On 05.12.16 17:45, Rich Bowen wrote: > > > On 12/05/2016 07:41 AM, Ulrich Stärk wrote: >>> Or, at the very least, can we make a commitment to track this data going >>>> forward? >> Let me play the devil's advocate here: What for? >> >> GSoC is completely free for the ASF (on the contrary, we even get a small >> amount for every accepted >> student that we can than put towards fulfilling our goals) and as long as we >> have volunteers willing >> to organize it and mentor students we can assume that at least those >> volunteers are seeing value in >> it. Why the stats other than for satisfying our curiosity? > > Because part of Community Development is measuring what you do, so that > you know if it's effective. This isn't a big request. I'm perplexed at > your resistance to it. >
I have seen way too many metrics being misused to justify the wrong actions because metrics are extremely poor when it comes to more complex questions such as what we are currently trying to answer. IMO the only viable approach would be what you call anecdotal but which is in social scienses known as qualitative research which provides extremely deep insights but is also extremely hard (speak effort) to get right. How would you measure the impact on communities by students asking questions regarding a GSoC proposal but not being accepted? But using the knowledge they gained to promote the project at $dayjob later in their career, simply because they once had a short touchpoint. What does it say about a community if somebody becomes a committer and sticks with the project after GSoC? Is one more important than the other long-term? By which factor? And I'd again argue that we don't have to care too much how effective something like GSoC is as long as people are having fun mentoring students. Your experience might not have been fun but then again we are telling mentors to fail students early on when they don't think that anything useful will come out of it. Cheers, Uli --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
