RFC: Fedora Community Working Group charter (draft)

[inode0]

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Rex Dieter <rdieter at math.unl.edu> wrote:
> inode0 wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 9:16 AM, Rex Dieter <rdieter at math.unl.edu> wrote:
>>> OK, finally a first stab at a charter to create a Fedora Community
>>> Working group.
>>>
>>>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Rdieter/Draft_Fedora_Community_Working_Group
>>>
>>> Comments?
>
>> This sounds reasonable and there is clearly a need for mechanisms to
>> resolve disputes and promote a happy project but I do have some
>> reservation about creating a new body that by the nature of the work
>> it is tasked with is largely a black box.
>>
>> Currently we have three governance bodies that all do this sort of
>> community work. Is the intention to remove these functions from those
>> bodies and aggregate that effort into this new group? If so, what do
>> you see as the benefit of doing that?
>
> I don't see any current body with an explicit task of keeping the community
> healthy.  Or, if there is, it's certainly convoluted, unclear and disjoint.
> Let's consolidate that, yes.

Let's look at FAmSCo as one example.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAMSCO

Their purpose is largely to create and support a healthy ambassador
community. They explicitly list "resolve any disputes that arise
within Fedora Ambassadors" as part of their mission. I know from
observation that they do perform this task, whether it is an issue
that is brought to their attention or whether it is something they see
and act on themselves.

On the one hand, it seems very natural to me for this body to perform
this task. We elect them with this in mind and they will very likely
have a good understanding of the underlying issues surrounding a
dispute that comes before them. On the other hand, I guess I can
imagine some seeing an independent group as being more likely to be
impartial perhaps.

I believe FESCo has intervened to defuse disputes that fall into its
area of governance as well and know that the Board has intervened to
resolve issues that come to its attention.

I do see there being a lot of fuzziness here. I'd have to look around
and perhaps ask someone how to inform FAmSCo of an issue I felt needed
their help to resolve. That could be addressed in ways that keep the
mediation close to the dispute though. Or we could move to a one stop
fixes all problems group.

I'd like to hear from some of the people who have actually been doing
the problem resolution to see what they think about the effectiveness
of resolving problems closer to their source?!

John