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

Tue Jun 14 10:51:18 CEST 2011

Samuel Verschelde a écrit :
+>
+> Le lundi 13 juin 2011 00:52:18, andre999 a écrit :
+>> 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/
+>>
+>> Very interesting, especially many of the comments.
+>>
+>>> 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
+>>
+>> That is an excellent idea, a mentoring program coordinator.
+>> I've had some thoughts along those lines for some time.
+>> I'd be glad to contribute, especially via email and editing the wiki, where
+>> I could almost always respond the same day.
+>> But my time zone availability (generally after 22h utc) puts me at a
+>> disadvantage for irc communications and meetings.
+>> (But as part of a coordinating team, that should work well.)
+>>
+>> Maintaining the mentor/apprentice database, as Kharec suggested, is to me a
+>> key part of the role. Information such as mentors available, and their
+>> strengths/focus, usual time zones available, communication modes
+>> preferred, languages spoken, and current apprentices, Would-be apprentices
+>> should have similar information listed.
+>> Not much different from the information currently in variously wiki pages,
+>> but maintained by the coordinator in one location.
+>>
+>> <aside>
+>> One thing that occurred to me is that there is no imperative that mentoring
+>> process happens only in English.  If an apprentice is more comfortable in
+>> another language, and they find a mentor speaking that language, why not ?
+>>   Sure, it is useful to have basic English knowledge, but it is evident
+>> that many (if not most) contributors speak English as a second language.
+>> </aside>
+>>
+>> Experience packaging, either as a mentor or apprentice is highly
+>> recommended in my view, at least for the key person.  (My experience is as
+>> a apprentice with Shikamaru -- an excellent mentor, btw -- and my time
+>> zone availability is probably why I haven't officially completed the
+>> process.) Also some programming experience could be useful.  (I imagine
+>> that most candidates would have that.)
+>>
+>> But also mentoring can apply to other things than packaging.  So maybe we
+>> should give a broader scope to the mentoring coordinator job ?
+>> Including bugteam, QA, as well as packaging.
+>> That would make it more useful, as well as more interesting.
+>> (I would be very interested in contributing to something like that.)
+>>
+>> So what does everyone think ?
+>
+> Thanks for the input, but there's one point that's still unclear to me : do
+> you candidate for the job ? :p
+>
+> (the timezone question can be a problem, but not necessarily a blocking one)
+>
+> Samuel
+
+Yes :)
+It's an important task, and I think I would do it well.
+With my (albeit somewhat limited) packaging experience and getting to better know the community, I 
+have a much better understanding of the whole Mageia development process than I did even a few 
+months ago.  And how this fits in.
+
+-- 
+André
+