QA:SOP Sponsoring New Members

This SOP documents how new members of the QA group should be verified and sponsored.

Checking for applicants

All group members with sponsorship rights should receive an email whenever someone applies to the group. The email comes from accounts AT fedoraproject DOT org and has a subject like Fedora 'qa' sponsor needed for (username). You can also view all outstanding membership requests on the FAS group page.

Verifying applicants

If the applicant subscribes to the test mailing list and sends a self-introduction mail - and the self-introduction mail seems genuine and not just auto-generated - this is enough to consider the applicant genuine and approve the application. If the applicant is already an active Fedora contributor in other teams, and you as a sponsor can verify that, this also is sufficient verification.

Otherwise, we must contact the applicant somehow to verify they are a real person and genuinely interested in joining the QA team.

IRC

If someone who's clearly the applicant is active on IRC and you confirm interest with them there in normal conversation, this is sufficient verification and their application can be approved.

Email

If the applicant does not send a self-introduction mail and is not obviously an existing Fedora contributor or active on IRC, a sponsor should contact them via email to confirm their interest. When making contact by email, you must ensure the mail is also sent to qa-sponsors AT fedoraproject DOT org, in order to let all the other sponsors know that you are contacting applicants and avoid duplicate contacts.

Here is a template you can use for these contacts:

Hi there! Thank you very much for applying to the Fedora QA team, we
appreciate your volunteering. Unless we missed it, you have not sent a
self-introduction mail to the mailing list, so we just need to confirm
your interest before approving your membership. Could you please
confirm that you are interested in joining the Fedora QA team, and you
have read and understood https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Join ? If
so, please reply, and feel free to tell us a little about yourself too,
if you like. Thanks again!

In all cases, set the Reply-to of your email to the qa-sponsors address. When contacting a single applicant, please address the mail to the applicant, and CC the qa-sponsors address. When contacting multiple applicants at once, please address the mail to qa-sponsors and BCC (not CC) the applicants, to avoid disclosing their email addresses to each other. If you do this, please ensure you contact all currently-waiting applicants, so other sponsors will know that all applicants up to the time of your email have been contacted.

Once an applicant provides a reasonable response to the contact mail, their application can be approved.

Sponsoring applicants

Once an applicant has been verified, approving their application is simple: all you have to do is click Sponsor in the FAS interface. No other action is needed at this time, and any sponsor may sponsor a properly-verified applicant.