Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-16 Thread Russ Allbery 
Ana Guerrero  writes:

> I see your point. In these cases, the "mentor" was more treating the
> GSoC program as a bounty program or a way to have "contractors" paid at
> the expense of somebody else. It wasn't a real mentoring scheme.

Ah, yes, that's certainly a problem.

> This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and
> create a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to
> happen inside the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian. In fact, some
> Debian teams already do this, but fail to announce it clearly. When an
> interested user ask, we tend to say: "if you want new version of X in
> Debian, we need help" instead of "we welcome new contributors. If you
> don't have a lot of experience, don't worry, we'll mentor you! Please
> take a look at this and if you can questions mails us to X and/or join
> us in IRC" or something along these lines :)

Indeed.

Of course, some of that problem is that mentoring can be a lot of work!
This is always one of the challenges for free-time activities; people like
doing things that are fun and simple and directly personally rewarding.
While mentoring can be that, it isn't always.

I've been spending the day poking around on video game forums since one of
the tracking sites I'm particularly fond of just redid part of how they do
one of their statistical score calculations, and there's a lot of
resulting discussion.  That prompts me to wonder if mentoring is an area
of Debian that would benefit from some sort of gamification
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification).  I do all sorts of things in
video games that I might not otherwise do, and even things that aren't
particularly fun, because I get rewarded with an achievement or score of
some kind.

I think there was some prior discussion of badges and awards inside
Debian.  I'm not sure if that project ever reached fruition.  But I do
think that one very effective way to provide an incentive is to reward
action with some sort of collectable or score, thereby engaging people's
joy of accumulating.

The hard part of a good sceme is figuring out what to measure to award
badges or score or what have you, since mentoring is somewhat fuzzy and
difficult to measure with a computer.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87li9mn5wy@windlord.stanford.edu

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-13 Thread Lucas Nussbaum 
On 13/03/13 at 08:03 +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:54:44AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 2:55 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> > 
> > > Ubuntu does https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek - a set of
> > > seminars on IRC to teach Ubuntu development. I'm not sure of how useful
> > > that is (I've never attended it) and if we should do it too. AFAIK we
> > > don't do that inside Debian. But I thought it was worth mentioning.
> > 
> > In Debian we mostly do continuous mentoring on all topics on the
> > debian-mentors IRC channel and mailing list rather than specific
> > sessions at specific times.
> 
> Such things work great if you already know where to get started. If you
> don't, it might be more difficult. I think it's a normal fact that some
> people require a bit more handholding than others, at the beginning; but
> that doesn't mean they're less capable.
> 
> Having an IRC seminar with basic information on what to do seems like a
> great way to get started, to me.

I'm not very up-to-date on the status of Free Software
video-conferencing tools, but maybe that's something that could be done
that way. Also, for packaging tutorials, we have slides already (hint
hint) ;)

Lucas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130313075329.gb19...@xanadu.blop.info

Re: [Soc-coordination] mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-13 Thread Vincent Cheng 
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Lucas Nussbaum  wrote:

> And I also think that in terms of internship programs (=~ "full-time
> work inside the project during the summer"), we should explore joining
> other programs and/or creating our own.

If there's anything that I hope to see happen from this discussion,
it's probably the above. I think that Debian can benefit greatly from
having its own (semi-)formal internship/mentorship program, in
addition to existing channels (i.e. mailing lists and IRC). The
closest thing we have right now are team initiatives like Debian Med's
MoM, but I'm hoping for a project-wide initiative. We want to attract
contributors to the project that stay long-term, and having a bit of a
personalized touch would definitely help new and prospective
contributors to stay and engage with the rest of the community, and to
continue working on Debian even after GSoC/GCI, or whatever internship
program they were involved in, ends.

I'm not sure about the details, but we could look into establishing
something similar to X.org's EVoC [1] program, although possibly
without the cash prizes (I doubt that there's going to be enough
interest for funding to be justified).

