Organising monthly new contributor cohorts

[jflory7 (Justin W. Wheeler (JWW))]

I apologize for being very late to this discussion. I confess that I have not successfully found a good way to follow topics that I care about on Fedora Discussion. I will try to better keep up with conversations like this.

@py0xc3

Tickets and comparable stuff also create pressures to contribute - people think twice before doing that. They do not know what is to come once they open the ticket (or comparable activities), but at the same time, they would need to actively retreat after. People don’t like to do that (=entry barrier, deterrence).

A ticket is formal. If there were a faster way to connect a prospective mentee or junior contributor with a senior contributor, I think this would help lower the barrier to entry.

I skimmed over this other topic shared earlier this week, which feels like a possible approach to lowering this barrier.

Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #524: Onboarding and Retention

@ancarrol filed Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #524. Discuss here and record votes and decisions in the ticket. Ticket text:

@py0xc3

I do not think that any central point of “how to” can fit all Fedora groups given their differently-organized upstream.

This is a great point. The best mitigation is to involve a diverse range of Fedora contributors who can represent various levels of the Fedora community. No mentee or mentor is the exact same; bringing in new contributors will also have its own uniqueness.

@py0xc3

if WG/SIG seek contributors, they shall check the “newcomers” category (which we then need to create) and see if there is someone they might make aware of themselves. They can identify and explain best.

Could we also use the Fedora Mentoring Matrix chat (#mentoring:fedoraproject.org) to talk more too? I think our challenge is trying to funnel people into one specific place. If we can embrace the decentralized way that we work, it might become easier for people to get connected to engaging contributions more quickly.

@hankuoffroad

We could group new joiners into categories/interests, for example.

• Package maintenance
• Design, UX/UI
• A specific SIG

Exactly like this!

@hankuoffroad

I run onboarding session with distributed team of volunteers (subject matter experts). My colleagues believe initial time investment will pay off in the long term and help increase job satisfaction of interns and new joiners. After COVID, onboarding support is even more effective in bringing team together than pre-COVID.

Could you share an example of what makes an onboarding session helpful or effective? Do you have general tips or guidance on how we could trial something like this in Fedora?

@anon91881872

i feel it is hard to start and find everything on multiple wikis and then sign in on multiple platforms matrix, irc, discussion etc jump in and out and what actually need to do and how is like I’m so lost and confused

We need a better community map. The old Fedora Apps viewer was close to the spirit of this, but it is not as maintained as I wish it were.

https://apps.fedoraproject.org/

GitHub - fedora-infra/apps.fp.o: A landing page for Fedora Apps

@hankuoffroad

how about group onboarding by a broader domain like engineering or mindshare, so we can invite a couple of long-term contributors to the session?

@theprogram

I personally don’t mind it being at pagure. But I think the public page needs to flow for the on-boardee.

Now is a convenient time to think about how we can do it better. The migration to Forgejo is looming. But I think this is a great opportunity for us to be leaders in how to onboard new community contributors using our primary, self-hosted git forge.

Fedora Chooses Forgejo! – Fedora Community Blog

@thisisyaash

I would like to add, that we should start using this landing page after onboarding the contributor. For me, after the onboarding process, I felt really hard finding the team/group I want to contribute.

This is a long-loved application in the community. Perhaps we can rebuild enthusiasm for community involvement with making it work very well for the next decade of Fedora. Although the UX for that web app has not evolved with the times, the enthusiasm in the community is maintained across generations of contributors. It is familiar and very much built in the spirit of “Friends” Foundation.

@theprogram

at the bottom there is a link to ‘the original’ whatcanidoformozilla, which redirects to a gambling page!

Oh no. This used to be a very similar site hosted by Mozilla. We took inspiration from the original Mozilla site for the one used today in Fedora. I guess this makes Fedora the de-facto upstream of this project now.