Re: [gentoo-dev] [Gentoo Phoenix] recruitment process

[George Prowse <george.prowse@gmail.com>]

On 05/04/2010 17:07, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 05, 2010 at 08:50:49AM +0300, Eray Aslan wrote:
>> Just replying randomly.
>>
>> On 05.04.2010 04:33, Tobias Heinlein wrote:
>>> I think this is a good starting point to get rid of the "some important
>>> questions are too hard to answer" dilemma that can be implemented
>>> relatively fast. On top of that I like Sebastian's idea to order the
>>> quizzes by difficulty -- this means just ordering by the categories I
>>> just mentioned would be sufficient: 1 first, then 2, then 3.
>>
>> I am not against this idea but frankly, I do not understand what is so
>> demotivating about the ebuild quiz.  If you get demotivated because of a
>> single exam, perhaps the problem is with the motivation and not with the
>> exam itself.  I took the published quiz just for the fun of it and to
>> see where I missed.  It is not that long.
>>
>
> Agreed...
>
> I've been following this discussion with mixed feelings. When we
> originally began using the quiz system the idea was simply to try
> to force new developers to RTFM -- and I was not such a fan of the
> entire concept (as I recall, the quizzes were a "suggestion" from Daniel).
>
> As it turns out, the quiz system has repeatedly proven itself useful
> in another way: developers who whine/bitch/moan and are hesitant to
> even attempt to complete the quizzes often turn out to be bitchy,
> unmotivated, or unpleasant developers. I don't want to name any names,
> but I've seen this often.
>
> IMO, those "boring" "too much like high school" quizzes serve one
> extremely valuable function: finding out up front who's a team player
> (or at least willing to do something mildly unpleasant for the
> Greater Good)
>
> If that's causing potential devs to drop out... perhaps the system is
> working as it should? :)
>
That assumes the system is working perfectly and the whole fact that we 
are having this discussion would go against that.

 From what i've read in the community, lots of people would have no 
problems helping out maintaining packages, they just don't want the 
baggage that comes with it.

You could say they're lazy or they're not the "type of developers you 
want" but at the end of the day they're just different developers, most 
of whom probably just want to make sure the packages they like are in 
the tree and updated.