Gavin McCullagh wrote: > Hi, > > On Thu, 23 Jul 2009, Scott Balneaves wrote: > >> https://edge.launchpad.net/~edubuntu-members/+members#active > >> Heck: Gavin, who answers more questions on this list than anyone, isn't even >> a >> member! Gavin! What's up with that, dude? :) > > I don't mean to be smart, but what is the real significance of that list? > I can join it if that helps anything but it's not clear to me what that > would change. > > Gavin > >
Gavin, Thank you for your interesting observation. The 'teams' take an important role in the wiki. Lots of explanation how a team works, how it is linked to the greater Ubuntu Community, how to join, and so on. For a new contributor it seems that teams are very important. Some experiences. I applied to join the Edubuntu Team but nothing happened - not even a mail saying: 'We will consider your application and next Tuesday we have a meeting and we will let you know by then.' or something of the like. So the wiki is full of JOIN THIS TEAM JOIN THIS TEAM while in fact joining a team does not seem to be easy and it also seems to have very few benefits. Having some good talks on IRC gets you much deeper into Edubuntu then requesting to join a team. Also, there is a list of 4 active members - and 78 waiting for approval. So that looks terrible - it says to the new contributer: well you can apply all you want but we probably won't let you in. There's already 78 heads on stakes just out our main gates so be warned :-P Different experience: the Edubuntu Website team. It has three members and none waiting. Within two days I got a mail from Philipp (the leader of that team) and he welcomed me into the team AND he offered me a password to the website. (www.edubuntu.org). I am *very* happy with this swift action, but maybe that's just a bit... hasty. Maybe 'we' are attracting crazies again, like someone on IRC said today :-(. And you don't want to put the password for a drupal site in crazies hands. It's not clear to me how the Edubuntu Team (a meritocracy I was assured) relates to the Website team. Do they function independently? Are the members of the website team also members of the Edubuntu Team? All this has to somehow be made VERY clear on the Wiki. If you want to attract and keep new contributors, then there should be a minimum of confusion about the teams, governance and the meritocracy or ad-hocracy that rules the projects. And I don't think that following twenty different links that lead to crappy and non-informative webpages is a good way to explain the structure. https://wiki.edubuntu.org/Edubuntu/Launchpad/Teams Just look at the Edubuntu Team page: https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu Do you *really* think I, or *any* contributor can relate to that page? The first and most important *action* on that page is to set someone elses location on a map! Also it says *mentoring available*. I guess the mentoring is what I have been saying this last week: cut up tasks in small pieces and give them to people so they can contribute. I thought it was my original idea but I see that it's already a LP feature. Good! Now click on the link. https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu/+mentoring *Nobody has yet offered to mentor work for Edubuntu.* So, what is the funtion of the teams? Which teams really work well and which not? Do the teams have real procedure in place to welcome and invite new contributors? If there are criteria, are they well defined and near objective? or is it just random if A likes you you're in but if B doesn't like you you can do all you want you never get in? What are the benefits of joining a team? BTW The wiki sometimes calls a group OPEN while in fact it's moderated. Cheers, let's keep talking, ace -- edubuntu-devel mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel
