[Ambassadors] Open Letter to Fedora Ambassadors

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Dear Ambassadors,

In recent months FAmSCo has been working hard to improve both the way
FAmSCo works and the way FAmSCo is elected to represent the Fedora
Project. Efforts directed toward the latter I think have been more
successful and have resulted in new election guidelines and the call
for a new election during the F18 election cycle which has begun
already and which will culminate in a new FAmSCo being seated in June
2012.

Any time an elected body reforms its election process there seems to
inevitably be some points of contention that arise and this process
was no exception. While there was wide support for 99% of the reforms
there still was a bit of a fuss caused by the choice of a transition
process. The decision has now been made to move as swiftly and as
fairly as possible to the new election rules with a great effort to
compromise with those who opposed the original transition plans.
Please join me in now putting all of that behind us and focus on the
future. Help create the new FAmSCo by participating in this important
transitional election.

Some important dates to keep in mind:

April 27-May 8: Questionnaire form open for the community to submit
questions for the candidates.

Please ask questions for the candidates here:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F18_elections_questionnaire

May 9-15: Nomination Period (closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on the 15th)

Begin thinking about whether you would like to serve on FAmSCo to help
make this transition a success now! Nominations begin in just 10 days
and we need good people to volunteer to serve. Being a member of
FAmSCo can't just be a title. FAmSCo members need to participate
actively in FAmSCo business, need to attend meetings, need to
participate in discussions of issues on various mailing lists and in
tickets filed with FAmSCo, and need to vote on various matters when a
vote is called.

FAmSCo itself can find some ways this time to make all of this easier
for members who are located around the world. With only seven members
and those scattered far and wide geographically makes obtaining the
current quorum of four members at IRC meetings difficult to always
obtain. Rather than be blocked by an arbitrary quorum I propose the
following change for consideration in the future.

(1) To conduct business on IRC change the quorum to three members so
business can be discussed in our public meetings. (Four votes for
passage/approval of items may still be required.)

(2) Document in the relevant ticket what exactly was proposed to be
voted on and the votes cast in the meeting and allow the absent FAmSCo
members 48 hours (or a different fixed amount of time) to vote by
indicating their position in the ticket. Passage/approval will happen
when the majority is reached but hopefully this mechanism will prevent
weeks from passing waiting for enough members to show up for a single
FAmSCo IRC meeting.

May 25-31: Townhalls (Two for the Fedora Project Board, two for FESCo,
and two for FAmSCo).

Please come to the townhall meetings. Ask questions, listen carefully
to what the candidates say, or better yet come to the townhalls as a
candidate and be the one answering the questions.

June 1-7: Voting Period (closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on the 7th).

Vote!

For years now we have seen around 125 ambassadors participate in
elections by voting. Please support the efforts of your fellow
ambassadors by voting this election.

John