Regards,
Vincent

[1] http://www.x.org/wiki/XorgEVoC


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/caczd_ta1t4zxr3rjnxwsqutlxxajbapekzfyljtu2_twtar...@mail.gmail.com

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-13 Thread Wouter Verhelst 
On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:54:44AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 2:55 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> 
> > Ubuntu does https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek - a set of
> > seminars on IRC to teach Ubuntu development. I'm not sure of how useful
> > that is (I've never attended it) and if we should do it too. AFAIK we
> > don't do that inside Debian. But I thought it was worth mentioning.
> 
> In Debian we mostly do continuous mentoring on all topics on the
> debian-mentors IRC channel and mailing list rather than specific
> sessions at specific times.

Such things work great if you already know where to get started. If you
don't, it might be more difficult. I think it's a normal fact that some
people require a bit more handholding than others, at the beginning; but
that doesn't mean they're less capable.

Having an IRC seminar with basic information on what to do seems like a
great way to get started, to me.

> I guess some folks learn better the other
> way and might benefit better from specific sessions so it might be
> interesting to do both. I'm not sure about the full week part though,
> maybe something more continuous would be good.
> 
> -- 
> bye,
> pabs
> 
> http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
> Archive: 
> http://lists.debian.org/caktje6egod-_gr7suruvjwzaopeh5phnylw19u_p167csc4...@mail.gmail.com
> 
> 

-- 
Copyshops should do vouchers. So that next time some bureaucracy requires you
to mail a form in triplicate, you can mail it just once, add a voucher, and
save on postage.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130313070311.gd11...@grep.be

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Paul Wise 
On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 2:55 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

> Ubuntu does https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek - a set of
> seminars on IRC to teach Ubuntu development. I'm not sure of how useful
> that is (I've never attended it) and if we should do it too. AFAIK we
> don't do that inside Debian. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

In Debian we mostly do continuous mentoring on all topics on the
debian-mentors IRC channel and mailing list rather than specific
sessions at specific times. I guess some folks learn better the other
way and might benefit better from specific sessions so it might be
interesting to do both. I'm not sure about the full week part though,
maybe something more continuous would be good.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/caktje6egod-_gr7suruvjwzaopeh5phnylw19u_p167csc4...@mail.gmail.com

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Lucas Nussbaum 
Hi,

On 12/03/13 at 21:56 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 07:50:27PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> > On 12/03/13 at 14:14 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> ..
> > > 
> > > This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and create
> > > a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to happen 
> > > inside
> > > the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian.
> > 
> > Nothing really needs to happen inside GSoC. But GSoC provide several
> > advantages:
> > - there's a rigid framework (deadlines, etc) that help the student organize
> >   and focus
> > - the student gets paid by Google
> > - the student gets to mention both Debian and Google on his CV, which is
> >   probably seen positively by future recruiters.
> 
> Yeah, and also the GSoC have a huge disadvantage, it is available only to a 
> tiny
> small percentage of the population who have the privilege of getting a higher
> education, then only if their school load and life responsibilities allow them
> to participate in the program.
> 
> It would also be good for us to encourage our own programs to a wider and 
> diverse
> population, instead of relying exclusively on the rules set by a 
> non-free-software
> company. And assuming that students want non-free-software companies on their 
> CV.
> 
> Your whole point here somehow seems to be against this internship idea While
> you seemed to agree previously that all of these internship-like things
> (GSoC, NM, team-trainee, ...) are good.

You wrote:
> This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" [..] doesn't 
> need
> to happen inside the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian.

I agree that this kind of mentoring can happen already in Debian, but
that's not a reason not to do it in GSoC. I was pointing that GSoC
offers several advantages that might not be easy to offer in other
programs.

I think that it would be better to talk about "mentoring schemes" rather
than "internship-like things". I'm not sure if it's a cultural issue,
but in my mind, internship go with "working full time".

I think that it's good to have a wide variety of "mentoring schemes", to
address different needs and possibilities, in terms of available time,
of status, of focus, etc.

And I also think that in terms of internship programs (=~ "full-time
work inside the project during the summer"), we should explore joining
other programs and/or creating our own.

Lucas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312214431.gd10...@xanadu.blop.info

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer 
On Tue 12 Mar 2013 17:56:10 Ana Guerrero escribió:
[snip] 
> Yeah, and also the GSoC have a huge disadvantage, it is available only to a
> tiny small percentage of the population who have the privilege of getting
> a higher education, then only if their school load and life
> responsibilities allow them to participate in the program.

