[Soc-coordination] Outreachy / OPW starts 22 September?

[Antonio Terceiro]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 04:27:47PM +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> 
> 
> The next Outreachy / OPW starts 22 September:
> 
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreachy
> 
> Is there any decision about Debian participation?
> 
> The program admins asked to be contacted by organizations before 21
> September:
>   https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreachy/Admin/InfoForOrgs#Action
> 
> As with previous rounds of GSoC, OPW and Outreachy, I'm potentially able
> to mentor somebody in any of the domains I work with and also be
> involved in some of the promotion and selection process.

Any news?

> From the minutes of the DebConf women meeting, I understand people had
> some concerns about the possibility that programs like this may deter
> and demotivate unsuccessful candidates.  Personally, I believe this can
> be mitigated by getting people involved earlier and trying to ensure
> that Outreachy is not their only goal or relationship with Debian, this
> may also help maximize the selection of candidates who stick around
> after these programs or even if they are not selected the first time around.

I think this is what we should do anyway. First, I believe that it
should indeed increase the chances of people sticking around after the
program is done.

Second, it will _also_ makes our work as mentors easier when selecting
participants. My personal experience in the last two gsoc editions is
that I got *a lot* of participant submissions, and it was quite hard to
select, both in terms of effort reviewing their applications and sample
contributions, and in terms of not being confortable with ranking
people.

If we require(invite?) participants to already be contributing to the
project for a few months before submission, even if for very few hours
per week, then instead of having projects ideas and "out of the blue"
submissions, we can work together with them to write the program project
proposals tailored to their interests after knowing a bit more about the
work that needs to be done, and aligned with the existing work of the
mentors.

-- 
Antonio Terceiro <terceiro at debian.org>
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