[SoC] various questions

[Ralph Johnson]

On 3/29/07, stephane ducasse <stephane.ducasse at free.fr> wrote:

> I do not believe so. I do not believe that if we all give 4 it will
> make sense.

I was not thinking that.  The score we can give is (from memory, and
so probably not quite right) +4, +2, +1, -1, -2 and I was wondering
whether, if I thought a proposal was reasonable but was only average,
whether I should give a +1 or a -1.

I suggest that +1 should be "if we had all the money in the world then
we should fund this guy".  If that is the case, we wouldn't give many
negative scores.

To me, +4 is "this is an important project and this candidate is
obviously capable of doing it"

I am going to give EVERYBODY a score.  Not giving a score is like
giving them a score of 0.  So, it is important to decide whether my
median is +1 or -1

> My criteria for evaluation are:
>         - do they know smalltalk and not just copy and paste their projects?
>         - did they do something in the past for the community?
>         - do they are close to a mentor (because learning Smalltalk via
> email or ichat does not work)
>         - is the topic really relevant for the community?
>         - is the schedule/tasks possible within the time frame?

This is a good list, except that I think that the most important is
whether the topic is relevant and whether it is possible.  To me, how
well they know Smalltalk is part of whether the schedule is
reasonable.  Also, I don't think we should use this as a reward for
things done in the past, but people who have been working with Squeak
for awhile are more likely to succeed than people who have not. "Past
performance is a predictor of future behavior".  A person who has
already done an open source project in Squeak will have an edge over
someone who has not, and someone who has taken a class that used
Squeak and done a small class project will have an edge over someone
who is just starting to lear it.  But that can be counterbalanced by
the topic.

If someone knows Smalltalk well then it is not as important to be
close to a mentor.  But if they are neither close to a mentor nor know
Smalltalk then that will make it hard for their project to be
successful..

-Ralph