On 17/07/13 at 19:29 +0200, gregor herrmann wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 17:08:55 +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
>
> > I feel that, as long-time contributors, we often lack a good view of how
> > hard new people find it to get involved in Debian. In order to better
> > identify blockers or difficulties that prospective contributors face
> > when trying to contribute to Debian, I would like to survey new package
> > maintainers,
>
> Nice idea, thanks!
>
> > I started drafting the mail below, and would welcome reviews, comments,
> > or additional ideas of questions. I plan to send the survey on 2013-07-19
> > 12:00 (UTC).
>
> I might be interesting to learn _how_ they started to contribute /
> got their first package uploaded.
>
> Draft:
>
> Qn: How did you learn to create your first package (e.g. by reading
> Lucas' packaging guide, by starting at a teams wiki page, ...) and
> how did you get it uploaded (e.g. by joinig a team, by mailing
> debian-mentors, ...)? What was helpful during these steps, and what
> did you miss?
Good idea. New version, also trying to provide more closed answers to ease the
analysis, and two questions about future plans (DM, DD):
---------------------------------------------------------------------->8
Subject: some questions about your experience becoming a Debian contributor
Hi,
You are receiving this mail because you recently had your first package
accepted in Debian. First, congratulations, and thank you for contributing
to Debian!
In order to improve Debian's ability to welcome new contributors, I'd
like to ask you a few questions about your own experience. Long-time
members of the Debian community tend to forget how the process of
getting involved in the project feels, and feedback from people who
recently went through the process would be really useful.
I will write and publish a summary of the collected answers. Your
individual answers will not be made public, but might be shared with
other DDs. Please be clear if you mention something that you prefer
not to have shared too widely.
The deadline for answering is 2013-08-04, as I would like to summarize the
answers before DebConf.
So, here are the questions:
Q1: Can you (briefly) introduce yourself? What motivated you to
start contributing to Debian? What are you (trying to) contribute
to in Debian?
Q2: What are your reasons for starting to contribute to Debian *now*? Why
didn't you start before? :)
Q3: How did you learn packaging? (You can select multiple answers)
[ ] Read documentation: Debian New Maintainers' Guide¹
[ ] Read documentation: Debian Packaging Tutorial²
[ ] Read documentation: Other (which ones?)
[ ] Mentoring inside a team
[ ] Mentoring on debian-mentors@
[ ] Other: please describe
(Please provide more information if useful, e.g. your assesment of the
documents you used)
¹ http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
² http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/packaging-tutorial/packaging-tutorial.en.pdf
Q4: How did you get your package uploaded?
[ ] Sponsorship as part of a team (which one(s)?)
[ ] Sponsorship through debian-mentors@
[ ] Other: please describe
(Please provide more information if useful, e.g. what was helpful, what did
you miss during those steps)
Q5: What were the biggest surprises you had while going through the process?
Q6: What did you find most difficult?
Q7: Here are some ideas that have been mentioned, aimed at making it
easier for new people to start contributing to Debian. If already
implemented, would they have helped you?
Could you comment on them?
a) have clearer lists of easy bugs and tasks, suitable for new contributors,
so that people can learn about Debian by working on them
[ ] very useful [ ] quite useful [ ] quite useless [ ] totally useless
(why?)
b) have a "contributors' frontdesk" where people can describe their skills,
and get suggestions of areas of Debian where they can help
[ ] very useful [ ] quite useful [ ] quite useless [ ] totally useless
(why?)
c) develop internship programs (think of Google Summer of Code)
[ ] very useful [ ] quite useful [ ] quite useless [ ] totally useless
(why?)
d) develop peer-mentoring, where an experienced person guides a new
contributor
[ ] very useful [ ] quite useful [ ] quite useless [ ] totally useless
(why?)
e) do localized versions of debian-mentors (French, German, Spanish, ...),
where new contributors can ask questions about packaging
[ ] very useful [ ] quite useful [ ] quite useless [ ] totally useless
(why?)
f) organize IRC schools/seminars about packaging
[ ] very useful [ ] quite useful [ ] quite useless [ ] totally useless
(why?)
Q8: What other idea should be implemented, or what should be changed,
that would have made your life easier?
Q9: Are you planning to apply for DM (Debian Maintainer) at some point?
[ ] yes [ ] likely yes [ ] likely no [ ] no
(why?)
Q10: Are you planning to apply for DD (Debian Developer) at some point?
[ ] yes [ ] likely yes [ ] likely no [ ] no
(why?)
Q11: Can I publicly list your name to thank you for participating in this
survey?
Thanks!
Lucas
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