From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1SqLJk-0003AK-FU for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:40:44 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D225DE0586; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:40:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ey0-f181.google.com (mail-ey0-f181.google.com [209.85.215.181]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E03CEE0527 for ; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:39:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: by eaae12 with SMTP id e12so1280569eaa.40 for ; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 02:39:52 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=sender:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject :references:in-reply-to:x-enigmail-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=PT1e/qiySI8llfJMx6gUxNAfitzUPCA/1Tq3CKoIUSk=; b=QwASSqizDjl6hw9iDhxXsdCxgB3J7BSMozcfuDAil/W6u0XRpAPY5dIih3ZZRbZdR0 jVQXaPw+UzExYx12EO56HJ3ylcl6ScNO69mm6bJef9BsT1DHPY9JCxSdmhQNt4Qd5l+j uxQPl4XDDE/AIv5YrA3CL9eY9TF4zgBBaRTKqT4GAqlxS/GFVz6oJKcDbyVuYCPm2Vrw udDqEMsqyFU0/9FCE5gLphcHExtNaImFwIGoPyWl5632ZUrNvyB0cBdgtOk6Jhnurywh tIor4rieXx81sEpnyvumHfkHKsWS9KEdRBNDsqUgc7mZyKrOBcCbnmXPfBZPUJtmH9c/ lpnA== Received: by 10.14.178.131 with SMTP id f3mr4496396eem.38.1342345192086; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 02:39:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.1.74] (93-97-149-234.zone5.bethere.co.uk. [93.97.149.234]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id m45sm9665657eep.16.2012.07.15.02.39.50 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sun, 15 Jul 2012 02:39:51 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Markos Chandras Message-ID: <50028FE6.50608@gentoo.org> Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 10:39:50 +0100 From: Markos Chandras User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:13.0) Gecko/20120606 Thunderbird/13.0 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Recruitment process is moving back to quizzes References: <50013C94.8020409@gentoo.org> <20120714204625.27734.qmail@stuge.se> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.5pre Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: fbdcc5ba-e9b1-4a55-88e7-688401ab5730 X-Archives-Hash: 908919dc0d6df36243db307dd32d23a5 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On 07/15/2012 06:15 AM, Ben de Groot wrote: > On 15 July 2012 04:46, Peter Stuge wrote: >> Markos Chandras wrote: >>> understand that quizzes is not an ideal way to "hire" people >>> either, but they worked ok for all these years >> >> I don't know.. Subjectively I don't think they work ok at all, >> since I still haven't finished them even after many years. > > I agree that they don't work "ok" -- it only seems that way because > people are still joining us. > > The first time I did the quizzes, it took me 9 months. After having > been away for a couple of years, I recently returned as Gentoo dev, > and the second time I did the quizzes it took me 3 months. I've > seen others take a long time doing them as well. Davide (pesa), one > of our most valued contributors in the Qt team, took close to two > years I think. > > I think this way we lose much valuable developer time. These > people could have had commit access and done much valuable work so > much earlier, if there wasn't this obstacle of the quizzes... > > We should think about what kind of people we want to attract as > future Gentoo contributors, and what are the best ways of > introducing them to the tasks they would need to perform, and the > knowledge they would need to have. > > I'm happy to see that some effort was made, and we now know that > the web app is not working. What other ways can we think of that > might improve the recruitment process? > >> But it's totally possible that they actually *do* work ok, and >> that I really absolutely *must* know everything they ask about >> before starting recruitment. Not sure. > > The topics touched in the quizzes are things that a Gentoo > developer should know. I just don't think the way they work is > conducive to a good learning experience for most people. > >>> and it is the only alternative we have at the