Ubuntu mentors

[crimsun at fungus.sh.nu]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 11:39:43PM -0400, aysiu wrote:
> I'd love to be a mentor to a new user, but I'm a bit apprehensive.

Sure, I can understand your apprehension. It can be a bit overwhelming
initially, but one of the strengths of this community is our desire to
make things work well. We have two excellent releases under our belt,
no? Surely in the time that you've begun using Ubuntu you've seen how
tremendous a force you yourself can be when you simply take the time to
answer a question considerately.

> First of all, while I have had the privilege of helping a handful of
> new users with Ubuntu and Linux in general, I'm by no means an
> expert--I've been using Linux only a few months.

As is well-known but oft-overlooked, mentoring is not about being an
expert; it's about spending time helping be it for a few seconds, a
few minutes, a few hours, a few years, or a lifetime.

> Secondly, it's kind of like online dating, isn't it? I mean, you're not
> really dating the mentee, but you are forming a rather intimate (albeit
> platonic) relationship with a virtual stranger you "met" online. For
> safety's sake, does that mean mentees and their potential mentors
> should meet in public places first, get to know each other a little?

No one stated that mentoring has to occur in an isolated (even in this
virtual community) environment. There are all sorts of avenues to
establishing comfortable exchanges.

> The idea in general sounds good, but the logistics are a bit fuzzy.

My opinion - the bulk of the infrastructure is already in place.

Cheers,
-- 
Daniel T. Chen            crimsun at ubuntu.com
GPG key:   www.sh.nu/~crimsun/pubkey.gpg.asc
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