Looking for a few great contributors to help out with Fedora Elections!

[Robyn Bergeron]

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 twice-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 (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board)
* Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo)
(http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/FESCO)
* Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee (FAmSCo)
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/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 send an email to the Fedora Board (advisory-board AT
lists.fedoraproject.org).

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.
* Helpful Tips:
       ** Consider using your best judgement and selecting 6-8 good
questions from the pool for the candidates. 20 questions is probably
too much. If some are similar, feel free to merge and restate them.

That’s it. Not too tough, to ask. 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.
* Select who the Town Hall moderators were be (see below for that job
description).
* 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.
* Helpful tips:
       ** When selecting people for town hall coordinators – remember
that things like good IRC skills, even-temperedness, knowledge in the
area of the town hall they are moderating, are very helpful.

That’s it. Not too tough, right?

Fedora Election Town Hall Moderator (3 needed!)

The 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.
* Helpful tips:
       ** Have great IRC and meetbot skills. This will help you out a lot!
       ** Don’t be afraid to poke people in the public channel for
questions if things get slow. And bring a question or two of your own,
just in case things get *really* slow!
       ** Keep an eye on the clock and the question queue.
       ** Town halls are held in #fedora-townhall and #fedora-townhall public

That’s it!

Like I said – if you’re interested in any of the above positions –
please send a mail to the Fedora Board (advisory-board AT
lists.fedoraproject.org) to let them know you are willing and
available.

Let election season begin! Don't forget to nominate yourself if you
are interested (see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Elections for
details), and don't forget to vote when voting time rolls around.

Cheers,

-Robyn