Re: Concerns about community contributor support

[Bastien]

Hi Tim,

thank you very much for your detailed answer.

Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:

> Yes, but with some caveats. 

Thank you!

> For these reasons, I'm probably not the best person to assist with the
> review and guidance for patches aimed at adding/extending functionality.

The role of a "contributor steward" is to address the issues Timothy
originally raised about contributors not receiving answers when they
take the time to send a patch or a bug report, it is not about making
technical decisions.  Of course, your advice as a long-time user on
these decisions is always very welcome.

> However, I would be happy to
>
> - Assist in trying to reproduce and confirm bugs
> - Assist in extracting additional information and providing
>   guidance/clarification for bug reports 
> - Assist with documentation
> - Provide some guidance on patches, particularly bug fixes.

That's exactly what is badly needed to discharge core maintainers from
routine tasks and to let them focus on technical stuff.

This has basically been my role in my early years of maintainership:
making sure to keep this list as welcoming as possible, to continue to
attract new people with new ideas (and new bug report).  This is a
somewhat undervalued role, but a deeply necessary one -- so again,
thanks for helping here.

> My time availability can vary greatly depending on work. 

That's no problem.  We have a team of Tim's :)

> Also, as a
> blind user, my ability to reproduce bugs can sometimes be hampered by
> the necessity of running Emacspeak in conjunction with org mode (they
> can sometimes interfere with each other). However, apart from that, more
> than happy to help where I can, so if your happy, sign me up!

If the task becomes too much for you, you can always say that you
won't be available for a while.

Thanks!