Is Docs interested in becoming part of a new "Fedora Outreach Steering Committee"?

[Pete Travis]

On 10/27/2014 07:40 AM, Matthew Miller wrote:
> Take a look at <https://fedorahosted.org/famsco/ticket/373> (you should
> be able to once you're logged in; the FAmSCo trac requires a FAS
> account but I don't think anything else). From that ticket:
>
>     With the new Fedora Council, some of the broader budget discussions
>     are being brought up into a higher project level, and at the same
>     time, FAmSCo has successfully delegated other responsibilities down
>     to the regional ambassadors' committees.
>
>     Meanwhile, the project really lacks coordination between various
>     areas of outreach — Ambassadors, Marketing, Design Team (which is
>     responsible for branding), and support efforts like Ask Fedora and
>     even Documentation and Web. This may also include areas of the new
>     Fedora.next Working Groups which touch on these areas — branding,
>     marketing, conference attendance in support of a particular
>     product, and etc.
>
>     The new Outreach Representative on the Council is meant to help
>     with this, but: a) we'd like that person to be selected by an
>     elected community body, and FAmSCo is the current closest match,
>     even though it doesn't encompass everything, b) having a group with
>     this shared responsibility reduces the workload on one single
>     individual, c) having a committee connected into the various groups
>     will help prevent cases where that person happens to have a
>     blindspot due to their background in the project, and d) having a
>     coordinated outreach group would be useful in itself.
>
> This new "FOSCo" group would mirror FESCo, and to jointly represent the
> interests of all of the outreach-oriented parts of the project.
>
> I'm not quite sure where Docs would fall, but my gut sense is that
> Outreach would be the right place.
>
> The current FAmSCo group is generally in favor, but also in some ways
> that is the group which would be least impacted. So, what do you think?
>
> If people are generally in favor, I'm thinking we'd start this with the
> post-F21 elections.
>
>
>

Yeah, I 'm probably not alone in thinking that Docs would like to be a
part of this process.  On several occasions, we've discussed increasing
the team's visibility within the Project, and I'm looking forward to the
discussions the new governance model will create.  I don't like to find
wiki pages with "TODO: Documentation" or list posts with "This should be
documented somewhere".   A channel for communicating needs and
capacities would be invaluable, coordination is good, and I'd encourage
everyone in the Docs team to be more involved with other teams on principle.

As to where Docs will fall, I'm torn.  I think that we most need to
improve on collaboration with development and QA, with a feedback loop
from those groups enabling us to be more proactive in producing
up-to-date content.  I see Docs as providing a service to packagers and
developers, and a value-add for end users.  Some kids like to build
their legos according to the instructions! (If I'm off message here,
someone please check me!)  OTOH, Docs concerns don't quite fit well in
the planning stages of an Engineering discussion, and I worry that our
message would get drowned out in that context.

Of course, we could collaborate with QA & Devel as part of the Outreach
group too.  Keeping pace with user demand is potentially more important
than tracking the updates repo, and maybe we can improve more by
increasing our feedback from users, reaching out to them for input, and
creating  opportunities for casual participation.  Definitively, we are
making an *outreach* effort to the users.  A closer relationship with
ambassadors could help gain that relationship with the user base. 
Design and marketing - well, I'm not really sure what they *do*.  I know
the design people come up with some great graphics, and the marketing
folks have done a laudable job with Fedora Magazine, but other than the
categorical similarity of 'producing content' I don't currently see a
lot of overlap (leaving aside my own interjections into others' meetings
and lists :) . 

Anyway, I hope there's enough in my rambling to keep the discussion
going, and everyone involved is conscious of the potential for siloing
of Outreach and Engineering efforts.

-- 
-- Pete Travis
 - Fedora Docs Project Leader
 - 'randomuser' on freenode
 - immanetize at fedoraproject.org


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