[Ambassadors] What to Do?

[David Nalley]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Frank Murphy
(Frankly3D)<frankly3d at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have come across a number of things,
> while following up on the quest for volunteers.
>
> a: Some volunteers, that have left Freemedia, if not fpo.
> were still assigned some tickets.
>
> So we need a way for bouncing fpo email aliases to be forwarded to the
> relevant parts of the project. So relevant parts of the project can
> be updated, so:
>  wikis \lists\tickets  can be edited to suit.

This is a freemedia/infrastructure issue - not really an Ambassador
one, though Freemedia originated within the Ambassador program.

>
>
> b: We have come across a case of where, a prospective user who seems to
> be stuck on F8, has had emails\queries to his local Ambassadors ignored.
> and even alleges said Ambassadors know nothing of Fedora, and in fact
> use Ubuntu as their main OS of choice.

He would not be the first person to do so. At one point it was so bad
that Nicu drew a comic representing that many Ambassadors did the same
thing. This was and is a problem. We've taken several steps to address
it but it isn't completely effective.

We purged a number of inactive Ambassadors - several hundred as a
matter of fact. I know you claim this isn't about inactive people -
but that's a pretty low barrier to eliminate a number of people who
don't care about representing Fedora enough to keep their account
active. I'll be the first person to say that there are many times I
wish we could dramatically reboot this entire process and start over
again. I think many of us would do it dramatically different. That
said we are trying to eliminate this problem going forward with
mentoring.

This subject comes up from time to time, and often causes much
discussion. It is something that many of us feel passionately about.
The people who misrepresent Fedora we believe to be doing harm to the
project, and even more so to the Ambassadors. This sullies the
reputation of all Ambassadors IMO.

Generally speaking I don't think that most of these problems are
caused by people acting maliciously - I think it's a case of ignorance
about what they committed to do, and the philosophy of free software
in general. This is also a community - I expect and even want people
to point out when I am doing something wrong. I want and expect people
to file bugs against my packages - it makes them, and hopefully the
distribution, better in the process, it also educates me to not make
the same mistakes again in the future. This shouldn't be any different
- I expect if you see me doing something that runs afoul of the Code
of Conduct, Forbidden Items, or common sense, that you will tell me
about it. I don't expect you to be confrontational about it, and
assume you realize the negative effects that would likely have. If the
person truly is apathetic or defiant, bring it to the attention of the
regional leaders in your area or perhaps a FAmSCo member in your
region.

That said, I don't want FAmSCo to become a body concerned with
adjudication, and honestly I don't think it will, but sincerely hope I
don't wake to find 500 emails complaining about Ambassadors not
behaving properly.

Another email in this thread suggests some method of having the public
report bad Ambassador behavior. Joerg makes some good arguments
against it, but pragmatically, if a good portion of Ambassadors don't
know how they are supposed to be behaving, how can we expect the
public to know that their behavior is out of line in all but the most
egregious cases.


>
> This is pleas for advise and direction from the list and even FamSco,
> (with some follow-up to Infrastructure re:a hopefully possible)

My comments earlier about talking to the person in question
individually and trying to educate them are my advise, though I should
disclaim that I am not speaking for FAmSCo, merely voicing my personal
opinion.