On Monday 21 June 2010 16:03:59 Pavol Rusnak wrote:
On 06/21/2010 03:47 PM, DenverD wrote:
what is the rate of rejection?
i ask because someone earlier (here or elsewhere) said there were now ~400 members and, i wonder why so few! huge rejection rate or gigantic apathy??
Statistic from the last month (+-): * 138 applications processed * 107 rejected * 31 approved
Most of the rejects didn't even fill in their contributions, though.
Just to clarify: most of the rejects were *spam*
To apply for membership, we ask you to kindly fill out a little online form
where you can tell us in which areas you have been contributing. That really
makes the work of the membership team a lot easier as, if you didn't do so,
they'd have to foster everything from everywhere all on their own (and our
search tools aren't that great + totally disparate toolsets, etc...).
But the membership team reviews those contributions and makes sure it's..
well.. actually true.
This is really needed because I'd say 1 out of 5 or 6 requests contains lies,
contributions people have supposedly done... but haven't :\
A large amount of the applications are "I'd like to become a member to
contribute to openSUSE", even though it is supposed to be the exact opposite:
contribute first, and then apply. *Nothing* prevents anyone from contributing
to the project (except lack of documentation, mentoring and all that, we know,
we know, we'll work on that ;)). Again: you don't need to be a member to
contribute.
But there also ought to be a retribution for sustained contributors to the
project. We really believe in merit rather than "politics".
So what you get from being recognised as a sustained contributor is:
- visibility (far from enough, I think we're well aware of that too)
- an @opensuse.org email alias that we very much encourage you to use, as it
implicitly and explicitly shows you have something to say in the project (you
"speak for the project", so to say)
- the right to apply for the openSUSE Board
- the right to vote on the openSUSE Board elections
And on certain occasions, we believe that a verified, recognised group of
people who made and still make contributions to the project on a sustained
basis should be the group of people to decide certain things.
Now, of course, and as Vincent wrote already, if there are contributors who
aren't members yet, there's an issue indeed. But we believe that we have at
least reached a critical mass that has enough coverage of contributors in
order to be used as a decision/voting body.
It's sometimes chicken/egg, and nothing is perfect, neither are we :)
If there are better ideas on the membership process, on how to attract more
contributors to apply for membership, to make members more visible in the
community, etc..., we'd love to hear about it (but probably on another thread
:)).
One thing I would definitely _not_ agree with, though, is to lower the bar.
That would be unfair, and it's pointless to target a large number of members
just for the sake of it if that membership doesn't reflect anything.
[...]
cheers
--
-o) Pascal Bleser