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+
+ Guideline for Mentor/Mentee relationships
+
+ This section is intended to help demystify the
+ mentoring process, as well as a way to openly promote a
+ constructive discussion to adapt and grow the guidelines.
+ In our lives we have too many rules; we are not a
+ government organisation that inflicts regulation,
+ but rather a collective of like minded individuals
+ working toward a common goal, maintaining the quality
+ assurance of the product we call the Ports Tree.
+
+
+ Why mentor?
+
+
+
+ For most of us, we were mentored into the
+ Project, so return the favor by offering to mentor
+ somebody else in.
+
+
+
+ You have an irresistible urge to inflict knowledge
+ on others.
+
+
+
+ The usual punishment applies because you are sick and
+ tired of committing somebody else's good work!
+
+
+
+
+
+ Mentor/Co-Mentor
+
+ Reasons for a co-mentorship:
+
+
+
+ Significant timezone differential.
+ Accessible, interactive mentor(s) available via
+ IM is extremely helpful!
+
+
+
+ Potential language barrier. Yes, &os; is very
+ English oriented, as is most software development,
+ however, having a mentor who can speak a native language
+ can be very useful.
+
+
+
+ ENOTIME! Until there is a 30 hour day, and an 8 day
+ week, some of us only have so much time to give.
+ Sharing the load with somebody else will make
+ it easier.
+
+
+
+ A rookie mentor can benefit from the experience of a
+ senior committer/mentor.
+
+
+
+ Two heads are better than one.
+
+
+
+ Reasons for sole mentorship:
+
+
+
+ You do not play nicely with others.
+
+
+
+ You prefer to have a one-on-one relationship.
+
+
+
+ The reasons for co-mentorship do not apply
+ to you.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Expectations
+
+ We expect mentors to review and test-build all proposed
+ patches, at least for an initial period lasting more than a
+ week or two.
+
+ We expect that mentors should take responsibility for
+ the actions of their mentee. A mentor should follow up with
+ all commits the mentee makes, both approved
+ and implicit.
+
+ We expect mentors to make sure their mentees read the
+ Porter's Handbook,
+ the PR handling guide,
+ and the Committer's Guide. While
+ it's not necessary to memorize all the details, every committer
+ needs to have an overview of these things to be an effective part
+ of the community (and avoid as many rookie mistakes as
+ possible.)
+
+
+
+ Selecting a mentee
+
+ There is no defined rule for what makes a candidate ready; it can be
+ a combination of number of PRs they have
+ submitted to GNATS, the number
+ of ports maintained, frequency of ports updates and/or level of
+ participation in a particular area of interest, e.g.
+ GNOME, KDE,
+ Gecko or others.
+
+ A candidate should have almost no timeouts, be responsive to requests,
+ and generally helpful in supporting their ports.
+
+ There must be a history of commitment, as it is widely understood
+ that training a committer requires time and effort.
+ If somebody has been around longer, and spent the time observing how
+ things are done, there is some anticipation of accumulated knowledge.
+ All too often we have seen a maintainer submit a few PRs, show up in
+ IRC and ask when they will be given a commit bit.
+
+ Being subscribed to, and following the mailing lists is very
+ beneficial. There is no real expectation that submitting posts on
+ the lists will make somebody a committer, but it demonstrates a
+ commitment. Some mails offer insights into the knowledge of a
+ candidate as well how they interact with others.
+ Similarly participating in IRC can give somebody a
+ higher profile.
+
+ Ask six different committers how many PRs a maintainer should submit
+ prior to being nominated, and you will get six different answers. Ask
+ those same individuals how long somebody should have been participating,
+ same dilemma. How many ports should they have at a minimum? Now we have
+ a bikeshed! Some things are just hard to quantify, a mentor will just
+ have to use their best judgement, and hope that
+ portmgr agrees.
+
+
+
+ Mentorship duration
+
+ As the trust level develops and grows, the mentee may be granted
+ implicits commit rights. This can include trivial
+ changes to a Makefile,
+ pkg-descr etc. Similarly, it may include
+ PORTVERSION updates that do not include
+ plist changes. Other circumstances
+ may be formulated at the discretion of the Mentor. However, during the
+ period of mentorship, a port version bump that affects dependent ports
+ should be checked by a mentor.
+
+ Just as we are all varied individuals, each mentee has different learning
+ curves, time commitments, and other influencing factors that will
+ contribute to the time required before they can fly solo.
+ Empirically, a mentee should be observed for at least 3 months.
+ 90-100 commits is another target that a mentor could use before releasing
+ a mentee. Other factors to consider prior releasing a mentee are the
+ number of mistakes they may have made, QATs received etc.
+ If they are still making rookie mistakes, they still
+ require mentor guidance.
+
+
+
+ Mentor/Co-Mentor debate
+
+ When a request gets to portmgr, it usually reads as,
+ I propose 'foo' for a ports commit bit, I will co-mentor with
+ 'bar'. Proposal received, voted, and carried.
+
+ The mentor is the primary point of contact or the
+ first among equals, the co-mentor is the backup.
+
+ Some reprobate, whose name shall be withheld, made the
+
+ first recorded co-mentor commit.
+ Similar co-mentor commits have also been spotted in
+ the src tree. Does this make it right? Does this make it wrong?
+ It seems to be part of the evolution of how things are done.
+
+
+
+ Expectations
+
+ We expect mentees to be prepared for constructive criticism from the
+ community. There's still a lot of lore that isn't
+ written down. Responding well to constructive criticism is what we
+ hope we are selecting for by first reviewing their existing
+ contributions on IRC and mailing lists.
+
+ We warn mentees that some of the criticism they receive may be
+ less constructive than others, (whether through
+ language communication problems, or excessive nit-picking), and that
+ dealing with this gracefully is just part of being in a large community.
+ In case of specific problems with specific people, or any questions, we
+ hope that they will approach a portmgr member
+ on IRC or by email.
+
+
+
+
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