[sugar] [IAEP] list of complaints from sugarcamp community building talk

[Simon Schampijer]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:15 AM, Simon Schampijer <simon at schampijer.de> wrote:
>>> Definitely a problem. We are thinking about having a landing page
>>> similar to the one in http://www.eclipse.org/ that hopefully will give
>>> a way for everybody to find how to better interact with us depending
>>> on their role. The idea is that a prospecting developer would just
>>> click on one of those icons and would find a simple explanation of the
>>> first concepts that need to be grabbed in order to move forward. How
>>> does that sound?
>>>
>>>> olpc-dev list emails are kind of over my head
>>> Yeah, we should understand better this issue. Is a coder-newbies
>>> mailing list a valid suggestion?
>> Hmmm, I think we should not split those up. In my opinion all we can do,
>> is to point out clearly that all contributions and questions as easy or
>> as hard they are, are valid and welcome. We all started there, and I
>> understand it is not always easy to ask 'stupid' questions, but I think
>> it is important to produce a culture and atmosphere where this is possible.
> 
> A FAQ will help a lot, particularly if somebody takes ownership and
> makes sure to capture questions and get answers from the experts.
> 
> A set of introductory programming manuals on Python, PyGame, SciPy,
> and Etoys will help more. We can discuss this with FLOSS Manuals. Let
> Adam Hyde and me know which ones you would like to have, and which
> ones others ask you for.

Sure, manuals and FAQ's are always helpful and the page must be 
structured in a way that people can find it. I hope that the work that 
is going into the restructuring will make things better.

> I am working on creating a newsletter for those interested in joining
> Sugar work. We have two volunteers so far from Olin Coll. of Eng.,
> motivated by the fact that they can't find the news on OLPC (Who can?)
> and that they have had difficulties finding out how to participate.
> Articles on elementary Sugar programming and on opportunities for
> activities will be welcome, as will progress reports whenever you have
> a significant accomplishment or need help. I sent over my links to
> laptop news sources, and some references on a multitude of games that
> people can program if they like. We will collect many other resources.
> 
> We will also include suggestions for curriculum, textbooks, and
> content. The idea is that anybody can participate, because everybody
> knows something that the children need. In particular we need
> subject-matter experts (SMEs) in every school subject and every kind
> of business, research, government, or whatever. Also artists, writers,
> reviewers, testers, localizers, translators, and so on and on.
> 
>> So I argue, to please use sugar-devel for those discussions.
> 
> +1 unless the Sugar Newbies tell us otherwise. We also have other
> lists appropriate for content and the rest.

Ok, we had this now several times, I propose the following tags for 
sugar-devel:

[RELEASE] when developers of a sucrose component make a release (this is 
in use already) ---> a packager should have all the information he needs 
when filtering for those messages

[ANNOUNCE] announcements like: a new sucrose release, feature freeze, 
0.86 feature process, services outage, upcoming trac activities after a 
release (to move tickets and clean everything), API changes ---> an 
activity developer should have all the information he needs when only 
filtering for those information

[BEET] (comes from sugar-beet) This is a tag that should be used by 
beginners questions ---> To avoid having an extra list, and to produce a 
culture of critique

Anything I have missed? If there are no objections I will take care to 
add this to the list info, announce it and note it in appropriate places 
on the wiki.

Thanks,
    Simon