On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 02:37:07PM +0000, Gabriela Gibson wrote:
> I think that the project descriptions should have more information and
> list the experience level and skills people would need (and can learn
> at the [link] here), what is expected from them in the project (ie
> role, goals) and what skills they will gain from, or, refine by
> joining us.
I agree that this would be a good thing to do.
It's a pity we don't have a well maintained task list.
Currently, our web site is directed mainly at volunteers who are
already familiar with open source and the tools we use ("go look at
the issue tracker for bite-sized tasks") and perhaps even already
know what they would like to work on ("you can submit a patch by
doing X then Y then Z").
To reach more potential contributors we need a web site that is also
inviting to contributors who aren't yet familiar with the process and
its tooling, and clearly explain what the expected skill set for a given
task is. This way, people can more easily decide for themselves whether
they'd want to volunteer for a specific task, even if they haven't had
much prior exposure to open source development.
I also think we should invite more than one person to take on a specific
role. We do have a patch manager (Gavin Baumanis), for example, but I
haven't seen him posting recently. He was very active once and was doing
a great job, but has been less and less active over time. It would help
to have multiple patch managers to avoid gaps which inevitably form over
time as volunteers turn their attention to other things. There is
nothing wrong with having more than one patch manager or FAQ manager.
But let's start small, and try to find one FAQ manager. We could start
the new task list with a single entry for the FAQ manager role, and
once we're happy with that we can try adding more tasks and roles to
that page. I'd be happy to review the issue tracker for some specific
bite-sized issues, assess the skills required to fix them, and try
to provide any further information we need for putting the issues on
the task list.
