How to recognize contributor achievement (Re: LWN Subscriptions for Fedora contributors.)

[Francesco Ugolini]

2008/2/25, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Francesco Ugolini
>  <fugolini at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>  >  Since the 1th FAmSCo we organize an Award program starting from an
>  >  Alex Meier (Ambs proj founder) arriving to the last FAmSCo. Yes, i
>  >  agree with a the idea of metrics, as you advice each sub project has
>  >  its metrics, ambassadors project, for his nature, has both a concrete
>  >  (events etc...) and personal metric (leadership in a country, etc...).
>  >  We are a really different project, because ambassadors aren't working
>  >  in the same place and each country has its events, smaller, for
>  >  example, than other one. If we choose a standard metrics we could cut
>  >  those people that, for example, are working great trying to prepare
>  >  online material or trying to organize their country IRC meeting. Not
>  >  only. We decide to use a metrics, how can we measure it for each
>  >  ambassadors? We haven't a tool to measure all ambs activities, both
>  >  live and offline.
>
>  You've described is exactly why its important for each subproject to
>  decide among themselves how to recognize contributors inside their own
>  space of the larger Fedora project.  You are absolutely right... for
>  some types of important work we can't get hard metrics. I want them,
>  the people on the Red Hat side of the fence like Max and Greg want
>  them.. but we all know we can't always get them.
>
>  I want to have a recognition framework that gives each subproject the
>  freedom to nominate and recognize individuals in their group in a way
>  that makes sense to that group.  I don't even want to attempt to
>  compare maintainers to ambassadors in some sort of ill-fitting attempt
>  to compare people doing these very different things but doing them
>  exceedingly well.  Its apples to oranges...and I love both types of
>  fruit.
>
>  I want a state fair approach to contributor recognition, not a dog
>  show approach.  I want each the outstanding contributions to each
>  category..each breed of contribution to get recognized. But I don't
>  want to have "a best in show" award that gets all the attention and
>  but is ultimately hollow in terms of serving to inspire the growing
>  community of contributors to do their best work.
>
>  I want a framework that Red Hat and potentially other entities (and
>  even community individuals) can seed a small amount of resources into
>  explicitly for recognition. Maybe in the future its more LWN
>  subscriptions, or maybe its a gift certificate to Chile's, maybe its a
>  book on curling strategy.  The awards aren't really that important,
>  compared to having a fair way to stand up people we know are important
>  and give all of us an opportunity to thank them for doing their best
>  work and helping us do ours.  That's what's important and that sort of
>  lifting up is only really possible by a group of peers who are in the
>  trenches together getting stuff done.
>
>  So in that sense what your group is already doing is a great model...
>  not because of metrics or the lack of them.. but because you've agreed
>  on a way of making that recognition happen.
>
>  What we need to figure out at the larger Project level is how to build
>  a framework that we can use to take that sort of recognition to the
>  next level. So we can take the people each subproject chooses to lift
>  up and embarrass them by making them externally and internally poster
>  children for what it means to be a Fedora contributor.
>
>  -jef"Did i mention a book on curling strategy would make an excellent
>  recognition award... just want to make sure I mentioned that...cuz its
>  important...books...on curling"spaleta
>
>

I agree with you about the framework idea and what you said about the
reason behind an award. Moreover i think, like you, that a recognition
don't have to be a problem but it has to be something that could
really move community in a certain way, following the best course.

Just a question: can this issue be discussed by the Fedora Board?

Regards

Francesco