People act when they have a personal motivation to do so. There's no boss telling people to do things around here.
Therefore, there's no sense in which we have two few people, we just have too few people interested in engaging with specific projects. Interest can be both practical (the project is relevant in some way) or personal (you like the warm fuzzies you get when you do something good). The incubator is a pretty broad beast, which makes it hard for people to respond to the overall needs of the incubator as opposed to one or two specific projects. We should not berate people for lack of interest - we are each free to chose how we use our time. However, projects are also welcome to tell us all how cool they are, and exactly why it is that the world would be a better place if we helped to mentor them. Maybe projects have the capacity to give mentors more of what they want, which could well be just the feeling that they have contributed something of value to the world. Upayavira On Fri, Jan 25, 2013, at 12:13 PM, Gary Martin wrote: > 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. > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > > > > > > 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
