Thanks for reply!

I just got the information about SPAM here (https://wiki.list.org/DEV/SPAM#Coding_Proposal_Schedule). There is a message at the top of the page: SPAM us at <mailman-developers AT python DOT org>. So I thought it is a must to send proposal to the mail list before.

For the sake of any other students with similar concerns, here are a few clarifications. I have not cleared this with Abhilash, but I've been reasonably accurate at channeling leadership so I'll apply EAFP here. ;-)

Abhilash Raj writes:

...

On Mar 29, 2021, at 8:07 AM, Steven Chen <chenquanwen1677@gmail.com> wrote:

...

This is Steven1677(https://gitlab.com/Steven1677) on GitLab. I want to contribute to the mailman3 project as a GSoC student.

Welcome Steven!

+1!

You don’t have to share anything on the public list that you are not comfortable sharing, including your personal information.

Here are the technical details. Only the mentors and org admins for the organization you are applying to (all of them, not limited to those you are interacting with[1]) can see your application on Google's site. (Of course the GSoC administrators @Google can, too.) This means that it is safe to publish the URL to your proposal on this (or any public) list. Only the applicant and those who are logged in as members of the organization have access.

I prefer that you *not* do so in general, but instead copy those parts of your proposal that you would like to discuss in the email itself. It's not really polite to the rest of the list to have discussions of texts they can't read. It's reasonable to include the just the URL in cases where you've made "uninteresting" changes like typo fixes, scheduling details, and want checking of the @GSoC version from your potential mentors for our convenience. (Other mentors may have different opinions, but in the end we all will respect the students' preferences.)

Whether you post your full proposal or not is up to you. Many students do publish the whole technical plan (including schedule) at some point in the process, others don't. It's up to you but remember there are a lot of smart people, as well as representatives of constituencies the mentors have little experience with (for example, several executives of commercial hosting services that support Mailman) who hang out here.

In public posts, you may redact anything you consider personal, including schedules as well as PII.

AFAIK, it is only Google that needs that information to verify if you are a student and (maybe!) your mentors to have your cell phone number just in case they need to get in touch with you after your selection for some reason. I don’t think that second part is necessary either, but your mentors will have access to the application with your personal info.

I think it's a good idea to have alternative means of contact. I heard of one case in the past where a student took a scheduled break of one week for a relative's wedding in a remote area without Internet, got sick and spent another ten days in a hospital. It played havoc with the schedule but the mentors did manage to recover the project, the student came back, completed, and got paid. Without telephone contact, they would have been considered AWOL by the mentors and I doubt things would have worked out.

Presumably the "normal" alternative to email would be IRC or video chats, of course, but in emergencies you might have phone service in areas without real access to the Internet.

Steve

Footnotes: [1] Mailman is a small organization. Be aware that there are large "umbrella" organizations like PSF and GNOME that support dozens of suborgs. I believe that all the mentors and suborg admins under PSF can see all the proposals -- that could run to a couple hundred people. That wouldn't bother me, but others might feel differently.