> > I think there are two main hurdles, one is restoring contributor interest > in mentoring, and the other is finding newcomers that actually want to > stick around.
I am interested in mentoring new committers to help the project grow and some of the new committers expressed the same interest to me. I believe that it can be a virtuous circle where we produce new committers that help mentoring newcomers. What we need is to be well organized and make sure that we have a reasonable response time to newcomers. Berenguer created this board to help to track newcomers contributions: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=463&quickFilter=2088 Apparently Brandon is cheating to appear as a newcomer but we will solve that. He should be at the Nightmare level ;-) Le mer. 28 avr. 2021 à 10:54, Benedict Elliott Smith <bened...@apache.org> a écrit : > I think there are two main hurdles, one is restoring contributor interest > in mentoring, and the other is finding newcomers that actually want to > stick around. These are perhaps two sides of the same coin, though. An ugly > truth is that it isn't very enjoyable or rewarding to help newcomers when > they mostly don't stick around - often even to complete their first patch! > The patches are mostly uninteresting, the work often done to a low > standard, and it is easy to underestimate the amount of time involved in > every such failed interaction. > > I think making it easier to contribute and demonstrate a lasting interest > in the project without the hand holding of long term contributors may > benefit both sides of the equation, as it is more rewarding to help > somebody who's demonstrated a persistent interest in the community. > > > On 28/04/2021, 03:24, "Paulo Motta" <pauloricard...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > There is no great hurdle in finding something to work on, it's > solely finding > someone with the knowledge that can help you work on something and > progress > it to commit. > > I agree the primary challenge is to engage existing contributors to > mentor > newcomers, but this doesn’t preclude having good documentation and a > well > maintained task pool to allow newcomers to self-serve as much as > possible > and reduce the mentoring burden, so these efforts are complimentary. > > For instance, a few students were interested in picking random tasks to > work on in preparation for Google Summer of Code, but it was not > straightforward for them to find a task to work on because we don’t > consistently label tickets as “Low Hanging Fruit” and the ones that are > tagged sometimes don’t have meaningful descriptions making it hard for > these students to get started on tasks without unnecessarily taking > some > time from the mentor (which could have been saved if the tasks were > properly described and labeled in the first place). > > On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 at 22:24 Kane Wilson <k...@raft.so> wrote: > > > The main problem, as has always been, is that the big players have a > > stranglehold on all the committer resources, and bringing in new > > contributors is not high on their priorities. All that's really > required > > here is that existing committers are directed to spend some > non-negligible > > portion of their time assisting non-committers (especially those not > > already employed in their own organisation). That should really be a > > starting point, as any other measures you take will not help until > the time > > is allocated so people can actually receive feedback and help from > the > > small pool of knowledge available. > > > > There is no great hurdle in finding something to work on, it's solely > > finding someone with the knowledge that can help you work on > something and > > progress it to commit. > > > > > > > Run a committer incubator program: Take applications for a small > number > > > of spots(5-10) and mentor these new engineers through learning the > code > > > base, understanding the contribution process, and eventually making > > > substantive code contributions to the project. The eventual goal > is that > > > those who finish will be added as a committer to the project. This > could > > be > > > as big or small as we want but I can see all sorts of great things > that > > > could come of this. > > > > > > This is a great idea as a follow up (i.e, after there is evidence > that > > contributions are being progressed), as it would give a more concrete > > process and confidence for existing contributors that they can > eventually > > become committers, and insight into what work is required. > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@cassandra.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@cassandra.apache.org > >