Without taking into account that summer is happening just in the northern 
hemisphere. In the remaining of the globe, we are not on holidays.


-- 
Esperando confirmación de ingredientes necesarios
que serán expuestos a la radiación...
  Manera geek de expresar que se espera la compra
  de carne para un típico asado argentino.
  Silvio Rikemberg.

Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer
http://perezmeyer.com.ar/
http://perezmeyer.blogspot.com/


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Ana Guerrero 
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 07:50:27PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> On 12/03/13 at 14:14 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
..
> > 
> > This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and create
> > a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to happen inside
> > the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian.
> 
> Nothing really needs to happen inside GSoC. But GSoC provide several
> advantages:
> - there's a rigid framework (deadlines, etc) that help the student organize
>   and focus
> - the student gets paid by Google
> - the student gets to mention both Debian and Google on his CV, which is
>   probably seen positively by future recruiters.

Yeah, and also the GSoC have a huge disadvantage, it is available only to a tiny
small percentage of the population who have the privilege of getting a higher
education, then only if their school load and life responsibilities allow them
to participate in the program.

It would also be good for us to encourage our own programs to a wider and 
diverse
population, instead of relying exclusively on the rules set by a 
non-free-software
company. And assuming that students want non-free-software companies on their 
CV.

Your whole point here somehow seems to be against this internship idea While
you seemed to agree previously that all of these internship-like things
(GSoC, NM, team-trainee, ...) are good.

Ana


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312205610.ga30...@pryan.ekaia.org

Re: [Soc-coordination] mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Wolodja Wentland 
Hi Ana,

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 14:14 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:

> I see your point. In these cases, the "mentor" was more treating the GSoC
> program as a bounty program or a way to have "contractors" paid at the expense
> of somebody else. It wasn't a real mentoring scheme.
> 
> This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and create
> a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to happen inside
> the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian. In fact, some Debian teams already
> do this, but fail to announce it clearly. When an interested user ask,
> we tend to say: "if you want new version of X in Debian, we need help" instead
> of "we welcome new contributors. If you don't have a lot of experience, don't
> worry, we'll mentor you! Please take a look at this and if you can questions
> mails us to X and/or join us in IRC" or something along these lines :)

Would you mind elaborating on this? The background to this is that I am
currently considering mentoring the "Leiningen & Clojure packaging" project
[0] and your comments make me think twice about commiting to this. I thought
that the proposal has merit and would allow an interested student to gather
valuable insights into Debian and its packaging infrastructure or tooling.

[0] 
http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects#Leiningen_.26_Clojure_packaging
-- 
Wolodja 

4096R/CAF14EFC
081C B7CD FF04 2BA9 94EA  36B2 8B7F 7D30 CAF1 4EFC


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread gregor herrmann 
On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:55:42 +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

> "schools/seminars"
> --
> Ubuntu does https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek - a set of
> seminars on IRC to teach Ubuntu development. I'm not sure of how useful
> that is (I've never attended it) and if we should do it too. AFAIK we
> don't do that inside Debian. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

There have been some IRC Training Sessions organized by the Debian
Women team:
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWomen/Projects/Events/TrainingSessions

Cheers,
gregor

-- 
 .''`.  Homepage: http://info.comodo.priv.at/ - OpenPGP key 0xBB3A68018649AA06
 : :' : Debian GNU/Linux user, admin, and developer  -  http://www.debian.org/
 `. `'  Member of VIBE!AT & SPI, fellow of the Free Software Foundation Europe
   `-   NP: Bob Dylan: It's All Good


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Lucas Nussbaum 
On 12/03/13 at 13:18 +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> What I can think about:

Forgot something:

"schools/seminars"
--
Ubuntu does https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek - a set of
seminars on IRC to teach Ubuntu development. I'm not sure of how useful
that is (I've never attended it) and if we should do it too. AFAIK we
don't do that inside Debian. But I thought it was worth mentioning.
 
