Do you know someone whose work meets the criteria for Python Software Foundation Fellowship Membership? You now have less than three weeks to get their nomination in for Q4 of 2024. More details at https://www.python.org/psf/fellows/, and I will happily help you craft that nomination and get it out the door contact me if you want to chat.

A disclaimer: I am in no way involved in this process other than having nominated a few people, working on nominating more, and trying to spread the word to others. If anything here is materially incorrect, please let me know so that I can update the post. This post is an exansion of and better permanent home for my recent Mastodon post, the content of which is included above. Quick questions and answers (but ones that don’t neatly fit in a Mastodon post) below:

Who

You! Anyone from the broader Python community can nominate someone for a PSF Fellowship¹.

And the folks you know that are active in your Python communities! The criteria for the kinds of work that qualify can be found at https://www.python.org/psf/fellows/#criteria, but my TL;DR is that if you scroll through the Fellows Roster and are surprised that someone’s name is not already there, that’s a great place to start.

What

What is a PSF Fellowship? Glad you asked! This is one of the classes of PSF Membership. From a practical standpoint, this basically just means that Fellows can vote in PSF elections. More importantly, it’s one of the ways that the PSF can recognize the work that people do within their Python communities and honor their efforts.

How

All it takes is an email. Check out the Fellows webpage for the email address, some sample text, and other logistical info. Again, if you’re stuck, ping me and I will help.

Why

Fellowship is kind of a big deal. Python is one of the largest programming languages in the world, and there are only currently 410 Fellows listed on the roster. Nominating someone is a great way to show them you appreciate their work, and you might make their day (or more).

When

Fellowship nominations are reviewed and awarded quarterly. The due date for Q4 of 2024 is November 20th, 2024², but please don’t wait until the last minute.

Further Reading

Fellowship isn’t the only award around the Python world. In fact, there are quite a few. Mariatta and Iqbal both have excellent posts on this topic, and I encourage you to read them to learn about some other options. None of these posts are exhaustive (I don’t know of an exhaustive list of these types of awards), and if you learn about one that you don’t see mentioned, I would be happy to boost your message and spread the word.