[Mageia-dev] "Job offer" : mentoring program coordinator

Sun Jun 12 18:55:58 CEST 2011

Le 12/06/2011 15:27, Samuel Verschelde a écrit :
+> Hello to everyone,
+> 
+> I'm sure there's someone among you who wants to help Mageia but hasn't found 
+> yet the good way to do it. Today is your lucky day, because there's a job 
+> that's available and can be really useful and interesting: coordinating the 
+> packagers mentoring program.
+> 
+> You know that one key point of success for Mageia is in the ability to welcome 
+> new packagers. The better we will be at it, the better the distro will be. The 
+> packagers mentoring program has been created for that reason and several 
+> packagers have been or are being mentored. But we have some difficulty knowing 
+> who is being mentored by who and who hasn't found a mentor. And we need also 
+> to find more mentors and more apprentices.
+> 
+> During a packagers weekly meeting, misc invited us to read the following 
+> article about mentoring programs in open-source projects: 
+> http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/05/31/effective-mentoring-programs/
+> 
+> I invite those who haven't read it yet, to read it. I'll quote one of the 
+> mentoring best practices that were given: "In bigger projects, keeping track 
+> of who is a mentor, and who is mentoring who, and inviting new mentors, and 
+> ensuring that no-one falls through the cracks when a mentor gets too busy, is 
+> a job of itself."
+> 
+> I'm looking for someone who could fill that "job".
+> 
+> Description of the job:
+> 
+> - keep track of:
+> -- who's being mentored by who, how well it's going
+> -- who needs a mentor and hasn't found one yet (this is one of the most 
+> important parts: no volunteer must be forgotten, volunteers are too precious 
+> !)
+> -- who can mentor more apprentices (and sometimes convince packagers to become 
+> mentors or accept one more apprentice)
+> 
+> - be available for questions from apprentices or mentors, by mail, and if 
+> possible, to be present on the IRC channel #mageia-mentoring on freenode
+> 
+> - help mentors with gathering "junior tasks" (bugzilla is a never empty 
+> reserve that can be used for that. Maybe ask the bug triage team to help 
+> identify such tasks. Maybe a "junior task" keyword in bugzilla would do the 
+> trick)
+> -- small bugs to fix
+> -- new small packages to import in the distribution
+> -- backports
+> 
+> - promote mentoring (empower users into contributers. Working with the 
+> marketing team would be great I think):
+> -- make the mentoring program known (MLs, forums, web, etc.)
+> -- look for new apprentices
+> -- look for new mentors
+> 
+> Some useful skills:
+> - be autonomous (ie no need to check that you're doing the work)
+> - good written english (communication is very important in this job)
+> - knowledge about packaging is a plus but not mandatory (the key aspects can 
+> be taught to you)
+> - being or having been a mentor, or having been mentored would be a plus, but 
+> not mandatory
+> 
+> More information about the job:
+> - does not require a big amount of work, but real committment to the task and 
+> regularity
+> - remember that you have a coordination role, not an authoritative role. The 
+> difference in that is that you're not here to give orders but to facilitate the 
+> mentoring program.
+> - you don't have to be alone to do this job if it's too much for one person: 
+> you can find other helpful people wanting to help you if needed and rely on the 
+> other teams (but finding them *is* part of your job ;) ).
+> -  this "job offer" concerns everything that revolves around the mentoring of 
+> new packagers, but if it's successful maybe other teams can follow the same 
+> approach (i18n, QA, etc... ).
+> -  depending on your level of confidence, experience and will, you could be 
+> helped in your work. Maybe someone from the council can supervise and help you 
+> at least at the beginning; or, if no one steps up, I can help you bootstrap 
+> and organize your new "job".
+> 
+> So, who's in?
+> 
+> Samuel Verschelde
+> 
+I offer my candidacy. I was mentored by shikamaru and i'm a mandriva
+packager since 2009 and a mageia packager since the start.
+My english level is pretty good and i'm pretty sociable.
+
+so!
+-- 
+Sandro Cazzaniga - https://lederniercoupdarchet.wordpress.com
+IRC: Kharec (irc.freenode.net)
+Software/Hardware geek
+Conceptor
+Magnum's Coordinator/editor (http://wiki.mandriva.com/fr/Magnum)
+Mageia and Mandriva contributor
+