Hi, friends. At the recent board face-to-face in Berlin, one of the topics that was discussed is the terrible job that we do, at the ASF, on onboarding.
We have the Incubator, which does a good job (most of the time) onboarding new projects, but any status transition (ie, contributor to new committer, or a new board member) we just leave people to figure it out on their own. Comdev is working on some of these things, here: https://community.apache.org/contributor-ladder but it's not enough. In particular, what I would like to see is actual training (formal or self-paced) for each of the following: * You've just graduated to a TLP. What are the challenges you will now face. * New committer onboarding * New PMC member onboarding * New PMC Chair onboarding * New board member onboarding I would also like, eventually, to work with each officer (like, say, VP Conferences) to write hand-over docs, in the form of training materials and related documentation, so that when a new officer enters the they are not left to figure out everything on their own. So, what does that have to do with the Training project? Well, I'd like to not have to invent format and process all over again. I'd like to ride on your coat-tails if possible. Anyways, I saw that you are discussing possible retirement, and, selfishly, that would be unfortunate, since I don't want to do any of that work myself - I'm just a writer, not a programmer. So, while I'm just one person, and wouldn't want to interfere with your decisions about the future of your project, I have a personal stake in seeing it continue, if possible, just for my own needs.
