Sponsoring event attendees

[Robyn Bergeron]

On 02/15/2012 06:30 AM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 09:17:38AM -0600, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 07:49:34 -0700,
>>    Robyn Bergeron<rbergero at redhat.com>  wrote:
>>> (That said, we have seen a dramatic drop in the number of FADs
>>> sponsored; I don't think this is necessarily a sign of anything
>>> concrete, except perhaps (a) people have forgotten that this
>>> resource exists, or (b) we have fewer people working on new projects
>>> or solving problems that they are excited about, and can produce
>>> results face-to-face more rapidly. I suspect the latter may be the
>>> case, and is certainly troubling, but is a topic not really for this
>>> email.)
>> My (possibly selective) memory is that Paul instigated a lot of the FADs
>> when he was FPL. Since his job change he has had to cut back his time and
>> probably isn't in a position to see the needs and push for setting up FADs
>> as much as he used to be able to.
> In one sense, Bruno's statement confused me, because I only recall
> helping to drive a handful of FADs when I was FPL.  Then in another
> sense it made me feel happy someone thought I was doing a good job
> with those.  At least I think that's what he meant, so thanks for the
> kind words Bruno! :-)
>
> But in truth, I recall most of the FADs during my FPL time being
> driven by other Fedora contributors.  What I do recall doing is
> talking about FADs often, and when good ideas came up, suggesting to
> the key contributors involved that they should organize a FAD event
> once they had a plan for the work.
And much of the framework for "having a FAD" was actually set up by, 
IIRC, yourself and Community Architecture - the documentation is fairly 
comprehensive (although perhaps hard to find or know about without 
people broadly advertising or suggesting it.)

My first FAD... well, Fedora event, period -- was the Marketing FAD we 
did in March, 2010.  Mel Chua and I mostly drove the arrangement of 
that, with Mel doing the pointing of, "Yes, you can," and 
credit-carding, and myself doing agenda-driving with plenty of 
encouragement from Paul and Mel.  It was incredibly valuable, both from 
a productivity as well as team-building/bonding experience -- and I 
think that we, collectively, simply don't take enough opportunities to 
do these, don't point it out as a resource to or encourage it amongst 
others.

> It does seem like there were more of them a couple years ago than
> perhaps there were in the last year.  But unfortunately the last part
> of Bruno's statement is only too accurate; I definitely don't get the
> time for Fedora these days that I used to.  However, since I didn't
> really drive many of the FADs personally I suspect
QUICK! Sentence-finishing FAD! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I think I do want to amend my previous statement about quantity of FADs 
a bit: We do continue to have FADs -- I think we are having fewer of 
them that are focused on solving a particular problem, and perhaps more 
of them that are oriented as "Mini-FUDCons."

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FADs#Past_FADs

Not saying that that is a bad or good thing, just pointing out that I 
previously spoke incorrectly. :)