[Mailman-Developers] Mentor list on project page

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Abhilash Raj writes:

 > Hi,I have a pretty good understand of the mailman core, I would
 > love to co-mentor any project if I am allowed?

You're allowed.  Lots of former students (and the occasional current
student as well!) are mentors.

Some of the following my sound harsh, and it is my private opinion; I
don't speak for Mailman or for GSoC.  I expose it on this list because
there may be others lurking with the ambition to be a mentor, and
they're in similar situation to you in many ways.

I'm not opposed making you a formal mentor (that's not my decision,
but my opinion will surely be input to it), but I'm not very positive
right now.  I have had only very sporadic contact with you since GSoC
last year.  No explanations needed, it's just a fact, and it's two-
sided issue, anyway.  I just want you to know where you stand -- it is
not a criticism of *you*, and it's not a "decision".

To be a formal mentor (and "get the stupid T-shirt" :-), you will need
to establish a presence with at least one, preferably several of the
current mentors.  We need confidence that you'll be available to the
student when she/he gets in trouble.  Not 100%, but a mentor or
co-mentor who doesn't contribute much and then disappears halfway is a
really bad thing, and we especially need confidence that you'll be
around at deadline time (there's no administrative difference between
mentor and co-mentor: both can edit the evaluation forms, both can see
the same student data), because you may need to do the evaluation if
your co-mentor is unavailable.

On the other hand, informally, if you want to mentor, just start.
<wink/> Your goal should be to make it clear that we can't dispense
with your advice on a project we want to implement.  Then we *have* to
make you an official mentor!  (I'm not sure if there's a deadline on
that.)

Of course "indispensible" is a *very* high standard, but the advice to
just start mentoring (on-list) is the best you're going to get.  The
more of that you do, the better we know you.  Including your faults --
having your faults known IS AN ADVANTAGE because that way we can give
you a good teammate who has strengths there!

Other things you can do: participate in the sprints at PyCon.  Most of
the mentors will be sprinting.  I can't go myself, but will
participate by IRC and email, and try to do work in advance so it's
easily available to the onsite sprinters.

Of course general development work, submitting patches, and discussing
them publicly is useful.

But in the end, the most effective path is to show that you *are* a
mentor, by doing it!