Summary of previous discussions around FOSCo

[Haïkel]

2015-03-16 19:26 GMT+01:00 Christoph Wickert <christoph.wickert at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> the idea of FOSCo, the Fedora Outreach Steering Committee has been
> brought up before, but as there were different assumptions and ideas,
> the council asked to summarize the previous discussion.
>
> The general idea behind FOSCo is to strengthen our outreach by
> bundling the efforts of the ambassadors, marketing, and the design
> team.
>
> You can break down the previous discussion into two groups:
> 1. Discussion within FAmSCo, see https://fedorahosted.org/famsco/ticket/373
> FAmSCo agreed we want FOSCo and we want it to replace FAmSCo, and
> extend its scope to other outreach teams such as the design and
> marketing teams. I suggest we do not fall back behind this consensus.
>
> 2. Discussion started by Matthew, who sent out a message to various
> mailing lists, see
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/ambassadors/2014-October/022896.html
> There was no feedback whatsoever on the ambassadors and design team
> lists. On the marketing list, the question of eligible voters was
> raised. FAmSCo elections were opened to CLA+1 two years ago and as the
> new body represents different FAS groups, we certainly want to keep it
> this way. The question however is if we elections at all. Having a
> more meritocratic approach was one of the ideas behind recent Fedora
> governance changes, so just like in the council, we could also have
> appointed seats.
>
> This brings us to the question of FOSCo's composition. At this point,
> we need to keep two things in mind:
> 1. The ambassadors are the by far biggest group. This not only means
> we need to represent a lot of people but also that they have a big
> impact on elections.
> 2. Unlike the other groups, the ambassadors project is set up in a
> very regional manner. The different regions (NA, LATAM, EMEA, APAC)
> take care of their own business in terms of event organization, budget
> etc. FAmSco only acts as an umbrella.
>
> I think preserving the regional approach is a must. Each region should
> appoint one representative. Marketing and design also need to have
> representatives to make sure communication and collaboration with the
> other teams works. This will give us 6 appointed (or indirectly
> elected) seats.
>

+1 that's a way to ponderate the contribution of ambassadors while giving voice
to the other groups.

> The question is if we also want / need to have some elected seats and
> if, how many of them. The council has two, but I think having an
> uneven number is always a good idea. Personally I think three is best
> but also the maximum because everything > 9 people in total will be
> hard to manage.
>

+1 we want the new governance bodies to be driven by leaders but keeping
some elected seats also allow us to bring new blood and different opinions.
As I expect FOSCO to decide according lazy consensus, that means that
these seats will have impact on the direction of Fedora outreach.

> I take all appointed candidates are eligible to make decisions and
> each have one vote. What about the elected ones? Do we need something
> like auxiliary seats as we have in the council?
>

elected ones should be on equal footing or they're useless.
No need of auxiliary seats per se.

> There are still a lot of open questions here, e.g. the objectives,
> scope, and policies of the new body. We can borrow a lot from the
> council, e.g. the lazy consensus for decision making.
>
> For everything else, I suggest we discuss the questions as they arise,
> so unless people disagree, let's first discuss the composition.
>
> Comments, feedback?
>

Thanks for this complete picture and your proposals.

Regards,
H.

> Best regards,
> Christoph
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