[tc] The future of the "Help most needed" list

Kendall Nelson kennelson11 at gmail.com
Tue Feb 12 19:05:34 UTC 2019


On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 12:21 AM Ghanshyam Mann <gmann at ghanshyammann.com>
wrote:

>  ---- On Tue, 12 Feb 2019 02:14:56 +0900 Kendall Nelson <
> kennelson11 at gmail.com> wrote ----
>  >
>  >
>  > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 8:01 AM Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org>
> wrote:
>  > Doug Hellmann wrote:
>  >  > Kendall Nelson <kennelson11 at gmail.com> writes:
>  >  >> [...]
>  >  >> So I think that the First Contact SIG project liaison list kind of
> fits
>  >  >> this. Its already maintained in a wiki and its already a list of
> people
>  >  >> willing to be contacted for helping people get started. It probably
> just
>  >  >> needs more attention and refreshing. When it was first set up we
> (the FC
>  >  >> SIG) kind of went around begging for volunteers and then once we
> maxxed out
>  >  >> on them, we said those projects without volunteers will have the
> role
>  >  >> defaulted to the PTL unless they delegate (similar to how other
> liaison
>  >  >> roles work).
>  >  >>
>  >  >> Long story short, I think we have the sort of mentoring things
> covered. And
>  >  >> to back up an earlier email, project specific onboarding would be a
> good
>  >  >> help too.
>  >  >
>  >  > OK, that does sound pretty similar. I guess the piece that's missing
> is
>  >  > a description of the sort of help the team is interested in
> receiving.
>  >
>  >  I guess the key difference is that the first contact list is more a
>  >  function of the team (who to contact for first contributions in this
>  >  team, defaults to PTL), rather than a distinct offer to do 1:1
> mentoring
>  >  to cover specific needs in a team.
>  >
>  >  It's probably pretty close (and the same people would likely be
>  >  involved), but I think an approach where specific people offer a
>  >  significant amount of their time to one mentee interested in joining a
>  >  team is a bit different. I don't think every team would have
> volunteers
>  >  to do that. I would not expect a mentor volunteer to care for several
>  >  mentees. In the end I think we would end up with a much shorter list
>  >  than the FC list.
>  >
>  > I think our original ask for people volunteering (before we completed
> the list with PTLs as stand ins) was for people willing to help get started
> in a project and look after their first few patches. So I think that was
> kinda the mentoring role originally but then it evolved? Maybe Matt Oliver
> or Ghanshyam remember better than I do?
>
> Yeah, that's right.
>
>  >  Maybe the two efforts can converge into one, or they can be kept as
> two
>  >  different things but coordinated by the same team ?
>  >
>  >
>  > I think we could go either way, but that they both would live with the
> FC SIG. Seems like the most logical place to me. I lean towards two lists,
> one being a list of volunteer mentors for projects that are actively
> looking for new contributors (the shorter list) and the other being a list
> of people just willing to keep an eye out for the welcome new contributor
> patches and being the entry point for people asking about getting started
> that don't know anyone in the project yet (kind of what our current view
> is, I think).  --
>
> IMO, very first thing to make help-wanted list a success is, it has to be
> uptodate per development cycle, mentor-mapping(or with example workflow
> etc). By Keeping the help-wanted list in any place other than the project
> team again leads to existing problem for example it will be hard to
> prioritize, maintain and easy to get obsolete/outdated. FC SIG, D&I WG are
> great place to market/redirect the contributors to the list.
>
> The model I was thinking is:
> 1. Project team maintain the help-wanted-list per current development
> cycle. Entry criteria in that list is some volunteer mentor(exmaple
> workflow/patch) which are technically closer to that topic.
>

I was thinking more yearly than per release if its not too much work for
project teams.

I think each item on the list also needs clear completion criteria. If the
item hasn't been picked up in like two releases or something we (the FC
SIG) can send it back to the project team to make sure its still relevant,
the mentor is correct, etc.


> 2. During PTG/developer meetup, PTL checks if planned/discussed topic
> needs to be in help-wanted list and who will serve as the mentor.
> 3. The list has to be updated in every developement cycle. It can be empty
> if any project team does not need help during that cycle or few items can
> be carry-forward if those are still a priority and have mentor mapping.
> 4. FC SIG,  D&I WG, Mentoring team use that list and publish in all
> possible place. Redirect new contributors to that list depends on the
> contributor interested area. This will be the key role to make
> help-wanted-list success.
>
> -gmann
>
>  >  Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>  >
>  > -Kendall (diablo_rojo)
>
>
-Kendall (diablo_rojo)
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