On 23/10/2012 Rob Weir wrote:
New Volunteer Orientation root page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/orientation/
This is an excellent resource. But we received a few requests from prospective volunteers this weekend and I'm believing it would be overwhelming to point them there. I still believe these documents are excellent, but probably they are assuming our volunteer is above average, or at least willing to engage deeply with the project. They would be perfect for me, for you, or for a newcomer like Jan who has the skills and the mindset to understand in detail how things work.
But we will also have (and we do have: most volunteers I see on the mailing lists in Italian fall in this category) volunteers who don't care that much about OpenOffice as a project: they use the product and just want to give something back. They want to scratch an itch, or just to do something, but they are very task-oriented: they want something to do rather than something to read. For example, we may have translation volunteers who would be perfectly satisfied if we e-mail them a PO file and tell them to grab POEdit and send the file back; and then they would consider a deeper engagement, but not earlier.
And indeed they are not totally wrong: knowing how the Apache Board works is not needed to be able to translate a press release, or a few OpenOffice strings, into Italian.
Could it be that we need a "practical" entry point for people who want to help and just want to do it immediately? Placing these information at level 3 of the "Volunteer Orientation" seems too much for volunteers who want to jump in and do something (while, again, the orientation guide is excellent for a skilled, determined volunteer).
Regards, Andrea.
