[or-cvs] r22111: {website} make it clearer to avoid open-ended research topics; and mak (website/trunk/en)

[Roger Dingledine]

Author: arma
Date: 2010-04-01 22:40:26 +0000 (Thu, 01 Apr 2010)
New Revision: 22111

Modified:
   website/trunk/en/gsoc.wml
Log:
make it clearer to avoid open-ended research topics; and make it clearer
that incremental results are very important


Modified: website/trunk/en/gsoc.wml
===================================================================
--- website/trunk/en/gsoc.wml	2010-04-01 07:25:28 UTC (rev 22110)
+++ website/trunk/en/gsoc.wml	2010-04-01 22:40:26 UTC (rev 22111)
@@ -39,17 +39,6 @@
 </p>
 
 <p>
-In addition to getting some more development work
-done on Tor and related applications, Google and Tor are most interested
-in getting students involved in Tor development in a way that keeps them
-involved after the summer too. That means we will give priority to students
-who have demonstrated continued interest and responsiveness. We will require
-students to write public status report updates for our community, either by
-blogging or sending mail to our mailing list. We want to ensure that the
-community and the student can both benefit from each other.
-</p>
-
-<p>
 Working on Tor is rewarding because:
 </p>
 
@@ -79,6 +68,17 @@
 </p>
 
 <p>
+In addition to getting some more development work
+done on Tor and related applications, Google and Tor are most interested
+in getting students involved in Tor development in a way that keeps them
+involved after the summer too. That means we will give priority to students
+who have demonstrated continued interest and responsiveness. We will require
+students to write public status report updates for our community, either by
+blogging or sending mail to our mailing list. We want to ensure that the
+community and the student can both benefit from each other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
 When it comes time for us to choose projects, our impression of how well
 you'll fit into our community &mdash; and how good you are at taking
 the initiative to do things &mdash; will be at least as important as
@@ -94,6 +94,22 @@
 and one for <a href="https://www.eff.org/gsoc2010">EFF's projects</a>.
 </p>
 
+<p>
+The best kind of ideas are A) ones that we know we need done real soon
+now (you can get a sense of urgency from the priority on the wishlist,
+and from talking to the potential mentors), and B) ones where it's
+clear what needs to be done, at least for the first few steps. Lots of
+students try to bite off open-ended research topics; but if you're going
+to be spending the first half of your summer figuring out what exactly
+you should code, and there's a chance that the conclusion will be "oh,
+that isn't actually a good idea to build", then your proposal will make
+us very nervous. Try to figure out how much you can actually fit in a
+summer, break the work down into manageable pieces, and most importantly,
+figure out how to make sure your incremental milestones are actually
+useful &mdash; if you don't finish everything in your plan, we want to
+know that you'll still have produced something useful.
+</p>
+
 <a id="Template"></a>
 <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Template">Application Template</a></h2>
 
@@ -104,7 +120,7 @@
 
 <ol>
 
-<li>What project would you like to work on? Use our ideas lists as starting
+<li>What project would you like to work on? Use our ideas lists as a starting
 point or make up your own idea. Your proposal should include high-level
 descriptions of what you're going to do, with more details about the
 parts you expect to be tricky. Your proposal should also try to break