On 24 January 2013 18:52, Benson Margulies <bimargul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you model the IPMC as a group of volunteers who have collectively
> volunteered to mentor and supervise new projects, then the current
> situation strongly suggests that we have either too many projects or
> not enough volunteers. Calling people 'lazy' has rarely been observed
> to get them to do more work on an Apache project.
>
> So, in my entirely personal opinion, this leaves two directions: more
> volunteers or less projects. In the extreme, some would read this as a
> reason to close the gates to new projects until we have proven
> capacity.
>
> That is, however, not the only possible model. If you model the IPMC
> as mostly composed of people focussed on individual projects of
> interest, then the problems look more like individual podlings that
> have lost the volunteer energy they need for supervision.
>
> Much as I value Sebb's style of IP fine-tooth-combing, I also thing
> that Joe is correct in pointing out that there's much more to podling
> supervision, or even to release inspection, than that.
>
> A podling with a mentor shortage can try various means to acquire more
> mentors. The first is to just ask for them, after all. I can recall
> several instances where such a call here yielded results.
>
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I would like to think that the first model was correct but I expect it is
not that clear cut. It has to be expected that IPMC members will have a
range of reasons for being involved. Given what Brane said, I take it that
mentors are quite likely to be more focused on their own projects than the
wider incubator community. I don't think that allows us to label such
people as lazy and this focus may not even be on purpose. However, it would
seem to be good if mentors considered the act of voting on other projects
to be worthwhile as it might encourage other mentors to review their own
project releases. I don't know how to convince people to act on this though.
Personally I am naive enough to think that review from IPMC members beyond
a podling's mentors is a good thing on the basis that it provides more
opportunities for problems to be found and the quality of releases raised.
Surely podlings that can rely on mentor votes will miss out on this to some
extent. I also wonder if it is an opportunity for those projects with low
community diversity to attract additional interest. (That said, is asking
for more mentors a valid strategy for helping to improve the PPMC
diversity?)
Cheers,
Gary
