Package: www.debian.org X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-newma...@lists.debian.org X-Debbugs-Cc: m...@debian.org Severity: normal
According to the glossary at the end of http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint.en.html a "New Member" is
A person requesting Debian membership as Debian Developer.
In other words, a "New Member" would be someone going through NM. This definition used to be given for "Applicant". The terms defined were broadened to "Applicant, historically also New Maintainer (NM)" in http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/devel/join/newmaint.wml?r1=1.71&r2=1.72
The latter change is correct; we used to say there were x NMs waiting for an AM. Historically, applicants were indeed new maintainers which hadn't been recruited yet. However, with the generalization of NM to all contributors, the definition of the "NM process" was changed from "New Maintainer process" to "New Member process". This update was implemented on the page in http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/devel/join/newmaint.wml?r1=1.73&r2=1.74
However, changing "Applicant, historically also New Maintainer (NM)" to "Applicant, New Member, historically also New Maintainer (NM)" was incorrect. The "New Maintainer process" is now called the "New Member process", but that does not mean what used to be called an "NM" can now be called a "New Member". The change was designed to preserve "backwards compatibility" (see https://lists.debian.org/debian-newmaint/2011/10/msg00017.html ), but while "NM process" is "backwards-compatible", "NM" is not. The expression "NM process", which meant the process *for* New Maintainers, still makes sense, but only in the sense of the process *to recruit* New Members.
The fix would be to revert the change to that line. However, I note that "applicant" hardly reflects what an "applicant" does. French "volontaire" may be nice, except the English "volunteer" is ambiguous and also designates "bénévoles" (active volunteers). In any case, the "as Debian Developer" should be dropped from the definition (old terminology).
