[Ambassadors] inactive ambassadors, a proposed solution

[Roy Ong]

On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 12:34 +0100, Max Spevack wrote:
> The purpose of this email is to try to lay out a roadmap for solving, 
> once and for all, the question of inactive Fedora Ambassadors.
> 
> GOALS OF IDENTIFYING INACTIVE AMBASSADORS:
> 
> (1) Housekeeping.  All projects need to have their membership rosters 
> pruned from time to time.  In Ambassadors, this is particularly 
> important because non-Fedora people might get in touch with Ambassadors, 
> and if they don't receive a response, it looks like Fedora is ignorning 
> them.  Other sub-projects for which identifying inactive ambassadors are 
> crucial is packaging.  If someone drops off the face of the earth, their 
> packages need to be given to a new owner.
> 
> Pages that need to a "refresh" policy:
> 
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/CountryList <-- I argue that 
> CountryList is the wrong name for this page, and it should be called 
> Directory.

+1 

> 
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/MembershipService/Verification
> 
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Count <-- why do we even need 
> this page?  Doesn't the CountryList page serve the same purpose?

No idea. The CountryList seems to serve sufficiently unless someone can
come up with an instance as to why we need a Count page ...

> How often are these pages currently updated?  Is the process manual or 
> automated, or a mixture of both?
> 
> 
> (2) Give a more prominent location to the "list of ambassadors per 
> country".  That page should be the most visited page in all of Fedora 
> Ambassadors.  People who are trying to find out about Fedora should be 
> visiting it, and Ambassadors who are looking for other Fedora folks near 
> them should be visiting it.
> 
> We should have something on fedoraproject.org that says "are you 
> interested in Fedora?  Find a Fedora Ambassador near you to give you 
> some information" and you type in your location, and it spits back a 
> list of Ambassadors near you.

+1 ... (roy raises both his hands in support of this)

> (3) In order for any of (2) to be successful, we need to make sure that 
> the people who are listed as Ambassadors are actually paying attention 
> to the Ambassadors part of Fedora.  If someone is not, it doesn't mean 
> that they are a bad person -- it just means that they don't want to have 
> to deal with organizing events or asking questions from newbies to the 
> project.
> 
> I wouldn't be offended if someone removed me from the Fedora 
> Infrastructure group in FAS, because *I DON'T DO ANYTHING WITH FEDORA 
> INFRASTRUCTURE*.  It doesn't mean I'm a bad person or not a Fedora 
> contributor, it just means that I don't participate in that part of 
> Fedora.
> 
> 
> HOW DO WE IDENTIFY ACTIVE AMBASSADORS?
> 
> We come up with a policy that is simple, and fair.
> 
> An active ambassador is someone who:
> 
> 1) Has joined the group in FAS.
> 2) Reads and/or posts on fedora-ambassadors-list.
> 3) Has a useful, up-to-date personal page on the Fedora wiki.

(1) Done
(2) Fairly consistent reader of fedora-ambassadors-list but I don't
reply ... mmm, I guess I have to be more "vocal" then :P
(3) Sufficient information on the wiki. It has a link to my personal
site so I am definitely within reach

> And does one or more of:
> 
> * Attends or organizes an event once in a release cycle.
> * Maintains a blog on Planet Fedora, with about one post per month.
> * Participates on fedora-list or fedoraforum.org to help people w/ 
> questions.
> * Indicates their willingness to mentor and guide new contributors or 
> new users.

Mmm, this might be kind of tricky. I guess a lot of us do some form of
"promotion" and "encourage" the use of Fedora in our own little ways.
Event organization might be a stretch for some. Blogging is possible but
some would rather do so on their preferred blogging platform like LJ or
BS rather than on Planet Fedora. I don't have a better suggestion at
present but I am sure we could explore this a little more.

> 
> WHAT DO WE DO WITH INACTIVE AMBASSADORS?
> 
> If someone is inactive, we *DO NOT* kick them out of the ambassadors 
> group in FAS, and we *DO NOT* remove them from fedora-ambassadors list.
> 
> But we should remove them from the "directory of Ambassadors sorted by 
> country", which I argue again needs to be much more visible and useful, 
> so that those inactive Ambassadors aren't being asked to do 
> public-facing things.
> 
> When someone re-surfaces or has more time for Ambassadors, we put them 
> back on the directory.

2cents suggestion ... leave the inactive ambassadors on the directory of
ambassadors but flag them with an "Inactive" tag. That way, the public
can still elect to contact an inactive ambassador should they feel
absolutely necessary (or perhaps in an obscure situation, an "inactive"
ambassador might actually provide a more prompt response than an active
one :P) ...  An ambassador with an "Inactive" tag for say, 6/12 months,
can then be removed from the listing as per suggestion above. This
prevents the sudden "disappearance" of an appointed ambassador and
allows the "inactive" ambassador an opportunity to work on gaining back
that "active" award before he's removed from the list.