Contributors program criteria

Draft criteria for a great contributors project proposal. Please revise mercilessly and add your own.

1. Produce results helpful to others
2. Be clear about how this relates to / is different from related proposals
3. Have a team and a contact person
4. Have a plan and timeline
5. Indicate past contact with developers, or potential supporting orgs

From an email to Ed McNierney un ((support))

• what are objective requirements, for applications?

Currently there seems to be a very subjective procedure for what requests are looked at, which ones get approved, any procedure for being re-considered for the program, application corrected, etc. There are cultural differences to be taken into account. Don't know about other parts of the world, but expect requests from South America to sound immature and incomplete: it just happens we are not that used to do applications or requests for anything (job applications are a new concept down there, everything used to be decided on whether you knew a friend of a friend) But a specific, clear set of guidelines that mostly requires short sentence answers, rather that essay-style, would do a lot to improve things

• make it public how many XOs are going where for what

It is likely, hopefully, that local pools will be formed to share resources, and especially avoid machines sitting unused. Local accountability will help us support each other, and when needed, keep us honest.

• enable decisions to be shared with the community

I am new in this, but so far I have noticed that people do complain more about being left out of the loop than they actually contribute. If y'all send out a RFP, and no one answers, you're clear to do whatever you want. Now, if you make decisions that impinge on people's love for this project, and don't take their opinions seriously, they will feel hurt, and you will lose their support. Offering to listen right now indicates a progress toward the Good Side, and I congratulate you and celebrate this trend. Again, there are doubtlessly exceptions, but those need be few and far between. And not that the community is perfect: had you asked me, I would have thought the Lennon video was a good idea (but maybe others would have caught what a horrendous black eye that would become)

some additional information on past events could help this new program become really useful,

• how many XOs are where, who's the contact person (actual deployments)

immediate benefits: easier to pool resources, easier to provide support by the community  ::exception: certain deployments or trials that are politically sensitive

This information /does/ exist, I mean, you did send the XOs somewhere, did you?

You had someone contact you for the sales/donation, and you have that person's contact info

Let's share that.

• where are they, who has the XOs of the DP and current CP?

Maybe there's already resources out there just waiting to be used

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