TL;DR: Need volunteers for less than an hour of committed work weekly.
I started out expecting to be a Jack Of All Trades who would step in where needed for Terasology when needed, rather than specialize in any one area. Unfortunately it has turned out that's not a very good approach when there are just too many things that remain needed at all times without enough specialist volunteers to cover most of it
Lots of stuff isn't getting done as I don't get around to it (in time). So I thought we could try something new. Once upon a time we tried to get some team leaders going, which I think we still need (although maybe more at a project level, like Light & Shadow, rather than "everything art"), but that can be a lot of responsibility.
Instead (or additionally) I'd like to come up with some very small but regular tasks that we can get on-going commitments from volunteers for - but only expecting it to be an hour (or less) a week, either on any one day the volunteer finds time or in daily bits of a few minutes that add up to about an hour. Some may only be needed monthly, but could prep whatever a few times before finishing one round.
Examples (I attempt all of these with varying degrees of activity and success, but combined with everything else it is just too much)
Some need greater access/diplomacy skill than others (like server admin stuff or speaking on behalf of the project) and may be more picky about candidates, but most are pretty open.
Key part: it would be an obligation (which is a step up from "will try to check sometime") but only take an hour or less a week, routinely. Most long-time contributors can probably step up to that, and it would really help
Imagine if we got one person per task (13) + 3 extra on poking contributors. That's still just an hour per person, adding 16 hours of focused effort a week - yet would be more than a quarter of my non-sleep/work time per week, yikes!
I started out expecting to be a Jack Of All Trades who would step in where needed for Terasology when needed, rather than specialize in any one area. Unfortunately it has turned out that's not a very good approach when there are just too many things that remain needed at all times without enough specialist volunteers to cover most of it
Lots of stuff isn't getting done as I don't get around to it (in time). So I thought we could try something new. Once upon a time we tried to get some team leaders going, which I think we still need (although maybe more at a project level, like Light & Shadow, rather than "everything art"), but that can be a lot of responsibility.
Instead (or additionally) I'd like to come up with some very small but regular tasks that we can get on-going commitments from volunteers for - but only expecting it to be an hour (or less) a week, either on any one day the volunteer finds time or in daily bits of a few minutes that add up to about an hour. Some may only be needed monthly, but could prep whatever a few times before finishing one round.
Examples (I attempt all of these with varying degrees of activity and success, but combined with everything else it is just too much)
- Daily: Checking and responding to comments on our social networks (Twitter, FB, G+ / YouTube, Reddit), maybe also briefly looking for Terasology mentions elsewhere
- As a side thing we should be doing this for Destination Sol as well, but it more or less only has Steam (and to a small degree some Google stuffs). Ohai @Rulasmur
- Daily: Look for and respond to bug reports. Not just issues getting submitted on GitHub - pastebin for instance has alarm words so we can get pastes containing "Terasology" emailed. Our Google Drive connected to the CrashReporter would be good to check too.
- Daily: Check for any new forum threads, especially new contributors saying hello, make sure they get a warm welcome and a guiding hand
- Daily: Check an outstanding PR, both in the main Terasology repo and others including DS, it is pretty easy for non-engine PRs to get forgotten (org-level PR view helps a lot). If a PR has stalled ping some people and get it going again. Or simply review it for merging if able, but that's not a requirement - a simple comment to indicate somebody saw it and will try to get a relevant reviewer to check it soon would be great.
- Daily/Weekly: Reach out to a current or former contributor that we haven't heard from in a little while (especially new contributors - they often slip through the cracks not knowing who/how to ask)
- This role could easily "stack" - we could use many people taking on this task. I'd consider this one of the most important roles.
- Weekly: Check on our web infrastructure for error logs, space issues, etc. We have server reports coming from New Relic and I occasionally notice error warnings in the forum, but rarely find time to investigate.
- Alternatively if everything is quiet consider upgrading a single addon or finding a useful new one for the forum, Jenkins, etc. Just one small thing will add up over time
- Weekly: Check the forum for a "lost" thread that stalled in the past despite having something outstanding. Find a way to either wake up the thread again or mark it as archived if no longer relevant
- Weekly: Spot check some documentation, likely GitHub wikis. We don't get notifications (well, email) about wiki edits so they can be changed without anybody noticing. So far I haven't seen any spam, but it could just be for checking typos or doing some simple formatting (most our docs are really dry - need to better present text and maybe add occasional illustrations / Gooey-icons)
- Edit: Copy editing would be a good term for this
- Weekly: Spot check an older issue on GitHub. Is it still relevant? Would it be better as a backlog item in the forum (not mandatory, just an idea)? Close it and move it there if so. We also have a poor neglected Trello backlog board that could hold a lot of this kind of stuff.
- Weekly: Find some code style violations or broken unit tests somewhere in active but quiet code (could check Jenkins) - then fix! Or maybe activate a new and small rule for Checkstyle we can tackle over time
- Weekly/Monthly: Prepare a small showcase to post in the forum and/or social networks. Like a small gallery or participating in Screenshot Saturday one week (not every week). Or maybe a small video showcase.
- Weekly/Monthly: Reach out to some existing developers/modders elsewhere, like a Minecraft or Minetest mod, or even an open source initiative / organization somewhere. Would they be interested in seeing their content in Terasology or helping out otherwise? In some cases maybe we could run a shared event of some sort. We might even find other GSOC-like programs (like Google Code-In)
- Speaking of: we totally need a GSOC organizer for retrospectives and prep for next year
- Weekly/Monthly: Slap a Gooey on some sort of merchandise in an online store of some sort that we don't have yet. Instant swag! We really could use some stuff like this, even just stickers, would be great to invest in from time to time like sending GSOC students stuff. Hint hint wink wink @SuperSnark!
Some need greater access/diplomacy skill than others (like server admin stuff or speaking on behalf of the project) and may be more picky about candidates, but most are pretty open.
Key part: it would be an obligation (which is a step up from "will try to check sometime") but only take an hour or less a week, routinely. Most long-time contributors can probably step up to that, and it would really help
Imagine if we got one person per task (13) + 3 extra on poking contributors. That's still just an hour per person, adding 16 hours of focused effort a week - yet would be more than a quarter of my non-sleep/work time per week, yikes!
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