Steering Council meeting, 3 Feb 2025

Members

Reviewed several open tickets, suggested closing a large number of open tickets as a project.
Grouping tickets along a theme could create a project
- ORM and admin are a starting point for looking for groups, if easier tickets among them can be found. Perhaps templates. Async and caching.
Need to communicate or reserve tickets to avoid conflicts with Djangonaut Space
Emma requested dump of Trac issues for easier parsing
Sorting projects by difficulty is good, to assign applicants based on skills.
Mentoring volunteers must be kept in mind as areas are selected.
Carlton wants to mentor the template partial integration

Work needs to be moved away from the Fellows, they are at max capacity.
Most of the duties of the Fellows overlap with existing Teams
- There are a few things like releases that only a few other people besides the fellows can do.
- Knowledge and availability is what sets Fellows apart
The community would benefit from more accountability and structure for groups and teams
Discussion around narrowing Fellow’s job requirements
- Not a lot of benefit
Fellows need to make decisions on priority of issues
- This is really difficult and exacts a toll
If work is transitioned to other, there be some failures which is part of the process of transitioning
- It’s possible to give people the same training the Fellows recieve. This can reduce failures
- That training info is in documentation, but there’s a human component that’s required
- Need to be aware if a person is developing too narrow of expertise in the community
One of the benefits to groups is recognition in the community
- Code owner groups could be notified if an issue in their area comes up
- Trac supports rss feeds based on component
Fellows listed several quick win proposals for async discussion
- Move new feature ideas out of Trac
- Team charters specifiying clear expectations
- Office hours from Fellows
- GSoC to automate work for processes

Tim: Get Emma invited to gsoc-organization channel on discord
Emma: reach out to potential mentors for GSoC
Emma: Making a sheet to track mentors and topics
All, including Fellows: Discuss quick-wins async
Long term item: Making lists for how to get on and stay a team or group, what is required, and determining any training that is needed.
Fellows to join next week’s meeting