English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Newcomers are critical for the success and continuity of open source software(OSS) projects. To attract newcomers and facilitate their onboarding, many OSSprojects recommend tasks for newcomers, such as good first issues (GFIs).Previous studies have preliminarily investigated the effects of GFIs andtechniques to identify suitable GFIs. However, it is still unclear whether justrecommending tasks is enough and how significant mentoring is for newcomers. Tobetter understand mentoring in OSS communities, we analyze the resolutionprocess of 48,402 GFIs from 964 repositories through a mix-method approach. Weinvestigate the extent, the mentorship structures, the discussed topics, andthe relevance of expert involvement. We find that $\sim$70\% of GFIs haveexpert participation, with each GFI usually having one expert who makes twocomments. Half of GFIs will receive their first expert comment within 8.5 hoursafter a newcomer comment. Through analysis of the collaboration networks ofnewcomers and experts, we observe that community mentorship presents four typesof structure: centralized mentoring, decentralized mentoring, collaborativementoring, and distributed mentoring. As for discussed topics, we identify 14newcomer challenges and 18 expert mentoring content. By fitting the generalizedlinear models, we find that expert involvement positively correlates withnewcomers' successful contributions but negatively correlates with newcomers'retention. Our study manifests the status and significance of mentoring in theOSS projects, which provides rich practical implications for optimizing thementoring process and helping newcomers contribute smoothly and successfully.

Is It Enough to Recommend Tasks to Newcomers? Understanding Mentoring on Good First Issues