Re: GOP-PROP 2: mentors and Frogs

[Trevor Daniels]

Graham Percival wrote Wednesday, June 15, 2011 12:14 AM
Subject: GOP-PROP 2: mentors and Frogs


> GOP 2 - mentors and Frogs
> Proposal summary
>
> Many new contributors expect more help than they’re getting. We
> should either:
>
>   1. give them more help, or
>   2. tell them up-front that they won’t be getting help. Think of
> a roller-coaster entrance sign, but instead of saying "you must be
> THIS tall to ride", we say "you must be THIS smart" or "you must
> be THIS much of an independent programmer to contribute".
>
> I would prefer to get people more help, but more than anything
> else I want to make sure that volunteers have a realistic
> expectation of how things will work.
>
> I have discovered a truly marvelous proposal for giving them more
> help, which this summary is too narrow to contain.

:)  I offer $1M for rediscovering this.

> Proposal details
>
> I’m not suggesting that we give new contributors as much help as
> possible; we need to find a good balance. Let’s make a three-stage
> process:
>
>   1. Frog ("apprentice"): any newcomer is directed to the frog
> mailing list, and the Frog Meister will "mentor" all frogs. The
> Frog Meister is not reponsible for any technical skills or patch
> reviewing. He is expected to explain how to use lilydev and upload
> patches to Rietveld, but other than that he is responsible for
> "pastoral care" – does the contributor feel involved, does he have
> somebody to talk to, are there enough people reviewing the
> contributor’s patches, etc.

The Frog list should be the basis for *all* stages of mentoring. 
Look
at the merits:

a) all questions and answers are seen by all, so all learn

b) questions can be answered by Frogs and developers alike

c) many developers read it, so questions are more likely to
be answered

d) someone who immediately knows the answer is likely to
answer quickly, saving others the time needed to work it out

e) unaffected by individuals going away

f) cultivates a community spirit

g) etc ...


>      Carl has agreed that he is "too square" to undertake such a
> role, so I’d be looking for a volunteer for this position. The
> Frog Meister does not to have git push ability.

I'm not convinced we need a Frog Meister.  Anyone capable
of developing a patch to LilyPond code is capable of uploading
it to Reitveld.  Any help required could be given on the list by
any of the contributors.

>   2. "Journeyman": after some amount of work (2-3 months? 5-10
> patches?), a developer will offer to mentor a Frog. Exact details
> are left up to each frog-developer pair, but the basic idea is
> that the frog should have shown that he is serious enough to
> warrant such attention+time from a skilled developer.

I'm not convinced this it working, or even that it could work.
Many do-called skilled developers are skilled only in certain
areas.  If these don't happen to coincide with the area in which
a Journeyman is working it becomes inefficient, ineffective
and frustrating.  Better to continue to use the Frog list so
many developers can respond.

>      Potentially we could even have a "journeyman" officially
> mentoring another "journeyman", but at the moment I think it would
> be enough to encourage them to still participate on the frog
> mailing list.

Yes.

>   3. Developer ("master"): somebody with git push ability. You
> know how things work (or not); your patches will hopefully get
> added to the patches list and go through countdowns, etc.
>
>      If it took you a lot of pain to reach this stage, then
> hopefully you’ll consider mentoring one or two people.

or helping all Frogs by becoming active on the Frog list.

> Implementation notes
>
> Graham should keep track of all contributor-mentor pairs, and
> maybe even have weekly discussions with mentors about how their
> contributors are doing. (see the gnome.org/blosh/ blog post)

No.  I think the payoff here is not worth your effort.

> Cheers,
> - Graham

Trevor