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Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 10:31:07 -0400
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 <CAFG6u8FPy3jHh_bJ3Z0PZqs7rdVkFs_aZ0M5cFM_FTfAujCSWg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Mentor disengagement - a suggestion
From: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
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On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 7:19 AM, Jim Jagielski <jim@jagunet.com> wrote:
> For me, I consider being a mentor as I do being a member of a PMC.
> Occasionally one simply lacks cycles to be actively involved, but
> one is involve enough to see that others *ARE* involved, and so I
> am "unconcerned" about my inactivity during those times.
>
> My understanding is that this is OK and its one of the reasons
> why we *have* multiple mentors.

Agreed.

> "Shaming" inactive mentors would be akin to "shaming" PMC members who
> didn't post on the dev@ list this month, or who didn't vote on a release
> or etc...

I do not advocate shaming.  I do advocate (1) making changes to policy
based on actual data, and (2) using that data to have personal
discussions.

What spawned this period of introspection was a proposal made
elsewhere that to me seemed like the essence of truthiness[1].  I
would like to replace that, wherever possible, with actual data;
however uncomfortable that might be.  I encourage those that gather
such data to be sensitive when using that data.  In particular, Ted's
noting that I haven't been a visibly active mentor for odftoolkit is
probably something that should have been done privately.  It worked
out fine with me, but it might not with others.

> I am not, of course, referring to mentors who are truly MIA month in and
> month out. But, as someone said, if you remove those from the equation,
> the list of "active" mentors is pretty constant.

I think it would be helpful if we had an accurate picture of
mentorship.  This will help with things like evaluating graduation
resolutions.

> So the question is "Is there a difference or problem between a podling
> with 10 mentors, of which 4 are 'active', as compared to a podling with
> 4 mentors, all of which are 'active'"??

I know many mentors personally.  Knowing which podlings you (Jim) are
on top of makes me comfortable that I can focus elsewhere.  Having me
as a mentor of record on a podling that I am not focusing on may be
misleading.

- Sam Ruby

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

>> On Oct 13, 2015, at 2:29 AM, Ted Dunning <ted.dunning@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> Sounds like reaching out to the inactive mentors is a great idea and I
>>>> think we have a great example here of how complicated it can be.
>>>
>>> Nope.  I posted that link knowing that my name would be on it, and
>>> advocated that we should be having exactly this discussion.  I should
>>> either become more active on this, or (and probably more likely)
>>> remove myself as a mentor for this podling.
>>
>>
>> And possibly by so doing become a great example to others of us who can't
>> admit to ourselves that we are over-extended.
>
>
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