idea: suggestion box

[Robyn Bergeron]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 May 2010, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 8 May 2010 23:18:14 +0530
>> Rahul Sundaram <metherid at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 9:26 PM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin at tummy.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Greetings.
>> > >
>> > > I was thinking it might be a nice idea to have Fedora Engineering
>> > > Services create for us a "Fedora Suggestion Box".
>> >
>> >
>> > You can use ideatorrent for this as it is quite a close fit
>> >
>> > http://ideatorrent.org
>>
>> Interesting, but I'm not sure I want all that. ;)
>>
>> I don't know that voting and having a full blown ideastorm like site is
>> that great. I think it lends into having a lot of people expect that
>> ideas that are "voted" the highest will automagically be worked on,
>> when it's not really the case.
>>
>
> This brings up an interesting counter point.  Perhaps we shouldn't be
> accepting ideas until we have more willing and able workers?

I think this could work both ways - having a centralized point where
newcomers could locate tasks suited to their abilities, available
time, or depth of knowledge of the Fedora project could lead to....
more contributors.  It's a lot easier to click on, "I know how to do
X, Y, and Z," and be able to look at a definitive list of "here are
contributions I can make that match up with my capabilities" - than to
than look through the marketing, docs, infrastructure, and design
ticket lists and find things that match up.

On-ramps are good for new contributors.  It is much easier to learn
how to turn a car right onto a neighborhood street than to learn how
to merge onto a LA freeway in a stickshift on your first drive. :)  If
we can identify and separate the easier tasks from the harder ones -
we stand a chance of being able to migrate new contributors more
easily, help them find what they can do to help, and cultivate them
into full-fledged contributors who can take on some of the more
involved tasks.

-robyn