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On 3 April 2010 13:33, Richard Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote: |
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> I really think that the Gentoo recruitment process needs improvement. Right |
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> now it seems like a LOT of effort is required both to become a Gentoo dev |
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> and to help somebody become a Gentoo dev. That means we have great people, |
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> but not many of them. |
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I agree. So what can we do to improve this process? |
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I myself am not fond of the quizzes, and from what I've seen most |
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recruits find them tedious as well. It can be quite demotivating, |
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maybe because it reminds one too much of highschool or something. |
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I took a long time myself to finish them, and that wouldn't have |
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been necessary, as my mentors ensured me I was ready to become a |
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dev. And I see the same thing happening with some of my own recruits. |
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They can be ready, but just find the quizzes a chore. |
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So I think we need to rethink how to do this. What I have found very |
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helpful is to have my recruits working on actual ebuilds. The |
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sunrise project is ideally qualified to mold ebuild editors into |
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shape. Working on official overlays such as qting-edge and/or doing |
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proxy maintenance is also very helpful. |
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Recruiters (with some additional manpower) could make a list of |
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technical issues that recruits need to be aware of, and then gather |
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a number of ebuilds that display these problems and let recruits |
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correct some of these, under guidance of their mentors. This may |
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possibly be more fun and closer to the actual work that is required |
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of developers. |
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Of course this doesn't address the organizational side of things, so |
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we need to come up with something else for that. |
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Another problem I see is that our documentation seems to be scattered |
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all over the place. I propose that we make at least one portal page |
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for (prospective) developers that will link them to all the resources |
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they might need. It also means our existing documentation needs to |
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be brought and kept up to date. |
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Are there any other ideas on how to improve our recruitment process? |
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-- |
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Ben de Groot |
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Gentoo Linux Qt project lead developer |
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