[gentoo-project] Recruitment issues and potential improvement

[Michał Górny]

Hello, everyone.

It's finally time to discuss some of the recruitment issues. It's not
a new complaint that the process is time-consuming and discouraging to
our contributors. We have a pretty low number of new recruits [well,
we could definitely have a higher number!] and too often they resign
in the process.

As I see it, the main issue are ebuild quizzes. They are very time-
consuming and discouraging. It's like filling a quiz with relatively
simple questions where answers need to fit a key, and you have to tell
the recruit to fill in the missing bits a few times just to help him
get further.

I myself attempted ebuild quiz twice, because the first time I simply
ended up not having the time for it. My late recruit was making slow
progress, and recently vanished -- hopefully only because he doesn't
have will for that anymore. As I see it, the disadvantages outweigh
the benefits here.

I have discussed this with kensington and a few Council members
(unofficially), and we came up with following ideas:

1. remove or reduce the ebuild quiz to a reasonable number of
questions. In other words, make it bearable. Focus on the stuff that
can't be checked otherwise.

2. Add an extra contribution period in which the candidate commits to
the tree through Pull Requests. Developers watch the requests, review
them and decide when the recruit is ready. We may extend this with
requirements like '3 different developers must review late activities
and evaluate them'.

3. Possibly extend the recruit-recruiter interaction. Rather than
treating the interrogation as some kind of final confirmation, make it
a small extra part of the learning process. In other words, reduce
the other parts, fill in the blanks here.

What do you think?

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny