Thank you for such a thorough plan, @dcherian!
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I find GitHub issue triaging to be one of the ways to increase diversity of contributors. I am always delighted when I navigate to a GitHub repository’s issue tracker and find issue labels such as “good first issue”, “good second issue”, “beginner friendly”, “easy bug fix”, and “low-hanging-fruit”. These issue labels send a welcoming message to first time contributors.
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Regarding core team members, I really think that for big projects like xarray, it would be useful to have “How to Become a Core Contributor” guide. I find Python’s core dev guide to be such a great example. It tells you what is expected of a core dev, the requirements to become a core dev. So, having a guide like this may be useful for folks interested in becoming part of the core team, but aren’t familiar with the process.
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Another point worth considering is pair-programming when possible. This one can be tricky, and time consuming, but I do think that it is unmatched as a method of upskilling other contributors especially after first time contributions.
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I’ve heard great things about sprints at SciPy conferences. Dask and Xarray had sprints last year, and I think they went well and people enjoyed them. Would it be useful to alternate between Pangeo office hours and Pangeo targeted sprints once in a while? Open source contribution sprints provide another great way to build better collaborative relationships IMHO.
I am looking forward to this, and I am happy to help out with organizing some of these.