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Aug-24-Guide-Foundations-Notes

WotR Guide Foundations 24 August 2025

Goals​

  • Guide system main goal is to increase project engagement
    • Documentation on FAQs and processes should be built up alongside Guide system to smooth out the onboarding process moving forward - eventually move away from direct answering of questions and more to directing to a FAQ/document

What Are Guides?​

  • Guides will help new contributors (Guided) establish a personal connection within the project who will help them get their footing as they learn about where and how to contribute.
  • Have an initial kickoff meeting for anyone interested in being a guide or providing input on what guides can do so we can all be on the same page
    • Game plan what guiding will look like
      • Discussion in DMs, General, threads?
        • Discourage DMs as a primary communication method
        • Utilize threads in General or team specific channels
          • Encourage one Guide per Guided as much as we can, may be difficult based on team distribution
        • Feedback form after onboarding completes for both the Guide and Guided - want specific detail on what works, how it goes, figure out if any adjustments need to be made
          • Create feedback form(s)
      • Contributors can opt out of a Guide, should be clear when the Guide system is presented on the onboarding ticket
      • Utilize Onboarding Guides post to ask for Guides to volunteer when a new contributor joins/asks for a Guide, or assign out based on known Guide/new contributor alignment
      • Goal is to onboard within one week, but should be completed within two weeks unless there are other circumstances that have been communicated
    • Kick off announcement both asking for perspective Guides and for those in the project who would like to have a guide to get reintroduced to the project
      • Private message those in the project who haven’t been active to let them know about the Guide system if they felt lost and need the help or support getting involved
      • Write announcement task
    • Schedule meeting to kickoff Guide recruitment

What Will Guides Do?​

  • Settle on some tasks we'll need to complete for this (likely docs team involvement, document or find links for easy reference in an onboarding playbook). Objectives for the Guide system to help new contributors get engaged in the project:
    • Help make sure the new contributor is aware of common practices, meetings, and ticketing system
      • Catalog current meetings and where to look for future ones
      • Create a guide or explanation on the ticketing system
      • Explain how stage meetings work
      • Walk through Discord layout
      • Show documentation/previous meeting notes
    • Help make sure that they know what they can work on and how to get started in the areas they want to work in
      • Getting set up with IntelliJ/added to the GitHub/added to the Build server/understand standards within art bulletin/etc.
      • Understanding the art asset request process/lore task process/pitch to feature process/GitHub ticketing/build spreadsheet
    • Help them feel welcomed through their first few weeks so they can get adjusted and integrated into the project
      • Encourage Guided to post in the contributor introductions
      • Guide should post “welcome to the team” messages in relevant team chats, and introduce them to the team navigators (or just this info page)

How Do You Become A Guide?​

  • Set up a process for creating the Guide List - application form? Ask people to submit a ticket? Assuming a role would be helpful here
    • Enter ticket to create Guide role. No special permissions needed, mostly for identifying and pinging people who volunteered for the responsibility
    • Have perspective Guides submit a ticket with the areas they are comfortable guiding and their time zone/general free time. Match up new contributors with the time and team roles as best we can so they can have a personal connection to the project. Might not need to be super sophisticated.
      • Create questions to answer when asking for the Guide role
    • No limitation on who can be a Guide? Should there be? Such as a day 1 person becoming a Guide?
      • Limitation is that you’ve proven to be up to date and aware of the goings-on of a team space
      • Navigator/PL approval for the role, if they do not feel someone is proven enough they might not grant the role

Attendance

  • Galactic_15
  • maloki
  • Sp3cialK
  • WarrenGore