I have changed my ways to check packages from my Applicants a bit.
I now require every applicant to upload their package(s) to the
archive at dak.ganneff.de.

This part is - as other parts - intended to give you some practice with
the tools and procedures used by Debian. So, you really should do it for
your own benefit, beside of that it makes life easier for me.

You will get a mail from that archive, telling you your account-name and
password there. Only after you got this mail your uploads will be
accepted, everything else will be rejected, so please wait until you got
it.

You can use this login to look how the archive works. For example you
can run "madison PACKAGENAME", replace PACKAGENAME with a package that
exists there, to see some information about it.
Or helena, to see if there are packages in NEW.
Please do not use this machine for anything else!

It is running the same software that the Debian Archive is using.
This way you can now play with the tools and learn, without a risk of
damaging something in the official archive.
For now it means a bit more work, but in the end you are not left
without any knowledge on how to upload packages after you maybe get
approved.

You need either dupload or dput, whatever you like more. The following
are the config snippets you have to put in your configuration for the
tool you use to upload the package. Of course they are already setup in a
way that you can upload to Debian later without any configuration
change/addition.

For dput use:
[ganneff_app]
fqdn = dak.ganneff.de
method = ftp
incoming = ./
allow_unsigned_uploads = 0
run_dinstall = 0
login = dak

For dupload use:
$cfg{ganneff_app} = {
        fqdn => "dak.ganneff.de",
        incoming => "./",
		login => "dak",
        dinstall_runs => 1,
};

You are asked for a password while uploading, it's dak.

Now you can upload with
dput ganneff_app changesfile
or
dupload -t ganneff_app changesfile
.

Hints:
It works exactly as the Debian Archive, with all its checks,
limitations and stuff, but it IS NOT the Debian Archive.

That means:
- Your first upload needs to include the original source, even
  if it is not a -1 revision. See man dpkg-buildpackage for the -sa option
  for more information.
- You can't overwrite or replace any existing file. Your next upload
  needs to have a higher version.
- Your uploads are processed the same way as in Debian:
  The unchecked queue (your upload place) is checked every ~15 minutes.
  - If the package is unknown in the archive (your first upload), it goes
    into the NEW queue.
  - If it is already known, it is installed into the pool.

  - If it was NEW and it gets accepted, it gets installed into the pool.

- You get mails from the archive system, telling you what is going on
  with the package. Read them and maybe correct your actions, or ask for
  help if you are lost.

You can play with the system and test it with different uploads. You can
even add [ht|f]tp://dak.ganneff.de/ to your sources.list if you are insane
enough. Play with it, learn, it's ok.

For my package checks I will take the latest version that's in the
archive after we have successfully finished the part with your answers to my
P&P and T&S questions. So you can take the whole time that needs to play with
your uploads and to polish your package(s).

If you want you can subscribe to the mailinglists dak-bcc and dak-nm at
http://lists.jj21.de/mailman/listinfo
The dak-bcc list gets every mail the Archive sents out as a Bcc, the
dak-nm list is similar to the debian-devel-changes@lists.debian.org
list.