuade you from contributing.
If you prefer a more moderated conversation, try the ETC Coop Discord, which enforces stricter rules around politeness in communication.
Yes, yearly conferences, weekly community calls and irregular developer calls are held. You can find out more about present, past and future events in the events section.
Please check out this website's GitHub repository for instructions.
The @eth_classic and @ETC_Network Twitter accounts accept community suggested tweets. Simply tweet your suggested tweet with the hashtag #ETCtweets, and it will be reviewed by the community in the #ETCtweets Discord thread.
The main method of payment is via warm fuzzy feelings of well-being, knowing that you are contributing to the future of humanity by helping along an important technology.
Other than that, there are occasional grants programs that you should keep an eye out for by following the conversation within the community.