Personally I think so! I may be wrong! No problem with that! You learn from your mistakes! A person who never made mistake never tried something new! And one more thing being expert in a CA I means has a quite good knowledge of that particular CA! Now come to the point! This proves
Activeness of that Buddy! An this will also help the NC in his motivation!
Also we will understand that how buddy himself is doing in a particular CA! Eventually our goal is to do best for Mozilla!
Suppose I am a buddy ( haha!!) If I am active in one CA and expert in it! I will definitely interact with the users and with their problems (Every time even a very old contributor intreacts with user, he/she definitely learn something new) and in that way I will also understand new problems of the users and I can explain about this new kind of problem to the buddy!!
And how will you decide a guy to be an Buddy if he is not expert in any of the CA? What will be his jobs than!
okay suppose I am an expert in AoA and I meet a NC who is not aware to what he wants to do in Mozilla! I introduced him with SUMO and eventually I came to know that he is interested in Localization! Definitely my expertise in AoA is not going to help you with this NC! Now yes my next step is going to take help from the expert in Localization!
Sure I want to know that complications!
Now suppose this
I am an expert in AoA
I meet a NC!
I explain him about SUMO
And luckily or fortunately he wants to do some some work on AoA!
NC=New Contributor
CA=Contribution Area (Support Forum, AoA, KB, Localization and probably Developing)
Any references to female pronouns apply to both genders.
There is no right or wrong. It is a matter of how one sees it.
Agreed. So we are looking for an active contributor.
I cannot judge how good a contributor is if she is a Hindi localizer. She may be perfect but I would still not be able to assess her performance.
Remember that interaction with Users happens only in the âdirect contactâ CAs (Support Forum, AoA). In the case of KB and Localization (as well as Developing, if that is added as a CA) the contributors do not have access to the Users. And I believe that this kind of information (Usersâ Problems) is not something that the Buddies would/should have the chance to convey to the NC because thatâs a training-time piece of info.
The job of a Buddy is to welcome a NC to SuMo and answer any questions she has to help her find the CA where she prefers to contribute. Hopefully soon being a Buddy will also be a Contribution Area in itself.
It is best if all Buddies could work autonomously and independently from each other. The reason for this is once a Buddy is connected to a NC, she should be able to âprocessâ the NC as quickly as possible in order to be in a position to connect to a new NC. The assumption is, that you as a Buddy have connected to a NC, because you have the time and because the NCâs timezone may coincide with yours for a synchronous relation. Your dependence on other Buddies (3 out of 4 times or 4 out of 5 times (if Developing is included)) is not beneficial for the NC. Besides the job of the Buddy is not to give detailed training to a NC but only to guide her to the trainers of the particular CA the NC has selected.
As I said higher, some of the reasons that make a Buddy connect with a NC are: time availability, timezone coincidence, common language etc. In many cases (maybe most of them) the NC does not define or does not know what she would like to do. So expertise in a CA wonât help much in the initial approach. If you do connect to a NC based on the above criteria, that does not guarantee the accessibility of other Buddies willing to take over or help when you will need help, because (as I already said) the NC statistically will be out of your area of expertise.
Even if that is the case your experience will not be much of a help because soon you will have to âdeliverâ the NC to the hands of the AoA trainers so you can free your âslotâ for the next available NC.
Please consider this:
A Contributor who
is active in the Contributors Fora,
participates in discussions about SuMo,
knows the whereabouts of SuMo well enough to help someone find their way around,
knows who to contact for training of a NC in a CA
has great communication skills and is a very friendly person
is not suitable to be a Buddy because she is not an expert in any CA?
Editing to add something more: Before you reply to what are the Criteria to become a Buddy please go through [the thread that defines the DUTIES of a Buddy][1]. If we establish that then we will have an easier time defining the criteria for one to become a Buddy.
Definitely and I gave explanation for one who sees that wrong!
Agree but except Localizer you can judge contributor with Support Forum replies, AoA tweets and KB articles quality!
Every NC will definitely meet with buddy firing up thousands of question and if a buddy reply that your trainee will reply to this and will reply to that, that wouldnât that create a doubt in NCâs mind about the ability of the buddy?
waiting for the same
well now I think it is not necessary for a buddy to be expert in any area!
It seems like we have a solid foundation with the criteria regarding the buddies. Can we compromise and move forward? I am on agreement with all of your great ideas, we can merge them all in one and keep the wheels moving.
No problem with that! You learn from your mistakes! A person who never made mistake never tried something new! And one more thing being expert in a CA I means has a quite good knowledge of that particular CA! Now come to the point! This proves
haha!!) If I am active in one CA and expert in it! I will definitely interact with the users and with their problems (Every time even a very old contributor intreacts with user, he/she definitely learn something new) and in that way I will also understand new problems of the users and I can explain about this new kind of problem to the buddy!!