By nedjo on
Following on the Vancouver conference, where there was a focus on how do we get new Drupal developers up and running, I'm musing on the idea a semi-formalized mentorship system--Drupal Mentors.
Something like:
- Existing Drupal developers volunteer to serve as mentors. We'd set some suggested criteria: have contributed to core or contributions repository, etc. Indicate areas of interest/expertise. Maybe just do this through drupal.org profiles.
- New Drupal developers apply for a mentor. Need to have e.g. (a) PHP skills (b) some Drupal experience like reviewing or contributing some patches (c) plans to contribute to core or contributions repository. Indicate areas of interest/expertise.
- Matchup: done by mentorship committee or coordinator based on common interests/expertise, with consideration of existing mentor load (e.g., each mentor has no more than 2 assignments at a time).
- Term is say six weeks.
Would such a system serve a need? Would existing Drupal devs be willing to volunteer? What can we learn from the Summer of Code mentoring experiences?
Comments
It sounds like a good idea
It sounds like a good idea, but if you're planning on using the developers who don't seem to have enough time to fix the bugs in order to get 4.7 out the door as mentors, I suspect there won't be a whole lot of mentors.
Bad idea
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about this on my weblog: http://buytaert.net/drupal-mentors-needed. While we need more mentors, I think this suggestion is a fairly bad idea.
I only mentor the people and projects that I care about. This guarantees that being a mentor is fun. When some random developer is assigned to me or when I have to adhere to certain rules or terms, it would no longer be fun and I'd burn out being a mentor.
My primary motivation to mentor someone is to bring on board valuable and necessary talents. Part of the fun is scouting the forums and carefully picking a person I'm willing to invest time and effort in. I pick people who are willing to learn and that have a particular talent that I wish to unlock. No committee can help me with that. No committee should take away the fun/rewarding part.
But what would make it good idea?
As you note, we already have community members who serve as mentors. This is great, but it's also limited. Is there a way we could facilitate more mentoring, while retaining the 'fun/rewarding part'? What would such an approach look like?
Simple nomination through profiles?
How about a simple "I am looking for a Drupal mentor" checkbox on Drupal.org profile pages?
That would let interested develpers get a quick overview of those in need.
--
http://ken.blufftontoday.com/
Search first, ask good questions later.
I don't think that would be
I don't think that would be a good idea. That would set a level of expectation that may not be met, and would send the person away with a bad taste in their mouth about Drupal. Could you imagine the level of response that that might evoke? It's bad enough when people post queries in the forums that don't get responded to -- ever, and CVS requests that may take a week or two or more to get around to. Imagine someone signing up and thinking, "Yeah, I want to be a Drupaler.", and then standing by their e-mail box waiting for the letter that never comes.
What about creating a mentorship forum or mailing list?
Overall, I like the idea of Drupal mentorship but I also understand that a formal mentoring mechanism may not work well for the kind of interactions/dynamics that are part of good mentor/mentee relationships.
So, why not start with a simple mentoring mailing list / discussion forum where people can place their questions/interests and let individuals do the matching by themselves?
Depending on how this goes, then we could try to create a more formalize system based on what works and what doesn't.
In fact, I'm looking for a mentor and don't know how to find one
The funny thing is that I'm currently looking for a mentor who could help me for a couple of hours. What's the best way for me to find one?
I'm implementing an audioblog module that allows users to publish _and retrieve_ audio entries from their telephones. Users can retrieve entries according to categories, author or publishing date.
The good thing is that the module is already doing all of the above. I'm having problems moving to the next steps, though. Ideally, I'd like to:
* Convert my module to Drupal. 4.7. What's the best way to create forms and menus? I need help to understand how to do that.
* Integrate audioblog with Organic Groups (og) and CiviCRM. I'd love to allow users to create audioblog groups, manage membership, and determine the audience of their messages directly from their phones. In order to do that, it would be great if someone helped me understand the structure of og and CiviCRM.
* Improve the way I program for Drupal. I learned the little that I know by myself. I'm pretty sure that I could do much better if I interacted with someone more experienced than I am and discussed a few questions about tools, good practices, etc.
That's it. Any help would be more than welcome!
Best,
Leo
Less formality
I'd consider something less formal if someone in San Francisco asked for help.
informal
Nedjo (and Dries), thanks for working on this. I wouldn't call this a bad idea. I would say this is the beginning of building something workable.
I agree with Dries and Drumm that something less formal would be more workable.
three suggestions:
1) build this into the local meetups. set aside 10 to 30 minutes for a mentoring training session during which Drupal developers demonstrate coding for an actual drupal problem and answer questions
2) do these demo sessions as screencasts that the rest of world can watch
3) maybe on IRC have one hour a month (week?) while one or more developers show up and answer questions from people wanting mentors
I think the trick is to let people interact so that mentoring relationships can naturally follow, and not take too much time from the mentoring developers