QA:SOP new member welcome

Purpose

This SOP covers handling QA group membership requests. It is intended for the use of QA group sponsors and administrators. For information on becoming a QA group sponsor, see FIXME. As QA is a relatively small group and we do not have much trouble with spam or malicious applicants, this process is quite light and assumes good faith in most cases.

Reviewing requests

As explained in the instructions for joining, new members are supposed to submit a request to join the QA group and also send a self-introduction mail to the test mailing list.

Handling self-introduction mails

If you see a self-introduction mail and no other sponsor has yet replied, first make sure the mail looks genuine - like it was written by a human who actually seems interested in Fedora QA. If it seems very obviously not to be, you can just ignore it; if you're not sure, you can send a private reply politely asking for a bit more detail.

If the mail seems genuine, next check the group membership queue and see if you can find a request with a matching email address. Then write a short reply (to be sent to the list and optionally to the applicant directly as well) welcoming the user to the group, thanking them for volunteering, and maybe adding some personal comments in response to particular elements of the mail or things going on in QA at the time - here is a very detailed example, and here is a shorter one. If the applicant applied to the FAS group, also write that you will sponsor their membership, and then go ahead and do so. If the applicant did not apply to the FAS group, ask them to apply and say you will sponsor their membership after they do.

Handling the membership queue

Sometimes, people apply to the FAS group but do not send a self-introduction mail. These applications pile up, and should be periodically reviewed - every few weeks is ideal. The goal here is to accept any stray requests where the applicant sent a self-introduction mail but we did not handle it, remind applicants who did not send a self-introduction mail to do so, and clean out any 'stale' requests from applicants who received a reminder but still did not introduce themselves.

To do a review of the queue, first open the page. For each pending application, check the test mailing list archives for a self-introduction mail that looks like it comes from the same person. If you find one, handle it according to the instructions above for handling self-introduction mails.

If you don't find a matching self-introduction mail, check the date of the application. If it was made before the last two reminder mails sent by you or another sponsor, you can click Remove to drop the application. (If you are a new sponsor, don't drop any applications until you have sent and/or seen at least two reminder mails). If the applicant has not yet received two reminder mails, take a note of the email address, and move on to the next application, so that as you move through the list, you build up a list of applicants to receive reminder emails.

Once you have worked your way through the list, write a reminder mail. Here is a template you can use:

Subject: Fedora QA group membership

Hi there! I see you applied for membership of the QA group in FAS,
thanks for your interest! Have you read 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Join and learned a bit about
participating in QA? Would you be willing to send a self-introduction
mail to the mailing list? Thanks!

Set the To: address as qa-sponsors AT fedoraproject DOT org, and add all the applicants from your list to the BCC: field. This part is VERY IMPORTANT - do not put the applicants on the To: or CC: field. This way, the other group sponsors will receive the mail and will know that you did a review, and what date you did it on - this is how you know when previous reviews have happened, for the purpose of dropping 'stale' applications. The applicants will also all receive the mail, but will not see any information on the other applicants. Then, go ahead and send the mail out.