moment. >> >> Thinking outside of the quiz^Wbox and getting to know people is a >> good alternative. It takes time too of course, but no quiz or web >> app can replace it. > > What I noticed in my own experience as lead of our Qt team, is > that getting people started on the real work, being part of the > developer community and process, is a good way to introduce them > to how we do things in Gentoo. The Qt team has its official > overlay, and it is easy for us to give new contributors access to > it. That way they can learn to write ebuilds and eclasses, and how > to improve them, commit them, and get used to a good workflow. > Hanging out in the IRC channel and taking part in discussions is > an invaluable part of this as well. > > I'm sure a lot of mentors do things in similar ways. And maybe > others have things to add to this. > > We could have a portal page (e.g. on the wiki) with links to all > the relevant documentation for new developers (dev handbook, > devmanual, foundation info, gleps, etc) that they should have > knowledge of. Then recruits can read these while they are doing > work with their mentor, in an overlay (either an official team > overlay, or betagarden). > > We could also develop a collection of tasks that a mentor can > choose from to give their recruits to do. Hopefully this way we > can train people in a more organic way. > > Then when the mentor deems a recruit ready, they could have an > interview with one of the recruiters, and get commit access to the > official tree as usual. > > Anyway, these are some of my ideas. What do you think? > Hi, Thank you for the feedback. Let me clarify a few bits though. In my opinion, the quizzes contain all the knowledge that is required for someone to start developing for Gentoo. Yes, maybe it requires too much knowledge but this is because we are not sure that the mentors have done their work properly so we don't have to go over the same steps again during the recruitment process. Like you said, working in an overlay is a very important part of the process but I don't think every mentor out there does that for his recruits. So we can't rely on that. On the other hand, after having some experience as recruiter, and looking at the status of each recruit when I pick them up, I can say which mentors are doing their work properly and who don't. But this would require constant mentor evaluation which adds an extra overhead in the process. Also the recruitment team is (as always) understaffed, meaning it is highly unlikely for us to spend energy and time to come up with a new recruitment process whilst trying to keep the recruitment queue short. However, I can counter-propose the following: 1) Have a chat with the mentor. Find out what he did with his recruit, and maybe we can be more relaxed during the quiz review process if the recruit has enough experience to join the developer community. The recruiter could side-step part of the quizzes and ask different questions based on recruits background and interests. This however, would still require quiz completion (but maybe a loose one). 2) I believe wiki is a great resource for recruitment. We can create a Recruitment page listing all the relevant links, info etc that a wannabe developer will need during his recruitment process and his first few weeks of development. However, we need to be careful to not duplicate contents from handbook or devmanual. - -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJQAo/lAAoJEPqDWhW0r/LCOPQQAKVh47eBJciMX3MqwTl/+Yxq VF6VOEXHVxiecELxy5pdtb4QVuZDtB+PMc2/J7aTPWq6tdedsFhs7r2aFyIS4hWH rAu7kf1MT9qLLl5jzHt0WJ3HQCLExGNbarJvPa6WcGEXcmXuMPOnWxXFRm9mIchz Vm5MbHc8GAh811pN3L8hwkbRYJ3NeFHs/Uo7AALQYd+IXZaX42BZ9i+tsKcZM6tv 1/0TANUTEchOUikwiv+/4bNY9iGsI8bb0mYY0VrYKc3OYfRxlMf8fypBNyySi+I/ O10hlnkeJ7p3D9y2pFujfxQlwomZZoUoIih6cmTP6lS2VbXi+tQhxpC1r1MhGtE4 P3z2BSpz5TelChusZo0rfikDDtwXpazMDOBTSMRGJ8k4UjwagIW/sQG7Il+xLsV5 pRX7taqOIy7p6bUt+Kx8XajVMEI5ieCdWNPGBw4jUnB/RVgHTCZsgdkxhARHrWLL rhVvNANboMWVoOXmd049BJ1YqvilvZro2gAql4YR6O/yfaGioKQNjTV0osBD4/b+ RX/MtvoaAUEPNWa5JEXdW9UvTfdbYiYunb8ynTEjx6f6I/Nm12ZPKzKSdM9h45lx ZKLVL06SNduCsSqrAX3ZzYmgTgZSyOaAbluhTVgVcQcwRg/QMmaUyyd6H4cAvy3q 5ijkWqu1Tb4kJbHBlgKK =/spx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----