[Bsod-mentors] Blender SoD closed + evaluation

[Willian Padovani Germano]

Hi,

Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> As last topic I'd like to get some feedback from everyone about this 
> project. It has been an interesting first time, what can we learn from it?

I too agree that we've had good results and that the main issues have 
been time (authors' complaint) and communication (mentors' complaint).

It was a pleasure to participate, my thanks to everyone involved.

Just chatting, you can stop reading already :) ...

- Time:

It seems most if not all authors underestimated the time needed for 
their projects.

Bothersome, but this is a "normal" thing specially with writing involved 
-- it usually happens, we can only get more experienced and work to 
improve our estimates. As others mentioned, when planning we for example 
don't take into account all the small and not so small issues that may 
happen in ours lives.

Guess others will also agree that the scheduled time also wasn't enough 
because authors were not happy with producing only the amount of work 
originally requested. We felt the responsibility of writing needed docs 
for a big community (where we participate) around a program / project we 
care for.

I agree with Tim about giving more time.

Anyway, since people know about this project now and you'll be able to 
announce it earlier next time, potential authors can have more than 
enough time to prepare, sketch ideas and even start working before being 
accepted (having something to show with the proposal wouldn't hurt one's 
chances, for sure...).

- Communication:

Updating the wiki takes quite some time. For me it was much better to 
write in a text editor and postpone creating / uploading images till the 
chapters were mostly done. So checking the wiki to follow our progress 
is not ideal.

I agree that weekly meetings are a good idea. Reports could be done 
during regular Sunday meetings, like GSoC ones -- talk about peer 
pressure, Tim ;). Also a single wiki page about BSoD progress that all 
authors would update at least weekly, too, would be good to keep users 
informed:

project X:
Done: part 1, 2, etc.
TODO: this week: ...
Notes: ...

A snapshot of the docs should also be available somehow, either 
privately (authors would email their material to their mentors) or 
online, but not necessarily already in wiki format. Might be overkill to 
do this weekly, though.

-- 
Willian