On Tue, 7 Mar 2006, [ISO-8859-1] Máirín Duffy wrote:
Is the problem that mentors aren't available, or that people
aren't
seeking help?
Dunno. But I think we need to solve both sides of the problem: awareness
and commitment.
Could be that it's *really* hard to find the mentors page? There
is no
static navigation on the wiki onto which it could be added... the front
page of the wiki, pretty much the only navigation device besides the
search box, is a bit of a mess and not very visually digestible... there
is a link to the mentors page there after a bit of scrolling, but it's
not really explained so well either, e.g., when you link to it, it
should be made clear - "People who need mentors, go here!" rather than
"People who want to be mentors, go here!" I mean, obviously you want
both, but newbies might avoid the current link thinking it's not meant
for them.
I think you're right. In fact, I think that people don't even know to
look for it.
In the short-term, assuming making new/potential contributors feel
welcome is a high priority (which I think it should be :) ), why not
have some sort of 'banner ad' to suck in newbies, maybe point them to an
intermediary page with a newbie FAQ (want to help yourself?), here's a
list of people you can bug with questions (talk to a real person!), and
a link to the HelpWanted page (what is it that you want to do?) I threw
something together in inkscape, I have no idea of the feasibility of
having it added but I have the svg for it if anyone thinks its a good
idea:
http://people.redhat.com/duffy/misc/fedoramentor-banner.png
Ooh. I like that. I think we could do that almost immediately.
The critical thing, though, is to make sure that the current Mentors can
*actually* do what's asked of them. And that's also what this email is
partly about.
Mentors, I'm calling you. Fall in! Report for duty! :)
--g
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Greg DeKoenigsberg || Fedora Project ||
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