[Soc2006] conflict of interest?

[Ian Bicking]

Arc Riley wrote:
> On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 07:49:36AM -0400, Greg Wilson wrote:
>>What's the rule on mentors ranking projects that they helped propose?
> 
> 
> If there is one, it's broken all the time.  Last year there were 
> apparently proposals written almost entirely by the mentor, the student 
> only filling in their personal bio section.

Yeah, *that* would be a little fishy.  There were also lots of 
submissions last year that were just lightly recycled project 
descriptions, taken off the org's website of project ideas.  These all 
got rejected.

> Three of the Soya proposals were written with the students talking 
> extensivly with us and getting much feedback on their drafts.  I think 
> this is more than fair as any student ambitious enough could have done 
> so for any project.  
> 
> Students who apply without talking to people from the mentoring 
> organization first, without researching their proposals and bouncing 
> questions off the developers, without showing drafts of their proposals 
> and getting feedback.. yes, they're at an obvious disadvantage.  
> 
> I think that's a good thing.  This isn't a lottery...

I strongly agree -- I think that process of getting feedback is 
representative of the SoC development process, so if as a student you 
get help on your proposal, that's a sign you'll be more successful later on.

That said, I think it's probably also fair for students to note when and 
where they've gotten help on their proposal; or if they do not, for the 
mentor to note that in a comment.

The original email was a little unclear -- if we are talking about 
mentors ranking a proposal based on an idea that the mentor offered up, 
of course those mentors should rank those proposals as they have the 
most interest.

If you have other conflicts of interest (e.g., the student is an actual 
student of yours) then I think if you note that in a comment we can 
discuss that later.


-- 
Ian Bicking  /  ianb at colorstudy.com  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org