Ian Trudel wrote:
> Dear Squeakizen,
> 
> I would like to call for your opinion(s) in regard to contributions. I
> am a firm believer in surveying the community in order to improve our
> sense of direction, our culture, and bonding as a community.
> 
> 1. What are your biggest hurdles preventing you from contributing to Squeak?

My lack of knowledge of the system.

> 2. What would it take for you to contribute more?

I find contributing really easy: find a bug, delve into the code around 
the bug, learn.

> 3. What are your expectations in regard to contributions?

* I expect it to be easy to be able to submit contributions. (Push your 
MCZ to Inbox. Done!)
* For bugfixes, assuming a well-thought-out and minimal change I expect 
a reasonably quick response.
* I expect the maintainers to quickly reject code that isn't 
well-thought-out, doesn't have a decent suite of tests, or doesn't in 
some other way meet the required standards.

Having said that, we also have to bear in mind that the maintainers are 
few in number, and are very kindly volunteering their time in acting as 
gatekeepers. Hence my emphasis on the duty of the submitter to make the 
maintainers' job as easy as possible.

> 4. What are the reasons behind the low level of contributions from
> other community members, according to you?

I suspect lots of people just don't feel much pain in this regard. 
There's no real way to tell the difference between apathy, contentment 
with the status quo, and someone not able to contribute, without someone 
actually saying what _their_ problem is.

> 5. What would you improve in order to increase the number of
> contributions and the number of contributors?

* Continue splitting the image into packages.
* Keep public and well-known lists of bugs.

Which is pretty much how things work right now.

> 6. How would you rate your sense of social identification to the
> Squeak community, on a scale from 1 to 10. (1 is the lowest, 10 the
> highest)

8

> 7. What is your rating based on?

I love working Squeak. I'd love to be paid to work in it. At the same 
time, I also happen to like other languages and communities, so I'm not 
putting "10" down.

I'm sure there will be those replying who will point at their own social 
identity knobs and explain how their's goes to 11!

> 8. Anything else?

Not really.

frank