-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mentors: We need to push students questions away from private email and IRC to the mailing list, centos-gsoc at centos.org. They should also be supplied with a link to the archives of the archives of the list. I'll fix that in the /topic if the IRC channel. We need to immediately teach the students that this is mainly an open discussion community. However, it is very important that your initial response be kind and safe -- many are just learning how to work in an open environment, that is the first step of mentoring here -- helping them learn how to ask smart questions in public. Still, don't waste your time. Give someone a few minutes on IRC (and +1 for the IRC logs sent to centos-devel (technical) and centos-gsoc (administrivia).) Then gently push them to the mailing list. If they resist, kindly do it again. In the end, those unwilling to step over line after line are not going to make it in the program. But we have to make room for each individual to make that first step. That space needed is different for each person. It's crucial that we respect that someone may be feeling marginalized or wary due to language differences, cultural differences, or any other reason they have to feel "other than of the project." Our goal is to help them -- as individuals -- to cross the line and be "of the project." Everyone needs that first step taken, and does so as an individual, but we can make them feel comfortable making that step. It's really like taking anyone just using open source for the first time, many of the students /use/ open source but are just becoming ready to contribute to it. Also, there are the people just smelling the money. Hopefully that sorts itself out pretty quickly in terms of the i) ability to step somehow in to the community and /try/, and ii) the proposal. If someone is a solid programmer just in it for the money, that's OK if we can teach them a bit about open source contributing along the way. If they can't do the open source way, though, they'll not make it through the mid-term. Guaranteed.[1] - - Karsten [1] Yes, you can fake the open source way, but if you can do it successfully (i.e., don't care in your heart but follow the motions flawlessly), then who cares if the code is good enough? They may not be an evangelist (convert) but at least they carry the understanding along, and that is Google's goal in the end. Google got tired of the college graduates they were vacuuming up (hoovering-up for you Brits) being totally clueless about the open source way. So literally walking away with clue about that means Google thinks their money is not poorly spent. Of course, well spent == contributor, and best spent == contributor for life, but we're working on the 90-9-1 principal no matter what pool we dip in to. - -- Karsten 'quaid' Wade .^\ CentOS Doer of Stuff http://TheOpenSourceWay.org \ http://community.redhat.com @quaid (identi.ca/twitter/IRC) \v' gpg: AD0E0C41 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iEYEARECAAYFAlUIv3sACgkQ2ZIOBq0ODEHglgCdGT/iV+58wbxnJjD1iO0N2aMF EngAnR/NzZPm31a5sBAIK3FvGhPNCNFz =O1sV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----