[FAmSCo] Lessons learned from one just left Ambassadors program

[Jiri Eischmann]

Truong Anh. Tuan píše v Pá 17. 05. 2013 v 11:52 +0700:
> Dear my friends,
> 
> Thing happened in LATAM [1]. It could be good or bad, depending on your
> views, but I think there are some good lessons learned from here.
> 
> It has not been happened in APAC yet because we usually discuss this kind
> of stuff straightforward. If I see something not logical, I will feel free
> to pop them up to discuss; others also do the same.
> 
> I think, we should update reimbursement guidelines in each region to cover
> these similar cases. Any ideas?
> 
> [1] http://blog.sergiodj.net/post/2013-05-16-so-long-ambassadors/

Tuan,
thank you for bringing this up. It's definitely one of the issues that
is appropriate to discuss in FAmSCo.

I read that article yesterday. I wanted to reply, but there didn't seem
to be any comments allowed.

First of all, I'd like to point out that we don't have such issues in
EMEA. People just don't become ambassadors to get stuff like t-shirts
etc. So I don't really have experience dealing with such issues.

If I understood it correctly the core problem is that some people get
tickets approved and he thinks they shouldn't because they haven't been
active for some time.

First, I don't know if his accusations are valid. The fact that people
don't show up at meetings or mailing lists doesn't necessarily mean that
they're inactive. Although I encourage ambassadors to communicate with
others and take an active role in decision making, I know about
ambassadors who are not visible at meetings and mailing lists, but who
are still active locally and help spread the word about Fedora. I have
no problem to send them swag if they ask for it once a while.

Second, if you have enough money to satisfy all requests what's so wrong
doing so as long as the purpose is beneficial to Fedora and receivers
prove achieved goals (event reports, photos,...)? I think our community
financial or material support is mainly to enable people to work for
Fedora (promote, get new contributors), not reward them. So if I have
enough resources to satisfy all requests, I don't see a problem to give
support to someone who hasn't been active for some time if he/she has a
good plan how to use the support. If you don't have sufficient funds for
everyone, then you have to prioritize and that's where active
ambassadors and most beneficial activities should be preferred.

So IMHO the ideal solution for this situation is to increase the
regional activity so that there are enough activities to pick from. What
he did (giving up) is exactly the opposite.

To the "only +1's" complain: it's usual in EMEA, too. We've got some
guidelines and there is a process set up, also most expenses are already
planned in the budget. This all usually assures that requests are good
and valid. Although we discuss them, we don't fight over them. I haven't
seen "-1" for a long time. And I don't think it's an unhealthy
situation. In EMEA, approving is more like a safety-catch that makes
sure the system is not abused, rather than a filter.

Just my 2c,
Jiri