Procedural clarification

["Greg Wiley" <greg@orthogony.com>]

Good Day!

I have read the materials regarding becoming a
package maintainer and have chosen an orphaned
package.  However, either I don't quite
understand the correct order of things or there is
an inconsistency in the new maintainer docs.  My
money is on the former.

The question is: which do I do first, announce my
intentions to debian-devel or submit a new main-
tainer application?  The application seems to want
me to announce.  Other docs seem to indicate
that I should become a maintainer first.

I appreciate any guidance here.

Regards,

  -=greg