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This is partly a repost, as it was suggested I'd find a wider
audience for it. A bit of a wall of text, sure, but I think it'll be
worth your while. There are bits in here about what we're doing
right, what we need more of, and what we can learn to do better.<br>
<br>
Here's an interesting paper that came out recently: "
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<span class="title_link">Barriers faced by newcomers to open source
projects: a systematic review</span>", by Igor Steinmacher.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.academia.edu/6537077/Barriers_faced_by_newcomers_to_open_source_projects_a_systematic_review">http://www.academia.edu/6537077/Barriers_faced_by_newcomers_to_open_source_projects_a_systematic_review</a><br>
<br>
You might want to skim it, but you'll be happy to hear that:<br>
<br>
- We are doing basically everything right, and <br>
- Nothing in there comes as a huge surprise. <br>
<br>
That's a pretty good feeling, but it's important to have a feeling
like that backed up with evidence.<br>
<br>
One nice thing about that paper is that it's got a couple of numbers
in it that continue to matter a lot to us. Getting back to new
contributors with 48 hours remains super-important. Likewise DXR
links in good first bugs and tags that help matchmaking
contributors' skills to the bug's needs. <br>
<br>
Mentors that are helpful, thank contributors and point people to the
next bug they can work on. We do these things because we're all
civilized people who care about our work and our community,
obviously, but it's nice to know that in addition to feeling good,
this stuff is what works.<br>
<br>
So: I'm in the early stages of planning a short course about
effective mentoring; what we know about communicating and educating
people, how that applies to our community, best practices to adopt
and pitfalls to avoid. I'd like to subject people inside Mozilla to
this thing and then expand that out to community contributors who
we'd like to see become mentors. <br>
<br>
If you're interested in being a part of that - as a recipient or
contributor - let me know.<br>
<br>
NEXT AND LAST you're almost done go team: We're getting a lot of
good results from our community-engagement
efforts around good-first and mentored bugs, but getting community
members on to priority bugs hasn't been anywhere near as successful.
Diamond bugs - bugs that make it all the way to triage meetings but
don't ultimately get assigned - are in very short supply; we don't
have
enough variety that there are a lot of good matches to offer people
who
want to move up to the next level.
<br>
<br>
I'd like to open the floodgates a bit here; if we can bring an extra
30
to 50 points worth of work into these meetings, knowing that they
won't
get all the way to assignment and particularly stuff that you can
eyeball as being at the 1-5 workpoint level, that would give our
community members a better sense of how to engage with stuff that's
capital-I important to Mozilla.
<br>
<br>
I've been answering community mail about how to find bugs that
matter,
and I'd like to have a good answer for people who want to do that
work
with us.
<br>
<br>
Thanks,
<br>
<br>
<br>
- mhoye
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