[Ambassadors] The weekly ambassador meetings

[David Nalley]

David Nielsen wrote:
> fre, 26 10 2007 kl. 00:49 +0200, skrev Fabian Affolter:
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> It's a long time ago...exactly during the presentation during the FAD at
>> Berlin I showed a slide (Page 7) [1].  This slide contains an overview
>> of some weekly meetings.  After a short discussion about why are there
>> always a lot of European ambassadors at both time (FYI 22:00 UTC is
>> midnight in western europe).  Someone suggested to split the meetings.
>> An European meeting at a pleasant moment...but now we can't split due to
>> lack of attendance.
>>
>> Since LinuxTag there were 18 meetings. 14 were canceled!
>>
>> Do we still need weekly meetings?  Is it an overkill?  Is it just a
>> waste of time?  Today for me it was just wasting time.  Three people
>> showed up.
>>
>> Are the reasons...
>>
>> - I don't care what the other ambassadors do.
>> - We have nothing to discuss.  I don't know what to tell.
>> - South America is far away, I'm not interested in stuff from there.
>> - I have other stuff to do and can't take 30 min off.
>> - I live in the wrong time zone.
>>
>> I guess that there is no more any need for exchanging information
>> between the ambassadors about events and how stuff can be done because
>> everybody have enough experience to handle it.
>>
>> On the Join page [2] of the Ambassadors Project...
>>
>> Step 1.  Participate in weekly meetings
>>
>> Perhaps it would be a good idea to remove that step.  No meeting, no
>> possibility for a participation...FAMSco, this could be a topic for your
>> next meeting. For your half-yearly meeting ;-)
>>     
>
> It might be more apt to just call for a meeting when we really need one
> instead of having one each week just for the sake of it, but being a
> global project IRC meetings will always be at the wrong time for someone
> - e.g. today was midnight for me and I was sleeping, even attending at
> such an hour is stetchy at best (never mind that I woke up at 2am).
>
> I say we aim towards a model that leverages the mailing list more, it's
> not like we can't have an intelligent debate this way and it would allow
> everyone to voice his/her opinion without interferring with mere human
> things like sleep, food or work.
>
> So +1 for removing the step from here.
>
> Regardless I think the low attentence is mainly down to the fact that in
> most parts of the world regardless of how you plan it, it's simply going
> to be time that is unavailable to most people to being IRCing. Besides
> what can we do in such a meeting that cannot be resolved by a nice mail
> thread? So I doubt it's a lack of caring.
>
> - David Nielsen
>   
I am one of those frequently absent ambassadors. I formerly attended 
meetings on a pretty regular basis, but largely I have to agree with 
David and Fabian they appear to largely have lost significance. Compared 
to other groups (like the Fedora Infrastructure group) it appears little 
is accomplished. Sit in on the infrastructure meeting and see the work 
that gets handed out, decisions that are made, etc. The ambassador 
meeting used to be this way - I remember before FC5 having discussions 
with people from RH (gregdek and Alex) about how CD/DVDs would be made, 
creating 'tours' for FC5, etc. I think a lot of that was because Greg 
and Alex really pushed Ambassadors and involvement before there was a 
lot of community infrastructure in the Fedora Project, perhaps a lot of 
those decisions have been pushed to other areas. The recent meetings I 
have been to or read the logs from tend to be reporting on events, and 
we have lots of meetings that are cancelled. The questions that I have 
had in determining whether to attend is: 1. What am I going to 
accomplish in return for attending. 2. How does my attendance further 
the aims of the Ambassadors or fp.o. I have used IRC for collaborating 
with other ambassadors when I have been working with them on an event, 
but could have just as easily used email.
Have you looked at our schedule, which is supposed to be our agenda for 
meetings? Specifically - look at the issues, and closed issues - April 
2006 as our last closed issue? Standing meetings are great, but if they 
don't accomplish anything perhaps we need to reexamine them.
I am specifically interested in Greg's take on where the Ambassadors are 
today - is this what you envisioned? FAMSCO members, as fp.o grows, what 
is our continued role to be?