The biggest issue with mentor disengagement IMO is that when incubation starts to take longer than 9 months it is hard to maintain focus and engagement if you are not a user/member of the incubating community (and its code).
So while we can start measuring AWOL mentors and try to fix that by adding more administrative duties, perhaps we might think about reasons mentors loose interest. For example, my interest for a project I'm not involved in or invested in in my $dayjob can only last for a couple of months, a year tops. Longer than that, you might see my interest wane. So IM we should strive to make incubation take not longer than a year or so. Or when incubation takes longer, have a plan to switch mentors, perhaps a new mentor might bring a new graduation spirit into the project. That brings me to my second understanding of mentor (human) nature, which is that not everybody is created equal and one person is better in starting things, the other is better in making things manageable and the other is better in getting results. In the life time of a podling different focuses are needed, and perhaps not all mentors are good in all these phases of incubation. When I'm not very good in something, my interest often times wanes... So we have setting up a podling which can be quite invigorating the first few months, but then we have to start cranking out a release, have the i's dotted and t's crossed, add new members etc. Getting a project running is fun for some, others dread having to go through the signing up for new mailing lists, getting a git repository, having to explain that github is not the canonical repository for ASF projects, etc. So in short: - strive to keep incubation short - use different types of mentors for different types of incubation phases Just my thoughts. Martijn On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 1:18 PM, Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote: > Fellow mentors, > > There was a conversation at ApacheCon about the Incubator. I'll leave it to > the other participants to champion the particular parts that they are > passionate about, but I was particularly concerned with mentor > disengagement, and suggestions for improving it. > > A mentor's role is to help a project learn the ropes at the ASF, and that > mentor might not necessarily be deeply versed in the particular technology > that the podling works with. As such, it can frequently be the case that the > mentor becomes disengaged from the daily conversation of the lists, and > eventually with the entire process. > > As a means of refocusing the mentors' efforts, and keeping them engaged, I'd > like to encourage each mentor (or group of mentors) to consider writing a > running report (ie, evolving, updated every quarter) based on > https://community.apache.org/apache-way/apache-project-maturity-model.html > where they evaluate each point on the maturity model, as a path towards > graduation. This gives a concrete target, and a lens through which to view > the podling's progress towards that target. > > This could be kept in the incubator wiki, and linked from the official > project report, or it could be maintained just for your own benefit. I think > it would be particularly useful to attach to a graduation recommendation, as > a sign that the recommendation is more than just checking the various boxes, > but is a glowing endorsement of the project's readiness to be TLP. > > As a side-note, I'd also encourage mentors who are mentors in name only, and > not reality, to consider cleaning up the paperwork by removing themselves > from the roster. It doesn't look great when a podling can't get mentor > signoff on their reports. > > -- > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > -- Become a Wicket expert, learn from the best: http://wicketinaction.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
