SoK/Administer the SoK

Administer an event can seem complicated even more when there is no guide about it. This page tries to be an informal guide on helping you discover what are the necessary steps to admin a SoK based on SoK 2022 experience.

Creation of the event (around 1 or 2 months before the event)

• Gather admins (at least 2) and send a mail to KDE community (something like https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2021q4/007116.html)

Preparation of the event

• Create https://community.kde.org/SoK ideas page for this year (copy the previous one, clean the ideas)
• Subscribe to https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-management
• Ask admin access to https://season.kde.org/ to kde-soc-management mailing list
• Create a new season for your year once you have access
• Make a MR to update the season of kde website ideas page in the introduction: https://invent.kde.org/websites/season-kde-org/-/commit/d6551083864241c34d4fc35807b84007f42915ed
• Update the timeline with something like:

    T0: announcement date of SoK (mail of next step sent)
    T1 = T0 + 1 month mentor/student applications deadline,
    T2 = T1 + 1 week: announce the projects
    T3 = T2 + 2 days: start of work
    T4 = T3 + 3 months; end of work
    T5 = T4 + 3 days: results announcements
    T6 = T5 + 1 month: certificates issued + shipping of the swag/merchandise

Gathering of the ideas

• Send a mail for the potential mentors to write the ideas in the wiki. A mail example is https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2021q4/007141.html and needs to be send to the KDE soc mentors, community, devel, core-devel, edu, games, soc mailing lists.
• Also communicate it in the kde-soc Matrix channel where potential students should be.

Promote the event

• As soon as we know the SoK will take place, we need to prepare a blog post and communication to ensure we reach as much as good potential contributors as we can. Ask Promo (https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/#kde-promo:kde.org) to promote the event! Something like 2018, 2020 or 2022 announcements.

• Send a mail to all potential students to enter their application with the subject: "The students are supposed to create the project themselves after contacting their potential mentors and discussing with them. Generally we also expect from the student to write a bigger text than the one in the idea page."
• Send a kind reminder two weeks before the deadline (example and which fix a mistake).
• It is up to the students to create the project themselves in the website after contacting their potential mentors and discussing with them. Generally we also expect from the student to write a bigger text than the one in the idea page.
• Go to the mentor application page from time to time to approve mentors only if they are listed on the SoK ideas list or if you are sure they are "long-term" contributors (do not accept anyone if you are not sure they are a mentor)
• Don't assign mentors to a project, it is up to the mentors to do it.

Once applications deadline is passed

• Ask mentors to mentor for the projects they are willing to mentor and that they don't wait the last moment to do it.

The day of accepted projects

• Accept the proposals which have mentors.
• Create the status report page for this year if it does not exist yet: https://community.kde.org/SoK/2022/StatusReport
• Send a welcome mail including to ask for reports from students: https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-soc/2022-January/001594.html and ask promo if they can do an article on dot.kde.org with selected projects (it is best to help them by providing the content with all selected projects).
• Don't forget to also send a mail to all students that were not accepted to explain that they can still contribute outside SoK and it does not have to be the end their journey within KDE.

During the SoK

• Ask willing contributors to write blog posts about their progress and publish it in the planet.kde.org feed (https://invent.kde.org/websites/planet-kde-org/). In all cases, they have to write regularly their status reports.
• There is no mid-term evaluations but if mentors/contributors need to, they can stop at anytime but they need to inform the kde-soc-management team.
• Be present in the kde-soc Matrix channel in case there are questions.

After results announced

• Generate the certificates for each student: https://invent.kde.org/apol/sok-certificates
• Optionally, you can update the background image when it's become "too" old (or ask in krita-artists if anyone is willing to help create a new one).
• Usually, we go with http://freewear.org/ (mail: [email protected]) for customising the goodies. Feel free to contact the [[email protected] Visual Design Group] if you need help with the design!

With the KDE e.V., discuss the budget for the SoK goodies to be sure we ask a quotation that fits.

- Gather information for every student who wants to get the swag. Namely:

  - Project name
  - Real name
  - email
  - Phone number
  - Postal Address
  - T-Shirt size and fit

• Write a conclusion blog post about the different projects and their status (https://dot.kde.org/2022/05/03/season-kde-2022-conclusion).

Improvement ideas

Some suggestion/feedback from 2022 SoK:

• More communication and sooner. It felt a bit rushed for everybody, mentors didn't have the time to polish their ideas, promo didn't have the time to promote the event before it started, students didn't have enough time to prepare their proposals as the SoK was announced late.
• In the future it might be nice to have the deadlines for mentor proposals come first, with the deadline for student proposals later. Just a thought.

FAQ

Is there a hardcoded limit for postuling, editing proposals...?

Nothing limits anything in the code but it is better to stick to the deadlines.

What's the difference between "Accepted" and "Mentors"?

Mentors need to put themselves as mentors before the announcement of the selected projects. The project will be accepted when it is announced.