Re: Communication improvement

["Lucas Rocha" <lucasr gnome org>]

Hi,

2007/7/10, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <sankarshan randomink org>:
> Hi,
>
> On 7/10/07, Lucas Rocha <lucasr gnome org> wrote:
>
> > Some people have been complaining that we take a long time without any
> > feedback about their membership applications. In most of the cases
> > this happens because we're waiting for the contacts replies.
>
> *Sigh* - it sometimes is difficult to make a choice between waiting
> for *all* contacts to reply or resolving with a majority having
> replied. For those who are present on the various GNOME channels (or
> perhaps share the same employer as myself) I normally used IRC as a
> poke-nudge medium. However, sometimes this is not appreciated and of
> late I have stopped doing it. So, the question that remains is - do we
> wait for all of the responses or the majority (3 out of 5 etc) ?

I don't think it's a matter of number of responses. The nature of the
response is more relevant. For example, if the applicant points out
only one contact and the response is very positive (with a list of
clearly non-trivial contributions), IMO this is enough. If the
applicant indicates 5 contacts and 2 of them replies very positively,
it's enough. However, this is something to be judged case by case
because a "positive" response can take several forms.

I've been using IRC to remind (and help) the contacts about the
applications. It has been working quite well. :-P

> > It would be nice if we had a stock response telling the applicant that
> > we're waiting for the replies from the given contacts and it could
> > help if he/she bugged his/her contacts to reply as soon as possible so
> > that we can process his/her application. We could use this stock
> > message if we don't get the replies after 1 month the ticket was
> > opened.
>
> That may not be fair on either the applicant or the contact although
> in an ideal world the applicant is most likely to provide advance
> notification to the contact about an impending response to a
> membership committee mail. If at all we are doing this, then would it
> be fair to put it in the auto-reply which is generated when the
> application is received ? Along side putting it on the application
> form page itself ?

Yes, it would be nice to provide some "tips" about how to get their
applications processed faster. We could add a link to a
"TipsForApplicants" wiki page in the application form.

I still think that, in some cases, it would be good to provide some
feedback to the applicant about why the application is taking too long
to be processed.

Cheers!

--lucasr