Mentoring Program

Connor Imes rocket2dmn at aol.com
Sat Aug 16 22:24:38 UTC 2008


Matthew East wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 10:00 PM, Connor Imes <rocket2dmn at aol.com> wrote:
>> Matthew East wrote:
>>> Also, I don't think it's necessary: if someone mails this list and is
>>> interested in working on Kubuntu or Server material, then they will
>>> get a reply from someone who is interested in that area or at least
>>> get a decent pointer from someone else. I think it's important for the
>>> list to be the central contact point for everyone, rather than
>>> individuals, because individuals come and go in terms of contribution
>>> levels, and the list will always be around.
>>>
>> As has been noticed before, people are generally _not_ getting the
>> responses necessary get pointers they need.
> 
> It's not really true that questions are going unanswered on the list,
> actually I think that I haven't seen a genuine question about our
> processes or tools go unanswered for a really long time. The real
> problem is that we have people who express an interest, but don't take
> it further - the only thing we can do to improve that is to lower the
> barriers to entry so that there is no confusion over how a contributor
> can take their interest further if they wish to, and to be as
> welcoming as possible by making it clear that questions are
> encouraged.
> 
Point taken

> I agree that quite a few of the introductory emails from new
> contributors go unanswered, but as I've said elsewhere that's because
> answering all of those emails is actually pretty hard work, however
> good a job Phil does with them. If there is a lack of response, it's
> because the docteam doesn't have that many genuine contributors. It's
> not realistic to start making subgroups while that remains the case.
> It's more efficient for everyone if we help potential contributors to
> help themselves by keeping our wiki pages and processes as simple and
> clear as possible.
> 
+! for simple and clear - however, I'm not sure we have this in place
yet as it is still rather confusing for new members to figure out what
is happening inside the doc team.

On the Beginners Team, we have found thta the best way to keep
interested users involved is to interact with them on IRC.  While people
still come and go, the contributions they make while they are involved
are much easier to follow and help is only a matter of typing the
question into IRC.  This means that "transients,"  as our team leader
refers to them, don't end up in the process and are therefore taken out
of the recruitment cycle before serious effort is made in trying to get
them involved and accepted into the team.
This requires that other team members be (more) active in the IRC
channel as well.  While this may take some time, it is definitely
feasible and may be one of the best ways to keep people involved.

-Connor




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