Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org>]

Hi Don,

On 09/11/14 at 13:44 -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Nov 2014, Christian Kastner wrote:
> > With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
> > whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
> > opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
> > instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this
> > initial difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net
> > and other established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).
> 
> This is an avenue that I'm interested in exploring for the BTS as well,
> so if people have good ideas, or want to be involved with this, please
> contact me in #debbugs on irc.debian.org, or email
> owner@bugs.debian.org.

Have you considered adding the 'gift' tag[0] to some BTS bugs?
how-can-i-help now uses this tag to list bugs affecting Debian
infrastructure in a separate category. Stefano Zacchiroli did that
for some debsources bugs, and this apparently had noticeable effects in
terms of contributions.

The current how-can-i-help output for this category is:
Bugs affecting Debian infrastructure (tagged 'gift'):
 - installation-reports - https://bugs.debian.org/764277 - Graphical DE task don't install any DE
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/761119 - debsources: suite-based navigation
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/761149 - debsources: allow redirects to package versions based on suite/codename
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/761227 - debsources: add totals to all /stats tables
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/761228 - debsources: make pie charts more readable
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/761229 - debsources: make trend charts more readable
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/761232 - debsources: release pages should mention release number and date
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/762951 - debsources: increase/maximize test coverage
 - qa.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/763921 - debsources: detailed directory listing with file types and permissions
 - www.debian.org - https://bugs.debian.org/766923 - www.debian.org: Who's using Debian page - 2014 update

(yeah, there's a bug here -- hcih considers all pseudopackages as 'debian
infrastructure' which doesn't work for installation-reports)

[0] https://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/GiftTag


Lucas