Registration replies

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

We've often talked about revamping out registration procedure not in
the sense of how people register and what they have to do and whether
we force them on various mailing-lists, what I want to dive into is
how and what should be done to process their registration once they
have registered (the behind-the-scenes part).

What happens now is an email with all the info is sent to 'core' and
a predesignated person takes care of replying back (after making sure
all the data entered is correct, etc).  Since this is time consuming
and rather arduous and monotonous (ie. boring :-) and above all hasn't
really "engaged" people into action a different method is called for
and an idea is presented in hopes of making it a reality.  Key to all
of this is better project-oriented involvement as well as better
load-sharing.

The proposed idea is to engage the various project maintainers by having
them step-in to cultivate future helpers and volunteers. The idea is as
follows.  When a person registers today he/she has to indicate if they're
interested in one of 4 categories - Translator, Developer, Artist and
Public-Relations.  Depending on the category he/she chooses, the user
will see a pull-down menu with a list of all the active (ie. non-retired
or completed) projects in that category.  He will be asked to select an
entry (default is "SELECT a PROJECT" - ie. they HAVE to select something
else their registration won't be accepted).  The volunteer should also
be given a "Not Sure" as well as "Have my Own project" options.  Once the
user selects a project say Gnome (if he had picked translation) then the
Gnome project maintainer/leader gets the email that 'core' today gets
asking him to "process" the person.  The project maintainer is then to
reply (in his own manner) to the user and get him/her on-board.  We can
give each maintainer the template we've been using as a form of assistance,
but the idea is not simply to have them reply to the new volunteers, but
it is to get the maintainers really involved in how to get various
interested people (they did select their project after all) contributing.
Once the project maintainer has enough confidence in the new person, he/she
can request said volunteer a CVS commit account. 

If a person picked "Not Sure" a Round-Robin mechanism kicks-in.  Let me
expand.  Let's say we have 4 translation projects - A, B, C, D.  Let's
assume the maintainer of project C notes on his project page "This project
doesn't need help" by selecting or setting a check-box, this leaves us
with 3 projects.  So when a person registers and picks "Not Sure - Assign
me something" a behind the scenes picker chooses a project for him/her.
Once a project is chosen it should be advanced so that the next "Not
Sure" selection picks the next project on the list in order to be fair
to all, etc (so A,B,D,A,B,D,A... - a circular FIFO if you will).

There will continue to be people that 'core' will have to process such
as those that pick Artist (until we get an Art maintainer/leader) and/or
Public Relations and/or the "have my own project" folk.  We'll have to
come-up with a plan on how process those individuals as well in order to
foster better involved, but that is a different topic and should constitute
maybe 10% of all the registrations we've seen thus far.

At the end of the month a summary list (one line entry per new registration)
of all the people registered during that month and their selections (project
assignments) should be mailed to 'core'.  This "summary registration" mail
will help 'core' keep track of what is happening to see if individuals are
getting the proper attention they deserve.  We should also ask all maintainer
correspondences/emails to volunteers be it replies and/or "help me" exchanges
be BCC'ed to "register at arabeyes" or similar.  This would be required simply
to make sure that progress and the required necessary action is taking place.

Hope that makes sense; feel free to critique and/or expand/modify.

NOTE: Abdulaziz has already shown interest in the idea and has noted
      his willingness to code this up on our PHP website pages.  If
      there are others out there interested and/or have alternatives,
      do please speak-up ASAP.

Salam.

 - Nadim



		
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