Building mentoring
into an open source community that
welcomes and
values
new contributors

Cathy Theys

BlackMesh

Drupal is an open source web content management system
I work on Drupal 8, the version currently under development, and in the final phase of getting down to zero criticals so we can have a release.
I started as a user of Drupal 6, volunteering to build sites for non-profits I was interested, but who didn't have sites. About 9 years ago.
when something didn't work, I found already filed bug reports, and commented on them with more info, or the results fo the solution proposed
eventually, I filed my own bug reports
without the drupal expertise to know the best way to fix them, I eventually took a strategy of gardening the issue queues of the projects I used, with the rationale that if I did some of the work I could do, then others would have more time to do the work I couldn't
I started participating in online office hours for people who wanted to get involved with Drupal Core. (I was already hanging out in the irc channel where that happened, for other reasons)
around the same time,
I listened to a lot of drupal podcasts, and reguarly people would laugh and tell stories about in person drupalcons and camps. These stories would include something about sprints that were on "extra" days not on the conference schedule.
I went to my first one in 2012 at DrupalCon Denver.
over the years, I have become much more involved and have worked on Drupal 8 Core in many areas multilingual, content translation, configuration translation, menu links, and most recently twig safe markup.
I've been to almost every DrupalCon since Denver, and have participated in sprints and mentoring at sprints, applying for scholarships to attend events,
influenced by changing life goals, I started trying to fund my open source work two years ago.
one year ago, full time job to work on Drupal 8, go to drupal events, and mentor new contributors to drupal 8
Most recently, the drupalcon los angeles sprint had about 400 people and 60 mentors.
and now... I lead and organize the sprints and mentoring (with lots of help) at the big events, help camps with their sprints, work to improve the tools of the organization to improve the new contributor experience, and continue to work on Drupal 8 itself.

Kalpana Goel

kalpanagoel

ForumOne

kgoel

Building mentoring
into an open source community that
welcomes and
values
new contributors

Origin

July 2011
IRC office hours
groups.drupal.org/node/164629

In-person events

"Official" mentoring

IRC/chat office hours

[kgoel]

reliable dedicated time
- general once or twice a week
- critical happens 3 differnt time at different timezones
Core office hours take place every week on same day and time for years so participants know that when they come they will for sure to find mentors to help them work on issues.
find issue for participant
Explain what the issue is about, explain what's happening in the issue, explain what to do next
technical questions about fixing the problem
encouragement, strong encouragement, to post intermediate work
instant feedback from a human
participants feel like they are moving forward together with other participants, with support
overhear conversations

In-person events

Infection

Issues/Tickets

Chat

Culture of Mentoring

In public, Same space, Path

some reasons why mentoring has infected areas like issues and chat happen because

in public
people listening in, and lurking observe the mentoring patterns and then exhibitor those traits themselves.
- irc mentoring is in public
- talking through confusions, in public
- exposing half working patches in issues, in public
- put new contributors in the same space as experienced contributors are in. mix. #drupal-contribute
- new contributors then are also in that environment with even newer contributor, and so they get a chance to switch roles from being mentored to mentoring early on in the process.
a way to start and a way to get more involved.

What do mentors do?

interact
technical work
expose how to know
give constructive feedback
change tools
change community

Central ideas

Attitude: Help others

Assumptions and Respect

Investment

Mentors learn

Contributor tasks documentation

Mentoring advice

Stepping down

Summary

[kgoel]

comparing to D7, which had 954 people who got commit mentions per http://www.knaddison.com/drupal/contributors-drupal-7-final-numbers
2997 people with commit mentions so far during Drupal 8
we have gotten really good at getting new contributors involved with the project
explain commit mentions, and how credit is changing to be even more inclusive
We have started to recognize other contributions

some keys to the success of mentoring and some take aways for you to remember

irc office hours were at predictable times
mentor concepts spread throughout all interactions
mentors attitude is to help someone else be excellent
mentors do not tell people answers, but show them now to find answers
scale turn contributors into mentors,
built in to the process (expose how we know things, via tools and documentation)
reasonable expectations
make it so any person is replaceable so contributors turn into mentors and mentors move on to other things.

Resources

bit.ly/building-mentoring

origin groups.drupal.org/node/164629
drupal.org/constructive-feedback
irc drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentor-instructions
event drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentoring-at-events
meta drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentoring-coordinator
stepping down www.drupal.org/governance/core

Building mentoring
into an open source community that
welcomes and
values
new contributors

bit.ly/building-mentoring

Cathy Theys

YesCT

BlackMesh

YesCT

Kalpana Goel

kalpanagoel

ForumOne

kgoel

Building mentoring
into an open source community that
welcomes and
values
new contributors

Origin

July 2011
IRC office hours
groups.drupal.org/node/164629

In-person events

In-person events

"Official" mentoring

IRC/chat office hours

In-person events

Infection

Issues/Tickets

Chat

Culture of Mentoring

In public, Same space, Path

What do mentors do?

Central ideas

Attitude: Help others

Assumptions and Respect

Investment

Mentors learn

Contributor tasks documentation

Mentoring advice

Stepping down

Summary

Resources

bit.ly/building-mentoring

Questions

Building mentoring into an open source community that welcomes and values new contributors

bit.ly/building-mentoring

Cathy Theys

YesCT

BlackMesh

YesCT

Kalpana Goel

kalpanagoel

ForumOne

kgoel

Building mentoring into an open source community that welcomes and values new contributors

Origin

July 2011 IRC office hours groups.drupal.org/node/164629

In-person events

In-person events

"Official" mentoring

IRC/chat office hours

In-person events

Infection

Issues/Tickets

Chat

Culture of Mentoring

In public, Same space, Path

What do mentors do?

Central ideas

Attitude: Help others

Assumptions and Respect

Investment

Mentors learn

Contributor tasks documentation

Mentoring advice

Stepping down

Summary

Resources

bit.ly/building-mentoring

Questions

Building mentoring
into an open source community that
welcomes and
values
new contributors

Building mentoring
into an open source community that
welcomes and
values
new contributors

July 2011
IRC office hours
groups.drupal.org/node/164629