Re: Request for mentor

[Karsten Wade]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2010 at 05:24:02PM -0500, Aaron Faanes wrote:
>  
>  I think what I'm looking for is, honestly, permission to do work. I
>  know Eric mentioned to "be bold" and that edits can be reverted, so
>  let me explain: I feel, however wrongly it may be, that the Fedora
>  Wiki has a much stronger sense of "ownership" than other wikis.
>  There's also a much larger variance between types of content, so as an
>  editor, I don't know what's intentional (like style or tone or layout)
>  and what's simply not touched up. I feel like a mentor would help make
>  these no-go- or draft-first-zones more obvious, and perhaps make the
>  avenues for making changes more clear. Maybe I just need to speak up
>  more in #fedora-docs ;) 
I'm glad you keep coming back to this.  You are getting great
mentoring in this thread, but haven't yet received a response, "I'll
be your mentor."

So, I'll be your mentor.  (I'd force Ian to do it, but I think he
fears the commitment. ;-P )

You are doing a great job already with asking questions in appropriate
spaces.  But what you reveal above, the need for permission, is very
common.  I don't think "be bold" is the same for everyone - for some,
it's a bottomless hole or a little frightening or uninspiring.  (I
cover this a bit more in a blog post here[1].)

In Fedora, we are very good at informal mentoring and not so good at
formal mentoring.  For some people, informal works best; that means we
tend to attract and grow people who are most comfortable in the
"informal mentoring".

The fact is, nearly every contributor could use a mentor when coming
in, even if they never use the resource.  Just knowing you have
someone to ask is a powerful enabler.

Contact me whenever for specific questions, I tend to keep long hours
and am often available.

- Karsten

[1] http://iquaid.org/2010/03/25/diversity-check/
-- 
name:  Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener
team:                Red Hat Community Architecture 
uri:               http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki
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