On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 8:01 AM Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org> wrote:

Doug Hellmann wrote:
> Kendall Nelson <kennelson11@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?  

 

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).

 

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)

-Kendall (diablo_rojo)