December 2010 Fedora Election Plan

Wed Oct 20 19:54:30 UTC 2010

On Wed, 2010-10-20 at 15:15 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> I think if we put together some nice 'job openings' posted for tasks
> we'd like new recruits for, and advertise them across the Fedora-related
> social network accounts and Planet Fedora, that we might get some more
> interest. We should take the attitude that these are great opportunities
> for folks new to free software to get involved (and they are, election
> coordinator especially as it doesn't particularly require coding chops)
> and promote them as such.

To this end I wrote up the following. I have to run shortly; the only
position missing a write-up is the coordinator him-or-herself. Let me
know if there is any crackrock here or if I forgot something or got
something wrong. I would be happy to do a snazzy blog post of all this
once the election coordinator position is also written up and after I
get some sanity-checking from you fine folks :)

~m

Are you a Fedora community member or even a free software user who'd
like to get more involved but aren't sure where to start?

The Fedora Project is gearing up for our bi-annual elections process,
for an election period in late November. During this election, we'll be
voting on positions in the following groups:

• Fedora Board
• Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo)
• Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee (FAmSCo)

Helping out with this elections process is a great opportunity to get
started as a free software contributor, especially if you're unable or
prefer not to write code.

We have a handful positions we need help with. We've outlined them
below. If any of these sound like things you'd like to help us with,
please let us know in the blog comments!

Fedora Election Questionnaire Coordinator

The Fedora Election Questionnaire Coordinator will make sure members of
the Fedora Community are able to ask questions of the candidates, and
will facilitate sending the questions to the candidates and compiling
them into a wiki page that will be distributing during the election
period.

Specifically, here's what you'll need to do as questionnaire
coordinator:

• Create a wiki page to list the candidate questions.
  ∘ Use the following link to create the page:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F15_elections_questionnaire
  ∘ REFERENCE: The questionnaire from the last election is here -
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F14_elections_questionnaire You may want
to look at it for ideas.

• Send an message out to the Fedora community to collect questions for
the candidates, allowing community members to email their questions to
you directly or optionally adding them to a wiki page. The message
should be sent to the following:
  ∘ Fedora Advisory Board Mailing List
<advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Community support for Fedora users Mailing List
<users at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Fedora Announce List Mailing List <announce at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Development discussions related to Fedora Mailing List
<devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Planet Fedora (http://planet.fedoraproject.org) - if your blog is
not on Planet Fedora, contact Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> to
post your message to the Planet for you.

• On November 1, gather up all the questions that you collected from the
Community, and post them all to the wiki page you created
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F15_elections_questionnaire). Make sure
the page is neat & orderly. 

• On November 1, send the questionnaire page to all candidates and ask
them to send their answers to you by November 8. 

• For any candidates you haven't heard from on November 7th, send them a
reminder email. 

• Copy the candidates' answers into the wiki page and advertise the
answers to the same venues listed above (the mailing lists and Planet
Fedora.) 

That's it. Not too tough, right?

Fedora Election Town Hall Coordinator

The Fedora Election Town Hall Coordinator will schedule IRC town hall
sessions, one for each of the following groups:

• Fedora Board
• Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo)
• Fedora Ambassadors' Steering Committee (FAmSCo)

Specifically, here's what you'll need to do as town hall coordinator:

• Email all of the Fedora Board candidates between Nov. 1 and Nov. 3 and
ask them to provide some 1-hour blocks of time they might be available
to participate in an IRC town hall session, between November 13 and
November 19th. You may wish to use a tool like whenasgood.net to
organize this. Ask them to respond by Nov. 10.

• Do the same as above for the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee
(FESCo) candidates.

• Do the same as above for the Fedora Ambassadors' Steering Committee
(FAmSCo) candidates.

• On November 10, determine the best date and time for each of the three
town halls, and advertise this time & date and the irc channel (probably
#fedora-meeting and #fedora-meeting-questions on irc.freenode.net) in
the following venues:
  ∘ Fedora Advisory Board Mailing List
<advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Community support for Fedora users Mailing List
<users at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Fedora Announce List Mailing List <announce at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Development discussions related to Fedora Mailing List
<devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Planet Fedora (http://planet.fedoraproject.org) - if your blog is
not on Planet Fedora, contact Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> to
post your message to the Planet for you.

That's it. Not too tough, right?

Fedora Election Town Hall Moderator (3)

The three Fedora Election Town Hall Moderators will each run a 1-hour
long IRC town hall sessions, one for each of the 3 groups being elected.
This task requires some skill with IRC. This is an especially good
position for someone who does not have a lot of time to devote as it
only takes a little over an hour to do.

The date and time of each of these sessions will be published by the
Fedora Election Town Hall Coordinator on November 10.

Specifically, here's what you'll need to do as town hall moderator:

• Show up at least 5 minutes early to the town hall, make sure the IRC
channel exists. 

• Start the meeting using the meeting bot command '#startmeeting'

• Learn the IRC nicks of the candidates for your town hall. You can look
them up on Fedora Community (log in at
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/community) or you can ask via email.

• During the town hall, allow only candidates to have voice in
#fedora-meeting.

• During the town hall, take questions from Fedora Community members  in
#fedora-meeting-questions, and maintain a question queue. Ask the
questions in order in #fedora-meeting, giving each candidate a chance to
provide an answer to the question.

• Once the session is over, end the meeting with the meeting bot command
'#endmeeting'

• At the end of the meeting, the meeting bot will spit out a bunch of
links to the minutes. Take these links and post them to the following
venues as soon as possible:
  ∘ Fedora Advisory Board Mailing List
<advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Community support for Fedora users Mailing List
<users at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Fedora Announce List Mailing List <announce at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Development discussions related to Fedora Mailing List
<devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
  ∘ Planet Fedora (http://planet.fedoraproject.org) - if your blog is
not on Planet Fedora, contact Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> to
post your message to the Planet for you.

That's it!

~m