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SoK/Administer the SoK

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< SoK
Revision as of 20:15, 2 November 2022 by Jjazeix (talk | contribs)

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)

Preparation of the event

   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

Promote the event

  • 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: https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2021q4/007143.html and https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2021q4/007144.html 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 + 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/).
  • 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

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

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.