[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] hobbyist recruiting

[Jason Cooper]

On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 01:23:02AM +0200, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 12:38:38PM -0400, Jason Cooper wrote:
> > On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 09:26:30PM +0200, Greg KH wrote:
...
> > > If you track the number of unique people I take patches from, it's
> > > going up, as is our number of unique contributors to the kernel overall.
> > > It's been constantly increasing for the past 8 years, ever since I
> > > started tracking the kernel development statistics.
> > 
> > Cool, I didn't know you were actively tracking that.  Is the data
> > publicly hosted?  Is that based on merged patches, or posted emails?
> 
> It's based on merged patches, and can all be found at:
> 	https://github.com/gregkh/kernel-history
> along with the scripts that generate the numbers.

Great!  Thanks.

> > My primary goal is to draw attention to the issue of aggressive mail
> > filtering, new devs can pop up anywhere, and acknowledging them.  By
> > acknowledge, I mean answering the email, and treating them like everyone
> > else.  But we have to spot the emails first.
> 
> Why would someone "new" be treated any differently?  Everyone should be
> treated with the same response and respect.

I fully agree.  I'm concerned that my 'recruiting' mantra may be
mis-read as 'coddle the newbie and don't make any sudden movements'.
Which I am emphatically _not_ saying.  We are in complete agreement wrt
treating everyone exactly the same.

I'd like to quantify responses, or lack thereof, to first-timers on the
primary mailinglists.  From that data, determine *if* anything needs to
be tweaked.  For me personally, I'll explicitly add a mailfilter to catch
first-time posters so that I can advise/direct them appropriately.

If others are interested in assisting in that effort, I'll post any
needed bits I've generated that are easy to integrate into the numerous
email workflows we all have.

thx,

Jason.