Hi! Matthew Palmer [2005-06-22 10:06 +1000]: > I've seen a lot of comments in various places recently from NMs, potential > NMs, and also DDs (new and long-term) about the unpleasant nature of long > blocks of essay questions, in terms of both the boredom factor (answering > long lists of questions isn't everyone's cup of tea) and the fact that they > don't necessarily assess the applicant's ability to *do* anything except > reword chunks of Policy and DevRef. I don't just ask for rewording since that would indeed be too boring. Usually I ask for providing an example and explain the solution by giving pointers to the policy. However, I found that asking for explaining something in the Policy in own words is highly valuable since it often reveals unclear things and leads to further discussion which then becomes interesting. I also use to split up T&S into a theory and a practice part, which is slightly more interesting. > So, I'm thinking of switching my assessment method from primarily quizzing > to mostly activity-based -- that is, asking my applicants to do things > (preferably real-life things for Debian, where possible) and then analysing > their work and making judgment based on that. This moves me to a more > mentoring role, too, where I can guide and give more concrete feedback to > the applicant. It also gets more stuff done for Debian, and shows that the > applicant can *do*, not just read. Good idea IMHO. It makes the evaluation less objective, but gives certainly a better impression of the applicant's dedication. However, I'm still a friend of theory questions since e. g. maintainer scripts are too complex to explain all irks and quirks with examples. > * (For other AMs) Has anyone else tried this in their AM activities? > Feedback? I included some practical exercises: Write a real manpage, write some shell script, finding all bugs in a test package provided by me (and correct them), fix an RC bug with a patch and possibly an NMU (which I would sponsor). The feedback about this was really good, my last NMs liked it (and in fact it was proposed by one). > * (For other AMs) Would other people be interested in NM templates for > activity-based assessment of applicants? They'll be pretty > rough-and-ready at first, but should polish up fairly quickly. > Do any AMs who have done this kind of thing before have any existing > examples they would like to share? I'd be interested. However, my broken "to be corrected" package is severely out of date and I have to reword the RC bug one a bit, so it's nothing I'd call "template candidate" for now. Martin -- Martin Pitt http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer http://www.ubuntu.com Debian Developer http://www.debian.org
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