Mentoring Program

[Dougie Richardson]

Hi Conner,

[snip]

> +! 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.

With respect, the beginners team is an entirely different entity, as it is
by far the largest group on the forums and seems to be one of the "sexy"
groups that people attach status to joining - so I can see that transients
would be an issue.

I don't like IRC personally as I spend a lot of time at work, in an
environment where every port except 80 and 25 are locked down (even then,
Internet access is pretty restrictive). As Matthew said earlier - there
aren't many regular contributors and for that reason you will reach a wider
audience by emailing the list than by using IRC. I certainly wouldn't like
it to be used as a yard stick for commitment!

There's no getting away from it - its not a question of method or procedure,
the team is simply small and works a little slower than other groups!

Cheers,

Dougie