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Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2012 23:29:27 +0100
From: Andrea Pescetti <pescetti@apache.org>
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Subject: Re: AOO volunteers: essential skills and tasks
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On 23/10/2012 Rob Weir wrote:
> New Volunteer Orientation root page:
> http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/orientation/

This is an excellent resource. But we received a few requests from 
prospective volunteers this weekend and I'm believing it would be 
overwhelming to point them there. I still believe these documents are 
excellent, but probably they are assuming our volunteer is above 
average, or at least willing to engage deeply with the project. They 
would be perfect for me, for you, or for a newcomer like Jan who has the 
skills and the mindset to understand in detail how things work.

But we will also have (and we do have: most volunteers I see on the 
mailing lists in Italian fall in this category) volunteers who don't 
care that much about OpenOffice as a project: they use the product and 
just want to give something back. They want to scratch an itch, or just 
to do something, but they are very task-oriented: they want something to 
do rather than something to read. For example, we may have translation 
volunteers who would be perfectly satisfied if we e-mail them a PO file 
and tell them to grab POEdit and send the file back; and then they would 
consider a deeper engagement, but not earlier.

And indeed they are not totally wrong: knowing how the Apache Board 
works is not needed to be able to translate a press release, or a few 
OpenOffice strings, into Italian.

Could it be that we need a "practical" entry point for people who want 
to help and just want to do it immediately? Placing these information at 
level 3 of the "Volunteer Orientation" seems too much for volunteers who 
want to jump in and do something (while, again, the orientation guide is 
excellent for a skilled, determined volunteer).

Regards,
   Andrea.