Re: [Debconf-team] Special sponsorship

[Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy@debian.org>]

Hi Richard,

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 03:26:07PM -0400, Richard Darst wrote:
> Not everyone has time to document what they are doing as they are
> doing it.  But at least upon request, there should be explanations of
> what was done.

Agreed.

> The reason there are humans on the team, and there is a human meeting,
> is to provide _human input_.  People should notice "this is not a
> valid reason" or "this person actually does a lot".  There are very
> simple ways to justify this:
> 
> http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=$their_email_address&comaint=yes
> search("$their_name site:lists.debian.org")
> search("$their_name site:bugs.debian.org")
> search("$their_name site:debian.org") - which gets everything
> 
> This is not an entire picture, people who don't show up on here can
> deserve travel sponsorship, too - in which case one should probably
> check those things.

Setting aside the specific situation with Clint for a second, this is a great
improvement for next year. There are many people who are too shy or introverted
to properly summarize what they do for Debian, and it would be nice not to
force them to do that if it falls into the common categories. I suggested a
similar idea to Phil and others in private conversations related to this mess.
Some other things we could look at in addition to what you mentioned include
inbound links/mentions on other Planet Debian blogs, participation in IRC,
talks or other orga stuff in debconf, team memberships in the rest of Debian,
VCS commits on alioth, etc.

In order to do this consistently and fairly across applicants, a per-applicant
report should probably be automatically generated and considered together with
whatever the applicant says in the text field, and the list of things that will
be automatically gathered should be publicized transparently in advance. I'm
willing to implement this in time for next year, or to yield to someone like
Richard if ey want to do it. After this year, though, I think I won't be a
DebConf12 herb team member myself. :-)

This of course won't handle the financial need aspect of the consideration, and
there's not too much we can do about that.

Thanks for the great idea Richard,

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@debian.org