All sounds crackin’. I’ve thought about applying a few times and each time been put off by the process, a lack of understanding of what is required, and a lack of understanding about what it means. shurg
Soon I’m going to start work on refreshing the documentation around how to become an Ubuntu member, along with what that means, as part of my work on the community team to make things more accessible. Naturally improving the experience before all of that makes a whole lot of sense.
Reading through, it looks like the biggest hurdles are the wiki and the gpg signing. The ‘real-time’ interview is the only thing that’s persisted. So @mark.johnson’s original ‘how it should be’, becomes:
Document your contributions on Discourse and invite members of the community to give testimonials in a ‘membership applications’ category
- No need to be part of the launchpad wiki editors group
- No need to bug popey
- All at least while the Wiki is re-done. It is going to be. But it’s unlikely to be soon and it’s unlikely to be fast
- Easy to seed a template that mirrors what already exists on the wiki
Agree to the code of conduct by signing something like Contributor agreement form | Contributors | Ubuntu .
Present your application to the membership board
- Still a real-time interview with the board
Thoughts?
The thing that hasn’t had a lot of discussion is making IRC info more prominent? Personally I think there should be a way to do all of this without IRC (not replace, just another option). Making the information more prominent/clear makes sense, but I’d say there should be a way to do the meeting without IRC.
I understand that’s where things live and have lived for a long time, but I’d wager most new people won’t have it, and setting it up and figuring it out is an unnecessary hurdle. Someone could contribute to Ubuntu and do enough to become a member without ever touching IRC, and that’s a good thing. A new communication tool though is a big decision and is a whole other thread, just wanted to put that out there.
All of this is super doable. It would mean a few edits to the wiki to update the process, a few additions to discourse, and someone creating a CoC form. Where would that live? ubuntu.com?