Lucas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312185542.gd8...@xanadu.blop.info

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Lucas Nussbaum 
On 12/03/13 at 14:14 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> Hi Russ,
> 
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 03:03:42PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > Ana Guerrero  writes:
> > 
> > > - For some DDs in previous years, this seemed to be a way to have students
> > >   doing stuff from their TODO lists...
> > 
> > Just a quick note on this part: I don't think this is inherently a bad
> > idea, although of course it should be something the student is also
> > excited about.  But I remember what I was like when I was in high school:
> > I really wanted to program, but I was horrible at coming up with useful
> > things to do.  I needed a good problem stream that I could work on and
> > then I enjoyed finding ways to solve the problems.  Not everyone is like
> > that, of course, but I do think there are people out there who just want
> > to put skills to use and learn how to do new things but don't know how to
> > select good and useful problems to work on.
> > 
> > On the general topic of mentoring, though, I think one of the hardest
> > parts of helping new people join the project is that people need to start
> > with relatively easy tasks so that they can get their feet wet.  That
> > often means that one needs to step back and let new people do things that
> > are easy for the mentor, which in turn means leaving easy work undone for
> > long enough to give people a chance to do it.
> 
> 
> I see your point. In these cases, the "mentor" was more treating the GSoC
> program as a bounty program or a way to have "contractors" paid at the expense
> of somebody else. It wasn't a real mentoring scheme.
> 
> This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and create
> a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to happen inside
> the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian.

Nothing really needs to happen inside GSoC. But GSoC provide several
advantages:
- there's a rigid framework (deadlines, etc) that help the student organize
  and focus
- the student gets paid by Google
- the student gets to mention both Debian and Google on his CV, which is
  probably seen positively by future recruiters.
 
Lucas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312185027.gc8...@xanadu.blop.info

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Ana Guerrero 
Hi Russ,

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 03:03:42PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Ana Guerrero  writes:
> 
> > - For some DDs in previous years, this seemed to be a way to have students
> >   doing stuff from their TODO lists...
> 
> Just a quick note on this part: I don't think this is inherently a bad
> idea, although of course it should be something the student is also
> excited about.  But I remember what I was like when I was in high school:
> I really wanted to program, but I was horrible at coming up with useful
> things to do.  I needed a good problem stream that I could work on and
> then I enjoyed finding ways to solve the problems.  Not everyone is like
> that, of course, but I do think there are people out there who just want
> to put skills to use and learn how to do new things but don't know how to
> select good and useful problems to work on.
> 
> On the general topic of mentoring, though, I think one of the hardest
> parts of helping new people join the project is that people need to start
> with relatively easy tasks so that they can get their feet wet.  That
> often means that one needs to step back and let new people do things that
> are easy for the mentor, which in turn means leaving easy work undone for
> long enough to give people a chance to do it.


I see your point. In these cases, the "mentor" was more treating the GSoC
program as a bounty program or a way to have "contractors" paid at the expense
of somebody else. It wasn't a real mentoring scheme.

This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and create
a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to happen inside
the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian. In fact, some Debian teams already
do this, but fail to announce it clearly. When an interested user ask,
we tend to say: "if you want new version of X in Debian, we need help" instead
of "we welcome new contributors. If you don't have a lot of experience, don't
worry, we'll mentor you! Please take a look at this and if you can questions
mails us to X and/or join us in IRC" or something along these lines :)

Ana


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312131416.ga12...@pryan.ekaia.org

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Lucas Nussbaum 
On 11/03/13 at 21:56 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> [Some sort-of thread hijacking]
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
> I see this thread going nowhere and it's a pity because discussing new
> ways to integrate contributors in Debian is a topic worth discussing.
> 
> I have been involved in GSoC in the editions 2011 and 2012 and in
> Code-in 2011. Besides that, I mentored a now DD inside the Debian Women
> mentoring program. All those mentoring programs were *very* different
> therefore producing different results. And I'm sure we can use more 
> schemes of recruiting/attracting new contributors.
> 
> The question I would love to see answered by you both is:
> What new schemes of mentoring/integrating new contributors do you
> envisage we could try in Debian?

Interesting question. You write about "new mentoring schemes", I'm going
to extend the scope a bit to "improvable schemes".  I hope you don't mind.
I think we have many different schemes, and I'm not sure that we need
to add new ones. But we could "optimize" some of them a bit.

