[Soc-coordination] Next steps

[Olly Betts]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 08:51:06PM +0530, Ritesh Raj Sarraf wrote:
> On 02/23/2015 07:56 PM, Joseph Bisch wrote:
> > That is great that you already have 3 students contacting you! Just by
> > contacting you they are showing that they are interested in the
> > project you are mentoring.
> 
> Great. So that's a good thing. But I don't think all the students can
> work on the same project. Can they ?

Google's rules don't permit group projects, but do actually allow more
than one student to independently work on the same project - see 10 and
11 here:

http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2015/help_page#10._Can_a_group_apply_for_and_work_on_a

But there are obvious drawbacks to that, and orgs rarely seem to do it.

Also Debian has generally discouraged first-time mentors from taking on
than one student (even on separate projects).  If you've not mentored in
GSoC before it is easy to underestimate the time it can require, and one
successful student is much better than two who struggle due to lack of
attention.  Failing to give students a good experience also reflects
badly on the org, and may make it less likely we get accepted in future
years, or reduce the number of student slots we get allocated.

Also, you're unlikely to get allocated a second slot until all the other
mentors who want a slot have one.

> If there are multiple students interested on the same project, how is it
> decided on who gets to work on it ?

The mentor(s) for that project idea get to make the choice (or at least
that's what has happened in the past, and it seems the most sensible
option - I guess the admins might feel the need to intervene in unusual
circumstances, such as if a student has applied for two projects).

Cheers,
    Olly