I like the idea for the mentorship program. I also agree with Pierre with the things we'll want to avoid while doing it.
Pierre brought up a good point about how ideally a mentorship program wouldn't be necessary, but the website, wiki, etc would have all the resources and information for people to jump in and contribute. The problem is, the current system of doing that isn't perfect, so I think the mentorship system can accomplish two things: First, add the human element to helping bring in new comers into a complex system. I know people can already hop in, but it is a daunting task. Having a mentor who you could have more than email conversation (irc, im, phone, etc) can help get people up to speed quicker. I would feel less dumb asking my dozens of dumb questions (questions that do have answers somewhere online, but either I couldn't find them or didn't understand them) to a mentor, rather than spam the internals list with them. The mentorship helps new volunteers get in an imperfect system quicker. Second, and just as important, that the mentors and mentees *Document* and try to *Fix* the hurdles they discover during the mentorship. This will help improve the overall barrier of entry for other new volunteers. I think this could be the greatest ROI of the program, making it easier for the next new volunteers. I'm willing to be a mentee and help start this program. I have some ideas for the program, but don't want to spam everyone with a wall of text about them. Justin Carmony On Jun 13, 2011, at 9:12 AM, Rafael Dohms wrote: > On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 10:16 AM, David Coallier <dav...@php.net> wrote: >> See response inline. >> ... >> See Pierre, that's where I believe we are doing things wrong. We >> already have all our infrastructure to report bugs, create wiki pages, >> send emails. The goal of the program is to create something more >> personal, something more interactive than just sending everyone to >> read the manual. >> ... >> -- >> David Coallier >> > > I agree here with David, i think the mentorship would bring a "human" > interface for newcomers. > Yes we already get newcomers, but we could get much more if we had a > human interface instead of hitting everyone with a TL;DR documentation > page. Let their first interaction be with a human who can then direct > to the page at given points. > > Mentorship has grown some awesome developers in the community, i think > it can do the same in internals. > > And yes, we still need all of those pages described, this is an extra > layer on top of everything being done. If we can get mentors who like > to help the i say we go for it. > > > -- > Rafael Dohms > PHP Evangelist and Community Leader > http://www.rafaeldohms.com.br > http://www.phpsp.org.br > > -- > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