The various schemes are all (or most of them) useful. Different schemes
suit different people, so it's important to continue to offer them.

So, what do we offer in terms of mentoring in Debian? That's a pretty
good question and actually, we should have an overview of that somewhere
on the website or the wiki.

What I can think about:

per-upload mentoring using -mentors@ and mentors.debian.net
---
(it's not strictly per-upload, but at least it starts that way)
this works quite well. I see two ways we could improve that:
- work on the mentors.d.n infrastructure:
  + include more automated checks by default (packages could be built
and tested with piuparts, for example)
  + include a social dimension (with karma and stuff). People would be
able to review others' packages and earn points when comments
are good-quality.
- localize -mentors. We could have language-specific lists and IRC
  channels for the languages that are quite well represented in Debian
  (FR, DE, ES, etc.). Often, the language barrier is a problem for
  young contributors.

list of easy/starting tasks
---
We do it, AFAIK:
- through bugs tagged 'gift'. This does not work very well. Maybe
  advertising that more could be enough to improve that.
- through listing tasks in the team pages (see the "starred" ideas on
  e.g. http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Ruby). We need to encourage all
  teams to have such lists on their pages.

mentoring inside teams
--
Like https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/MoM. That's a very good idea. We
could build a list of teams willing to mentor someone, and publish that
list in a "call for mentorees".

NM process
--
Not strictly-speaking mentoring: it would be better if the mentoring
happened mostly outside (before) the NM process to relieve the load on
the AM.

Internship-like (e.g. GSoC)
---
That's a nice way to get involved for people who can dedicate a lot of
time to Debian for a short period of time. We could explore
participation into other programs, such as
https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen


So, to summarize the key ideas:
- build an overview of mentoring schemes offered by Debian
- improve mentors.d.n
- localize -mentors@
- advertise our lists of easy tasks
- develop mentoring inside teams
- explore other internship-like programs

If elected, that's clearly something I'd like to push. It's also a field
where I would welcome help from others.

Lucas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312121803.ga27...@xanadu.blop.info

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Moray Allan 

On 2013-03-12 01:03, Russ Allbery wrote:

On the general topic of mentoring, though, I think one of the hardest
parts of helping new people join the project is that people need to 
start

with relatively easy tasks so that they can get their feet wet.


Yes.  Even where there is an existing list of tasks, these will often 
be too hard to be a good introduction for new people.  Or otherwise, 
easy but boring and not introducing enough aspects of a team's work.  Or 
too urgent to have a working solution for, so that depending on the new 
person completing one quickly is dangerous and unfair.


In some areas it may be better to start with artificial tasks.  Already 
in Debian we have often used artificial tasks in the NM process, as a 
quick way of checking skills that weren't demonstrated by past activity: 
e.g. asking how to respond to a specified list of invented bug reports, 
or asking to find some of the problems in licences that we already know 
are bad.


In some other areas, it might be necessary for people to start just by 
"shadowing" the activity of someone experienced.  Even these cases can 
give the new people a real insight into the relevant area of work just 
from seeing what is done and seeing how decisions are made, and much 
more so if the experienced people take the time to work through some 
decisions with them in depth, listening to the person's suggestions 
before responding with comments from their own experience.


--
Moray


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/e619f6037a66fc178291860feb778...@www.morayallan.com

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-12 Thread Moray Allan 

On 2013-03-11 23:56, Ana Guerrero wrote:

The question I would love to see answered by you both is:
What new schemes of mentoring/integrating new contributors do you
envisage we could try in Debian?


I'm sure there are more possibilities that I haven't thought of yet, 
but I can see space for several types.  For example:


- General new contributors: Recruit people and train them on how to 
work on topics that interest them.  Even if they don't end up working on 
those topics permanently, it could help draw them into Debian more 
generally.  As well as packaging and coding, these internships could 
cover design, documentation writing, publicity work, or any other type 
of Debian role.


- Targetted groups: Advertising schemes aimed at students (like GSoC) 
or women or retired people or any other underrepresented group can help 
us pull in Debian contributors from a wider pool.


