RIP Mentoring Programme

[Marc Kaplan]

I happen to agree completely with this thought process, and love the
new page.  I've just got a few suggestions of my own.  Perhaps, it
might even help creating a new version of the Wiki To-Do List as well.
 I'm not available to work on it at this exact moment, but I'd like to
dabble with it over the weekend, if you don't mind?

Marc K.

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Phil Bull <philbull at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> I've not had any time to work on the mentoring programme recently, and
> the way that it's set up requires quite a bit of initial interaction
> with new students that I'm not currently able to provide. As such, I'm
> proposing that we do away with the mentoring programme as-is and just
> provide advice/feedback/mentoring as and when new contributors need it.
>
> As I see it, one of the weaknesses of the mentoring programme has been
> that we try to take students on board before they have any ideas about
> the tasks that they can be expected to work on. Quite a few students
> never even reply to my initial email, so providing a small initial
> hurdle (such as having to choose a task) should discourage those who
> aren't very serious about joining the team. The downside is that I don't
> expect as many people to express an interest in helping out, but the
> ones who do will hopefully be more committed from the outset.
>
> I propose that we advertise tasks of varying difficulties on the wiki
> [1] and allow people to choose one before they get in touch with us. We
> can then collectively guide them through the course of the task,
> providing help on the mailing list/IRC as appropriate.
>
> When we advertise tasks, we should provide as much background
> information as possible so that new contributors have a good idea of
> what to do from the very beginning. There should be goals/milestones for
> each task so that people have targets to work to and something to focus
> on. I think that a more structured approach like this will help to
> reduce the confusion that some previous students have experienced. Two
> examples are on the wiki [1].
>
> What do people think about this? Feedback/suggestions/flames more than
> welcome.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Phil
>
> [1] -
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation/Tasks
>
> --
> Phil Bull
> https://launchpad.net/people/philbull
>
>
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