Orgs please make Contributor Guidelines pages more clear for potential contributors
cfsmp3 opened this issue · comments
We are past the stage in which this is relevant for GSoC '22 but let's make sure we address it early for '23.
I was doing a quick look through the Contributor Guidance sections of about 30 orgs and quickly noticed that it isn't clear what the contributor should do first for about 80% of them. Many of you are still tweaking these during this first week and that is fine but we have really been trying to push interested contributors to reach out to you now (rather than waiting until apps open April 4) so you can expect to get many folks coming to your page and wanting to talk to you over these next few weeks. Having the information as accessible as possible as soon as possible is very important.
Some of the issues I have seen with the Contributor Guidelines links:
- An Org has information in there but you don't explicitly say reach out to us via our chat channel, xyz or whatever that first contact should be.
- Org has a link to their forum but there are 4 or 5 different lists for the contributors to choose from on your page. It isn't clear to someone coming in to your org for the first time which of those they should choose.
- Saying talk to the mentor about the project idea but not giving information on how/where they would do that (some orgs have the mentor contact details on the project ideas page so it's more obvious but many do not so I am guessing you want them to reach out via a chat channel or forum but you don't say that).
- Linking to your project ideas where there is no additional information on what to do, just the list of Ideas isn't actual guidance.
- Having wrong info on your page (2021 dates, etc.) There were some that had great info but the pages haven't been updated with the 2022 info so I couldn't list them as the great examples that they were otherwise.
- If you are going to list the student application dates on your pages (which is helpful to do) be sure the dates are correct (should be April 4-19 1800 UTC for 2022).
A few good examples that make it clear what a GSoC contributor should do first with your org:
ArduPilot
GNOME
Performance Co-Pilot
RoboComp
Wikimedia Foundation
Remember you want to make reaching out to your community as easy and welcoming as possible for interested contributors.