- Existing contributors: Some existing contributors might want to 
participate in the previous type of scheme directly, to learn about a 
new area.  But I can also imagine some team internships that are only 
open to existing Debian contributors, like the FTPTrainees scheme.[1]  
These would likely be used by teams to recruit new members, but I think 
they can also serve a wider purpose than that -- where time and energy 
is available, it's valuable just to have more people around who 
understand in detail the type of work done by each team.


Within each type, schemes could obviously be longer or shorter/more or 
less detailed/more about mentoring or shadowing, depending on the 
resources available.


Each of these types has been tried already in specific parts of Debian, 
so we should of course try to learn from those experiences in running 
any future wider schemes -- thanks for sharing some of your own thoughts 
about GSoC.


--
Moray

[1] 
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/09/msg1.html



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/b675d1872fec9e7566d1199533812...@www.morayallan.com

Re: mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-11 Thread Russ Allbery 
Ana Guerrero  writes:

> - For some DDs in previous years, this seemed to be a way to have students
>   doing stuff from their TODO lists...

Just a quick note on this part: I don't think this is inherently a bad
idea, although of course it should be something the student is also
excited about.  But I remember what I was like when I was in high school:
I really wanted to program, but I was horrible at coming up with useful
things to do.  I needed a good problem stream that I could work on and
then I enjoyed finding ways to solve the problems.  Not everyone is like
that, of course, but I do think there are people out there who just want
to put skills to use and learn how to do new things but don't know how to
select good and useful problems to work on.

On the general topic of mentoring, though, I think one of the hardest
parts of helping new people join the project is that people need to start
with relatively easy tasks so that they can get their feet wet.  That
often means that one needs to step back and let new people do things that
are easy for the mentor, which in turn means leaving easy work undone for
long enough to give people a chance to do it.

I think this can be a real struggle with mature teams.  I know I'm not the
only person in Debian with a strong interest in time management techniques
(it's even already come up in candidate statements), and one thing that's
virtually universal in time management literature is that one should do
easy things immediately rather than letting them accumulate.  Part of what
I've always found challenging in mentoring is that I have to step back and
*not* follow my normal work process to give someone else a chance to work
through the easy things that will help them build familiarity with the
overall structure.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/874nghoapt@windlord.stanford.edu

mentoring programs in Debian

2013-03-11 Thread Ana Guerrero 
[Some sort-of thread hijacking]

Hi folks,

I see this thread going nowhere and it's a pity because discussing new
ways to integrate contributors in Debian is a topic worth discussing.

I have been involved in GSoC in the editions 2011 and 2012 and in
Code-in 2011. Besides that, I mentored a now DD inside the Debian Women
mentoring program. All those mentoring programs were *very* different
therefore producing different results. And I'm sure we can use more 
schemes of recruiting/attracting new contributors.

The question I would love to see answered by you both is:
What new schemes of mentoring/integrating new contributors do you
envisage we could try in Debian?


Some notes about GSoC and packaging projects that was IMHO uselessly
discussed in this thread.  In previous years we didn't accept packaging
 projects in GSoC for several reasons:

- We already have some sort of mentoring program in Debian for people
wanting to package: debian-mentors list and the website.

- Something that is packaged needs later a maintainer.

- Packaging something you don't use sucks. This is linked to the
previous point: possibility of keep the maintenance later of something
you don't use...

- For some DDs in previous years, this seemed to be a way to have students
doing stuff from their TODO lists...

- Sometimes packaging works need waiting in third parties (e.g. license
clarification) and this can not be done in the scope of the GSoC. We must
avoid at all cost a project were the student lost their time waiting
for somebody else.

- Google's program is mostly about code. They are on purpose vague about
this and don't enforce it strongly, but the student needs to upload to
Google's server their code at the end of the summer. My interpretation
of this is the project doesn't need to be 100% coding but it must have
some coding part. In this regard we have some projects last year where
the student needed to write patches.

If you check last year project list, we offered a project that fitted
in the "packaging project" category because we were told by the
mentor-to-be that the project included coding. We gave the mentor
the benefit of the doubt, but when we saw the student's proposal
themselves, it actually didn't have enough coding within it and they
weren't very good, so we didn't have this project even if it's still 
listed.

Ana


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130311205602.ga19...@pryan.ekaia.org