Re: Community interviews

[Diego Escalante Urrelo <diegoe gnome org>]

Hey Oliver,

This is a great idea. These things help a lot, you are on the right track.

Even if these doesn't get (re)used in the report, there's lots of value in it by itself. It could easily tie into the stream of upcoming publications.

Have you thought of a theme to hold the series together? Like: "5 minutes with <contributor>", or formatting these interviews in a very unique template (maybe a featured blog in blogs.gnome.org?). Food for thought!

You are in the right track to produce a very strong series ;-). Some inline comments to the questions:

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Oliver Propst <oliver propst gmail com> wrote:

Can you introduce yourself ?

Perhaps you can ask this in the interview, but rearrange it as your lead text for the edited interview.

That way the audience can see it's not "just a questionnaire".

 

How did you got involved the GNOME community?
What excite you about the GNOME project ?
How would you describe the current state of GNOME?

Maybe it could be a more specific question that ties with the next: "What's your favorite thing about GNOME right now? (maybe) What's your least favorite?"

 

What are biggest challenges GNOME are facing in your opinion?
If you try to be more specific what do you think is the most challenging thing you find as a
GNOME contributer, what do you think keeps more people from contributing?

Perhaps go for something more positive like: "If you could improve something for new contributors (like you once were), what would it be?". Maybe phrase it like "What would you have liked that people told you when you started?". Less about the challenge, more about the solution.

 

In recent times the question of GNOME's roll in the greater free software have been heavily discussed, what are your take about the situation, what role do you think GNOME should play in the greater free software ecosystem?

"Recently, GNOME's role and importance in the Free Software world has been heavily discussed, what do you think is GNOME role?" My wording is bad, but my point is that let's try not to sound like this is a heavy question. Also let's avoid unwillingly validating perceptions like "GNOME is dead" :-p.

 

If you could chose one specific area in which the GNOME project could improve what
would that be?
Can you tell one thing about yourslelf that that most people don't know about you?

 

Nice one, a more playful phrasing could give it more of a "closing charm". You can ask a followup question to this one and include the more complete answer in the edited version. I suspect many people would answer "I play violin" and stop at that, but the interesting thing is know where, why, what; all the details ;-).

Again: this is great Oliver. Rock on!

Diego