On Tuesday 05 Mar 2013 20:21:19 Ian Clarke wrote: > On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Matthew Toseland <[email protected] > > wrote: > > > On Tuesday 05 Mar 2013 18:15:17 Ian Clarke wrote: > > > When have I ever disappeared or failed to keep a commitment I made? I do > > > what I commit to do, always have, always will. > > > > Other mentors have disappeared. > > I'm not other mentors. I really think you're being a bit ridiculous here. > > It is hard enough to find one mentor for any given student, are you now > saying that we can't take on a student unless we have both a mentor and a > backup mentor? I find it hard to believe that any other project has such a > stringent requirement. > > As an organisation we need to be able to deal with a mentor disappearing - > > the organisation application form may even ask what our protocol for > > dealing with disappearing mentors is, it has done so in the past, although > > two years ago it was simplified considerably iirc. > > What is our mentoring policy for dealing with a civilization-ending > asteroid? How about an alien invasion? Plague? A change in the > fundamental laws of physics rendering computation impossible? Surely we > can't take on any students without accounting for those possibilities? > > > If none of your students can be mentored by anyone else, and you don't > > have time to mentor them, then we will potentially have failed to fill in > > the evaluation on time for THREE students. Which will probably mean we > > never get onto GSoC again; it would measurably annoy the people running the > > programme. > > For crying out loud. I am telling you that I will have time. I have > always had time in the past. I have time RIGHT NOW when I am effectively > mentoring 3 students outside the context of GSoC (I devote 1-4 hours per > student per week). > > > All that would have to have for this to happen is for you to disappear for > > a few days around the mid-term because of a business commitment you took on > > without checking the dates... > > A business commitment in Afghanistan? How likely is it that I would have a > business commitment somewhere with no Internet access? > > > Of course it's unlikely that Google will let you have 3 students anyway - > > last year the metric was 1 slot = 1 mentor with an allocated student IIRC. > > Or was that the previous year? > > Firstly it is 2 students, not 3. I have 3 students currently outside the > context of GSoC, but only two of them are interested in GSoC. > > Secondly, I have described my intention on the GSoC mentors mailing list > and NOBODY, not one person has raised these concerns, or told me that we > were limited to 1-mentor-1-student. > > > I apologise if this seems hostile > > It doesn't seem hostile, it seems ridiculous. > > > , but we HAVE had problems with disappearing mentors in the past > > In 12 years you have never had a problem with ME disappearing in the past. > I have a 100% success record with not disappearing, and with living up to > every commitment I've ever made related to Freenet. > > > , and you did ask for my opinion. Feel free to insist, in which case I > > will admin. But if you disappear I will not be able to evaluate your > > students, and I don't think anyone else will either. > > I won't disappear.
You are asking for special dispensation to risk significant project resources (goodwill) for non-project goals. However as the risk is small, and Tahrir is at least vaguely related to Freenet, I have no real objections (to either project), provided we have up to date contact details. Evan was out of internet contact, but if we'd had his phone number we'd probably have been able to resolve it without aggravating Google; we will have this for all mentors this year. I do think that Google reasonably expect that the admin (or a backup mentor) can take over the evaluations if the primary mentor disappears, this is why they've asked about it in the past. Death, illness, etc, have disrupted events in the past and may in the future. Ideally student projects would be public and integrated enough that there will be others in the community besides their mentor who are interested in the detail of their work; hence for example status reports should go to this mailing list, not only to their mentor. This integration into the community doesn't really exist for Tahrir and certainly not for LastCalc. In the past I have ended up effectively mentoring students who were working on core Freenet, e.g. Chetan, whether or not I was formally involved; this is often a wise investment of time.
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