Herding Cats with Django: Technical and social tools to incentivize participation
summary
Outreachy uses a Django site plus social incentives to get 1,200 people through a six‑week application funnel so 40 interns are selected; 60 mentors list projects with structured skill required/preferred/optional fields, explicit experience levels, and permission-checked edit views. Implementation uses a ProjectSkill model, help text constraints, an inline formset for multiple skills and URL-based round/community checks. Result: faster project selection, fewer ambiguous listings, and measurable reductions in applicant confusion.
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chapters (26)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:28My confession
- 0:40What is Outreach
- 0:58The Outreach Program
- 1:51Application Process
- 2:38Cat Hurting
- 2:52Django Social Incentives
- 3:10User Personas
- 4:45Mentor
- 5:13Organizer
- 6:09Overwhelmed
- 7:01Marketing Theory
- 7:36Applicant Needs
- 8:54Project Listings
- 10:49Incentives
- 11:46Project Skills
- 13:20Django Parts
- 14:01Django Mentor Selection
- 15:18Project Skill Template
- 15:37Inline Form Set
- 16:04From the Mentor
- 16:33Permissions Checking
- 17:47Pitfalls
- 18:42Recap
- 19:11Help Wanted
- 20:58Conclusion
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