Dang. I missed that. Ross is exactly right here. GREAT idea.
I am going to push this all over. On Mon, Jul 2, 2018 at 8:27 PM <r...@gardler.org> wrote: > There is one insight here that I particularly like and I believe helps me > find a good compromise that I’ve struggled with for years. I’m a fan of CTR > rather than RTC for committers. However, I recognize that a number of > projects don’t share my views on this. I ***love*** your solution and will > quote it in case people missed it because you said “As a minor point” – I > think it is a key point: > > > > “As a minor point, we also changed our "review-then-commit" policy to > require that *either* the reviewer or the author be a committer. Previously > the reviewer had to be a committer. Rationale: if we trust someone as a > committer, we should trust their choice of reviewer. This also helps the > community, as it engages non-committers as reviewers.” > > > > I like your overall process, but I especially applaud this insight – thank > you beam community. > > > > Ross > > > > > > From: Kenneth Knowles <k...@google.com> > Sent: Monday, July 2, 2018 4:47 PM > To: dev <d...@beam.apache.org> > Cc: memb...@apache.org; dev@community.apache.org; Griselda Cuevas < > g...@apache.org> > Subject: Re: Beam's recent community development work > > > > Thanks for the guidance Ted, > > > > All of your points are well taken. I/we will definitely stay careful about > phrasing encouragement emails and our guidelines. > > > > Kenn > > > > On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 8:45 AM Ted Dunning <ted.dunn...@gmail.com > <mailto:ted.dunn...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > Ken, > > > > This is really good. > > > > I would like to emphasize one nuance, however. That is that when you get > to the committer consideration step, there is a strong Apache tradition > that the actual decision about committer-ship is not communicated to the > candidate to avoid disappointment or campaigning during the vote. > > > > What you have could veer close to that, but I think that what you actually > have in mind is just fine. I think that there could be a few tweaks to your > process to emphasize how your efforts are OK. > > > > 1) when you contact a person and mention committer progress, please > emphasize that it is a bit more like "your efforts have been noticed and > appreciated. More of that sort of effort is something that often leads to > becoming a committer. That actual process is confidential, however, so you > won't know if or when it happens unless you get an invitation to become a > committer" > > > > 2) the part about "do you want to become one, do you want feedback?" is > golden just the way it is. > > > > 3) you mention "committer guidelines". This can be dangerous if it gets > viewed as an application form or committer status checklist. This is a hard > problem because it helps the PMC to have a list of things that are > considered good qualities of a committer. I recommend keeping this danger > in mind when composing emails to candidate committers. Above all else, try > to avoid having the equivalent of an application form. > > > > Overall, I think that your results speak for themselves. Well done. > > > > > > > > On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 11:15 PM Kenneth Knowles <k...@google.com <mailto: > k...@google.com> > wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > The ASF board suggested that we (Beam) share some of what we've been doing > for community development with dev@community.apache.org <mailto: > dev@community.apache.org> and memb...@apache.org <mailto: > memb...@apache.org> . So here is a long description. I have included > d...@beam.apache.org <mailto:d...@beam.apache.org> because it is the > subject, really, and this is & should be all public knowledge. > > > > We would love feedback! We based a lot of this on reading the community > project site, and probably could have learned even more with more study. > > > > # Background > > > > We face two problems in our contributor/committer-base: > > > > 1. Not enough committers to review all the code being contributed, in part > due to recent departure of a few committers > > 2. We want our contributor-base (hence committer-base) to be more spread > across companies and backgrounds, for the usual Apache reasons. Our user > base is not active and varied enough to make this automatic. One solution > is to make the right software to get a varied user base, but that is a > different thread :-) so instead we have to work hard to build our community > around the software we have. > > > > # What we did > > > > ## Committer guidelines > > > > We published committer guidelines [1] for transparency and as an > invitation. We start by emphasizing that there are many kinds of > contributions, not just code (we have committers from community > development, tech writing, training, etc). Then we have three aspects: > > > > 1. ASF code of conduct > > 2. ASF committer responsibilities > > 3. Beam-specific committer responsibilities > > > > The best way to understand is to follow the link at the bottom of this > email. The important part is that you shouldn't be proposing a committer > for other reasons, and you shouldn't be blocking a committer for other > reasons. > > > > ## Instead of just "[DISCUSS] Potential committer XYZ" we discuss every > layer > > > > Gris (CC'd) outlined this: people go through these phases of relationship > with our project: > > > > 1. aware of it > > 2. interested in it / checking it out > > 3. using it for real > > 4. first-time contributor > > 5. repeat contributor > > 6. committer > > 7. PMC > > > > As soon as we notice someone, like a user asking really deep questions, we > invite discussion on private@ on how we can move them to the next level > of engagement. > > > > ## Monthly cadence > > > > Every ~month, we call for new discussions and revisit ~all prior > discussions. This way we do not forget to keep up this effort. > > > > ## Individual discussions > > > > For each person we have a separate thread on private@. This ensures we > have quality focused discussions that lead to feedback. In collective > discussions that we used to do, we often didn't really come up with > actionable feedback and ended up not even contacting potential committers > to encourage them. And consensus was much less clear. > > > > ## Feedback! > > > > If someone is brought up for a discussion, that means they got enough > attention that we hope to engage them more. But unsolicited feedback is > never a good idea. For a potential committer, we did this: > > > > 1. Send an email saying something like "you were discussed as a potential > committer - do you want to become one? do you want feedback?" > > 2. If they say yes (so far everyone) we send a few bullet points from the > discussion and *most important* tie each bullet to the committer > guidelines. If we have no feedback about which guidelines were a concern, > that is a red flag that we are being driven by bias. > > > > We saw a *very* significant increase in engagement from those we sent > feedback to, and the trend is that they almost all will become committers > over time. > > > > ## Results > > > > - Q1 we had no process and we added no new committers or PMC members. > > - Q2 when we tried these new things we added 7 committers and 1 PMC > member, with ~3~4 obvious committer candidates for next time around, plus > positive feedback from other contributors, spread across five companies. > > > > We've had a pretty major uptick in building Beam as a result. > > > > ## Review-then-commit > > > > We are dedicated to RTC as the best way to build software. Reviews not > only make the code better, but (with apologies to ASF/GNU differences) as > RMS says "The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the > sharing of programs" and reviews are where we do that. > > > > As a minor point, we also changed our "review-then-commit" policy to > require that *either* the reviewer or the author be a committer. Previously > the reviewer had to be a committer. Rationale: if we trust someone as a > committer, we should trust their choice of reviewer. This also helps the > community, as it engages non-committers as reviewers. > > > > ---- > > > > If you made it through this long email, thanks for reading! > > > > Kenn > > > > [1] https://beam.apache.org/contribute/become-a-committer/ > >
