Requirements for funded attendees idea

[Máirín Duffy]

bex and I were just discussing this in IRC and I think came up with a
good idea. What do you think:

Historically, we require a blog report from funded attendees.

However! This often results posts that in aggregate don't cover all
talks (usually a line or two about many talks rather than in-depth on a
few), and have details better covered elsewhere (airport photos, food
photos, 20 descriptions of the same party, etc.) I'm not trying to say
these posts are bad. Rather, for the purpose of best serving Flock and
the Fedora community, with some minor changes, they could become a
critical tool for improving the community's ability to execute on ideas
/ plans made at Flock, tying into the broader Council goal of Flock as
an event to help us achieve our shared goals for Fedora.

So here's the change:

- We ask funded attendees to select the talks they want to attend in the
Flock sched.org site.

- From the list of talks, we assign a funded attendee to cover a talk,
ideally one they were already planning to attend, although in a few
cases we may need to assign a talk we need coverage of that they didnt
indicate wanting to attend. This can be worked out.

- Instead of a 'trip report,' the blog requirement instead changes to be
in-depth blog coverage of the talk.

- For folks less inclined / able to do in-depth note taking for such a
post (e.g., ESL, slow typer, etc.) they could optionally provide video
recording nannying for a session or two or provide photo-taking coverage
for a session or two. Their 'trip report' becomes the YouTube (or
wherever) upload of the session video(s) after the session, or a blog
post with all of the photos they took posted in it.

So the requirement hasn't *really* changed all that much, but the result
is non-redundant funded attendee blog coverage of the event, with more
in-depth notes on what happened that teams could use as resources moving
forward. We could also, if we were well-organized, have a list of talks
that do not have funded attendee coverage on the wiki and recruit
volunteers to cover those to further expand our coverage.

Thoguhts?

Cheers,

~m

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 9:22 AM, Máirín Duffy  wrote:
> bex and I were just discussing this in IRC and I think came up with a
> good idea. What do you think:
>
> Historically, we require a blog report from funded attendees.
>
> However! This often results posts that in aggregate don't cover all
> talks (usually a line or two about many talks rather than in-depth on a
> few), and have details better covered elsewhere (airport photos, food
> photos, 20 descriptions of the same party, etc.) I'm not trying to say
> these posts are bad. Rather, for the purpose of best serving Flock and
> the Fedora community, with some minor changes, they could become a
> critical tool for improving the community's ability to execute on ideas
> / plans made at Flock, tying into the broader Council goal of Flock as
> an event to help us achieve our shared goals for Fedora.
>
> So here's the change:
> We ask funded attendees to select the talks they want to attend in the
>
> Flock sched.org site.
> From the list of talks, we assign a funded attendee to cover a talk,
>
> ideally one they were already planning to attend, although in a few
> cases we may need to assign a talk we need coverage of that they didnt
> indicate wanting to attend. This can be worked out.
> Instead of a 'trip report,' the blog requirement instead changes to be
>
> in-depth blog coverage of the talk.
> For folks less inclined / able to do in-depth note taking for such a
>
> post (e.g., ESL, slow typer, etc.) they could optionally provide video
> recording nannying for a session or two or provide photo-taking coverage
> for a session or two. Their 'trip report' becomes the YouTube (or
> wherever) upload of the session video(s) after the session, or a blog
> post with all of the photos they took posted in it.
>
> So the requirement hasn't *really* changed all that much, but the result
> is non-redundant funded attendee blog coverage of the event, with more
> in-depth notes on what happened that teams could use as resources moving
> forward. We could also, if we were well-organized, have a list of talks
> that do not have funded attendee coverage on the wiki and recruit
> volunteers to cover those to further expand our coverage.
>
> Thoguhts?

I like the idea.  Would such posts be collated somehow?  Another twist
or addition might be to help translate the collated posts to a
different language if they are an ESL speaker.  We typically haven't
done translation at all.

I have to ask though, what do we do if they don't follow through?

josh

[Máirín Duffy]

Hi Josh!

On 04/20/2017 09:50 AM, Josh Boyer wrote:
> I like the idea. Would such posts be collated somehow?

Yeh, definitely. I'm thinking of either setting up a chart in the wiki
where the volunteer would have to add their link, and/or we could do a
round-up post on Fedora magazine. We did a round up post in Fedora
magazine last year and I think that went well.
> Another twist
> or addition might be to help translate the collated posts to a
> different language if they are an ESL speaker.  We typically haven't
> done translation at all.

+1 great idea!
> I have to ask though, what do we do if they don't follow through?

This is a tough one. I am (totally unrelated to Fedora / software / etc)
a board member for a non-profit cooperative where there is a service
requirement for org members. We have had some issues with a small number
of folks not fulfilling their obligations, so we're facing the problem
now of what to do about it. (Some haven't fulfilled for multiple years.)
We've decided that we'll mark those who didn't meet their service
requirement as ineligible to renew their annual membership.

In a similar vein, maybe failure to follow through on their assignment
would mark them ineligible to request financial assistance for the next
year? It might seem harsh, but it's not a lot of work to ask in exchange
imho, if there are extenuating circumstances we can of course deal with
them as they come up, and it's only for the next year.

~m

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 9:59 AM, Máirín Duffy  wrote:
> Hi Josh!
>
> On 04/20/2017 09:50 AM, Josh Boyer wrote:
> > I like the idea. Would such posts be collated somehow?
>
> Yeh, definitely. I'm thinking of either setting up a chart in the wiki
> where the volunteer would have to add their link, and/or we could do a
> round-up post on Fedora magazine. We did a round up post in Fedora
> magazine last year and I think that went well.
> > Another twist
> > or addition might be to help translate the collated posts to a
> > different language if they are an ESL speaker.  We typically haven't
> > done translation at all.
>
> +1 great idea!
> > I have to ask though, what do we do if they don't follow through?
>
> This is a tough one. I am (totally unrelated to Fedora / software / etc)
> a board member for a non-profit cooperative where there is a service
> requirement for org members. We have had some issues with a small number
> of folks not fulfilling their obligations, so we're facing the problem
> now of what to do about it. (Some haven't fulfilled for multiple years.)
> We've decided that we'll mark those who didn't meet their service
> requirement as ineligible to renew their annual membership.
>
> In a similar vein, maybe failure to follow through on their assignment
> would mark them ineligible to request financial assistance for the next
> year? It might seem harsh, but it's not a lot of work to ask in exchange
> imho, if there are extenuating circumstances we can of course deal with
> them as they come up, and it's only for the next year.

Seems like the only viable solution.  I don't want to sound
threatening in our offers of funding assistance, but I do think people
need to be aware of that in general.  Hopefully it will be a
non-issue.

josh