I had mentioned the idea in #fedora-design before for a wiki page that we can point new team members to, with specific instructions on what to do to join, and the ways to communicate with the rest of the team. The way I envision the page, we see someone mention they want to join, we point them there, and they can, hopefully do the rest. Here's the page that my first version is located at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join_the_Design_Team
Please feel free to add more detail and make it the best start page possible. Hopefully I edited out the old information like the mugshot link and added #fedora-design IRC channel info.
2010/7/5 Michael Beckwith michael.d.beckwith@gmail.com
I had mentioned the idea in #fedora-design before for a wiki page that we can point new team members to, with specific instructions on what to do to join, and the ways to communicate with the rest of the team. The way I envision the page, we see someone mention they want to join, we point them there, and they can, hopefully do the rest. Here's the page that my first version is located at:
Cool!
But the thing is though... I think it's very good to have all these links in one place. However, maybe the "join" section is still a bit too... harsh. Right now it's just a lot of bullet points about account creation, etc. I think it may pose a high barrier to entry, especially if we want to attract designers who aren't very technical (of which there are many).
Of course it's all necessary and we can't and shouldn't skip it or whatever, but maybe a longer introduction page is needed. We can explain not only more of what the design team does, but also why open source is awesome, why we do design the open source way, which tools we use (right now, Inkscape and GIMP aren't even mentioned). Also that we use open formats, not necessarily open tools if they don't want to yet.
For me it was a pretty easy way to get here, doing a small task first and then getting into the design team *after* that. Then again I may not be a tech wiz but I know my stuff, so that might've made it easier.
Sure, something like Máirín and Kyle described on Kyle's blog [1]would be amazing, but even Mo's description of the Design Team on that podcast she did lately [2] would be so much better than what we have now (which is, pretty much nothing until you made this).
At least, that's what I think, as a newbie. ;)
Jef
[1] http://blogs.fedoraproject.org/wp/kybaker/2010/05/21/creative-open-sorcery/ [2] http://traffic.libsyn.com/frostbitemedia/TWIF_002.ogg
design-team@lists.fedoraproject.org