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

Mon Jun 13 15:19:26 CEST 2011

Le dimanche 12 juin 2011 18:55:58, Cazzaniga Sandro a écrit :
+> 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.
+> 
+
+Hi,
+
+As explained on IRC yesterday, your candidacy is interesting, but you have 
+already so many other engagements that I would prefer someone with more 
+availability :) So keep on the good work where you're already committed :)
+
+Best regards
+
+Samuel Verschelde
+