Re: [Fwd: [RFC] Making NM 'by recommendation']
<snip my own message>
> Jon> DocBook, packaging, etc. Why did I apply, then? Because I know that this
> Jon> is a long process, and would rather put myself into the list and learn
> Jon> things during the wait than learn all of the skills and have to wait
> Jon> another year (okay, exaggeration, I know) to use them. So, I agree that
> A self fulfilling prophesy. You have just ensured that the
> process become longer, for everyone.And increased the possibility of
> there being rejections; and since rejections need some additional
> oversight, that increases the burden on the NM team.
More of a catch-22 than a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did what I did
because the system works the way it does. My actions indirectly kept the
system working the way it does. I made my comment in the hope that someone
might see this and be able to come up with some plan to fix it. One of the
best suggestions I've heard so far is to change the practice of an
automatic 6-month delay if someone is not ready at any given time. I
propose that someone be reviewed as usual, and if they do not have a
certain required skill, be told so. The applicant can learn that skill,
and notify the NM system to be put back into the
"everything-but-approved" step immediately. When they are reviewed again,
if the applicant still doesn't have the skill, I can see two
possibilities.
1) The applicant learned about the skill but not enough. This shows they
made the effort and care about participating in the long run, but were
premature in their self-evaluation of their abilities.
2) The applicant didn't even try to do anything, and wanted to get a
second opinion/recount/whatever. Treat these people with less courtesy
than the first.
Another possibility that I imagine has been suggested before is that of
a tiered developer system. We already have an unoffical 3-tiered system,
maybe with more levels: Senior Developer, Developer, Non-Developer. I
worked for a long time on a MUX that, though it had significantly fewer
staff, did work well with such a system (Senior Developer, Full Developer,
Junior Developer, Trainee). All members of these groups had full
privileges (and I'm not suggesting that this part be copied fully), but
had to report to a higher level regularly. After proving that they had
certain skills, the person could be promoted by suggestion of their
superior (of one level above). Now, who would want to have to check up on
these people regularly and put in all this extra work, you may
ask. Personally, I wouldn't mind doing this. It's the person who's trying
to become a higher status that has the responsibility of showing what
they've done for Debian. If they haven't reported in a long time, they
shouldn't be checked up on with more than a "I haven't heard from you in a
while; you still working on things for Debian?" And the reports that are
sent wouldn't even be that long. Just a quick note to review (shorter than
most messages on this list) showing what they've been up to.
Now, these are just suggestions. I certainly have no intention of sparking
a flame war, and I hope that this doesn't get flamed at all (hey, at least
I'm thinking of ideas). So, I'm not saying these are foolproof, or even
workable. I'm just putting them out there for possible discussion.
----
Jonathan Eisenstein
jeisen@mindspring.com
PGP Public Key: http://www.mindspring.com/~jeisen/pgp.asc
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