Re: [GSOC] Re: [PHP-DEV] About GSoC 2009

Hello Johannes,

  of course he has a point, but what he brought up was different.
I said that several times, we need to bring the students on #phpc
and #php.pecl. Having this list already is very contraproductive.
But I was totally ignored on this point. Yes GSoC is about getting
Students into Open Source communities. Bringing them on this list
does not accomplish that. This list may thus only be used for us
mentors and admins. We should not use this list for any student
communication. And you also brought up another part, I always
suggested that all students work inside php cvs. Be it in core,
a pecl module, a pear module or some documentation related project.
So maybe we can finally agree on these points. And then we'll see
for ways to kick mentors to respect them and not do their own thing.
That said, what are we going to do about non direct PHP projects
this year? With what was brought up in this thread I don't think
we should do any of those. Other opinions?

marcus

Saturday, March 14, 2009, 1:14:50 PM, you wrote:

> Marcus,

> On Sat, 2009-03-14 at 03:17 +0100, Marcus Boerger wrote:
>> Hello Hannes,
>> 
>>   whether student passes or not is not the deal of the Admin, the function
>> of the admin is to make sure that there are mentors to look after all the
>> students. And that those peole do a vote for the applications. Next that
>> conflicts amongst different organizations because of multiple selections
>> per student get resolved. Next that each selected student has a Mentor.
>> Beyond that part the amdins have little to do. They only compe into place
>> when a mentor drops out, usually that means they claim they drop out and
>> want to be replaced. This was never brought to my attention during last
>> year. And whether the student PASS or FAIL and whether they really
>> contribute is totally up to the discretion of the mentor. Nothing I can
>> do or want to do. And whether you like it or not, it is not the PHP way
>> to have some one single person to decide about stuff. We have never done
>> that and hopefully we will never do that. Last but not least, I applied
>> again for us as the PHP organization because the peoiple running the show
>> are actually friends wich micht or might not give us an advantage. And
>> Scott was willing to do the main part of the work. And by the way, believe
>> it or not I stayed up all night during conflict resolutio on every single
>> GSoC, but thx for offering any helpful comment here.

> Hannes has a point: Last year most projects showed no result (for some
> you can find something if you search a bit, though) but most students
> "passed". Why? Since every mentor did the things themselves and we had
> no infrastructure of any kind.

> You described the formal role of the admin quite well, but what I see is
> the need for a person to look over all projects and who makes sure the
> mentor&students really work with the community and reacts soon in case a
> project goes in the wrong direction. (Whatever that means) This doesn't
> mean that person has special decision power but has responsibility for
> overall PHP-GSoC having best possible results.

> It is nice that your friends spend some money (oh and "pecunia non olet"
> so I like spreading the money) but I don't think the purpose is to spend
> the money due to mis-communication in the project where nobody made sure
> projects go to the right direction and the final reason is not to punish
> the student for missing organization.

> As an example: Last year during mid-terms one of the mentors wasn't
> available, for whatever reasons. So I tried chasing him down, I had to
> bug quite a few people to find the reason for him not being available.
> The project they worked on was developed on an external CVS server where
> I had no access, neither did I have any information on the project,
> beyond the initial description from the application. So what should I
> do? In the end, after some discussions, I let the student pass
> mid-terms, but only for the reason that the mentor&community failed.
> That feels plain wrong, but we couldn't punish the student for that. For
> such cases we _need_ a stronger organization where as much information
> as possible is shared. And that's the non-formal role of the admin,
> where I see Scott (and of which I'll remind him in case there isn't more
> communication this year)

> johanns

>> Friday, March 13, 2009, 11:59:42 PM, you wrote:
>> 
>> > On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 21:07, Marcus Boerger <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >> As an update to this, I have filed the application. And Scott and I are
>> >> listed as admins.
>> 
>> > And you two actually have the time to do the work?
>> > Last year was a massive catastrophic failure.
>> 
>> > Despite my multiple requests for students status reports and results
>> > nothing ever came out of it.
>> > The fun part? Most (all?) student apparently "passed". Without
>> > (seemingly) doing anything at all for the project.
>> 
>> > -Hannes
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 





-- 
Best regards,
 Marcus                            mailto:[email protected]