Re: Recruiting volunteers - or, why should I become a DD?
On Wednesday 04 August 2004 11:33 pm, Steve Langasek wrote:
> I'm sure the motivation varies quite a bit from developer to developer.
> It almost sounds like you're wanting people here to sell you on becoming
> a DD, which I can't figure out. I would expect anyone who's interested
> in contributing to Debian in any capacity to be able to understand why
> someone might be interested in contributing as a developer; and if
> you're not already interested in contributing to Debian, then I don't
> understand why you're on this list -- whose purpose, as I understood it,
> was to help women get involved in Debian.
What I'm hearing in this thread is folks who are already interested in
participating at various levels have heard a lot of negative stories, and
don't fully understand the process. Of course these are things that
Debian-Women is going to address. But you almost make it sound like "if you
really want in, you should be prepared to jump through any hoops." That's not
realistic.
> Debian is not exactly out in the streets running a membership drive.
> The whole reason people complain so much about the NM process is that
> there's a terrible backlog on the administrative side of things; so if
> you're not interested in becoming a DD, I don't think anyone's going to
> be bothered by that. AIUI, this list is here to provide a more
> hospitable learning environment for women who already have intrinsic
> motivation to get involved. If you don't already have that motivation,
> I don't think there's much anyone here can do to give it to you.
'Why bother' is a perfectly valid question. People are here because they are
interested, but no one in their right mind is going to sign on to climb every
mountain and cross every stream.
A lot of the "why bother" type questions have already been answered in this
thread, and that's been helpful.There are a lot of widespread negative
perceptions about what it takes to become a Debian supporter at any level.
I've been hearing tales for years. Whether Debian is "recruiting" or not is
beside the point; the point is, how many interested supporters are
discouraged before they even get close? Dismissing it as a lack of motivation
misses the real problem. And again, this is something that D-W can help with.
"What's in it for me" is also a valid question, and this is a good place to
ask these kinds of questions. It's just not good enough to say 'either you
want to or you don't'. I appreciate all the good information in this thread.
I think it would make a lovely FAQ. (yes, I'm volunteering to help write it)
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