If I were king of the forest, I would be to fire all the mentors. All except, of course, me, because I'm the king. :) All the ex-mentors would become emeritus mentors that can be reinstated merely by asking.
Those emeritus mentors who wish to remain mentors must acknowledge that they will perform their duties as out lined in a clearly defined document. All mentors must be IPMC members, period. People who wish to become mentors that are not in the IPMC must be a novice mentor, whose mentorship is not counted as an active mentor, for at least one podling's incubation. ASF members can become IPMC members. Non-ASF members must mentor a project before becoming an IPMX member. The champion role would be removed. Shepherd roles would be removed. Podlings would be required to have a minimum of two active mentors. A mentor is free to become inactive but must explicitly state this else the mentor risks being removed for not performing their duties. Podlings that do not have the minimum of two active mentors are put on hold until they find enough mentors to fill the quota. Being put on hold means that no committers can be added, no PPMC members can be added, and no releases can be performed. It does not stop development. People starting threads must provide editorial summaries else the thread is considered to be a tree falling in the forest. If you can't commit to providing summaries then you shouldn't start threads that waste people's time. Releases need +1 votes from the two active mentors. A subsequent 72 hour quiet period would follow for IPMC members to vote as well. I would make hard decisions and actively retire inactive projects. I would start more tooling initiatives to automate even more mundane tasks that are a drag to incubation. What we would gain is transparency and simplicity. There would be no false expectations. Podlings would know where they stand. Work would be equitably distributed. No more layers. No more additional roles. No more shuffling. The solution is not more process and more complexity. But I am not the king. It is my sincere hope that we drop useless, imho, baby steps that only serve to churn up email storms and ill will, and take the bold steps needed to re-invigorate this, most critical, project of the ASF. Just my 2 cents. Regards, Alan
