Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Coping with the new-developer flood

["Theodore Tso" <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Wed, Aug 05, 2026 at 05:26:11PM -0500, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> Do we need some sort of more organized onboarding structure and, if so,
> are we able to create and sustain it?
> 
> At a minimum, one could imagine a bot that notices a patch posted by
> somebody who has not been seen before and responds with a "Welcome!
> Here's how we do things here" email.

I wonder if we could make the bot more sophisticated than just sending
a welcome message.  If the patch is white-space damaged, or doesn't
apply against upstream (or if there are indications that it was
applied against an LTS branch without an explicit LTS tag or something
indicating that it is a backport), one could imagine having the bot
sending a newer contributor a more specific set of constructive
criticisms.

Some, of this could, perhaps be something that we could add to
Sashiko, with an eye towards giving a more friendly message.  Just
today I had to let a new submitter know that they had sent a
white-space damaged patch, and given they were using a gmail.com
e-mail address, it could be possible to send a more useful message.
(Since I was in a hurry, I just pointed them at the Submitting Patches
document, which is rather long.  :-)

					- Ted