[Fedora-marketing-list] Merging Fedora-Ambassadors-List and Fedora-Marketing-List

[Chitlesh GOORAH]

On 2/9/07, Thomas Chung wrote:

Hello Thomas and everyone,

> There have been several discussions on merging Fedora-Ambassadors-List
> and Fedora-Marketing-List.  Since there are two groups with two
> different opinions on which list should be eliminated and which list
> should be survived, I would like to propose a new Fedora Mailing List
> with a new name which everyone can agree.
>
> Based on comparing other distros mailing lists and ours and some
> comments made in the past, I would like to propose
> "Fedora-Advocates-List"

Well, I guess you already know my opinion about it. Perhaps I should
be directly in communicating my opinion about this.

And yes, we have already talked several times about it, but in the end
we have come up with a "NO" for the merge. I don't see why we should
keep on discussing this over again and again.

If core and extras are merging, this doesn't mean that we should be
doing this here in the marketing world of fedora.

Core and Extras are merging because they are strong teams. In fact
that merge will only be a success, because their contributors have
signed CLA and understand that they have responsibilities towards the
fedora project.

Now in the marketing world of fedora, we have ambassadors and people
from the outside. Both aren't strong teams at all. To me fedora
ambassadors project sounds like dying. Why ?

Lack of commitment!

I'm not saying lack of commitment of only FAMSCo, but also fedora ambassadors.

We have now (today) from
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/MembershipService/Verification
161 CLA signed ambassadors.
This 161 tells us that we have some ambassadors :
- who are committed to the project and participate
- who are new and are quite lost due to lack of orientation
- who participates actively in other fedora projects but can't afford
to spend time to fedora ambassadors project
- who are "fedora name takers" people who wants to get the fedora status only.
- [...]

And yes, you can also see some ambassadors on that list who haven't
yet signed CLA. Lack of communication ???

And among this 161, I know about 50 of them. I just want to tell you
here that we should rather stick in building a strong fedora
ambassador team.
- Helping new ambassadors by a mentoring project
- Helping other ambassadors who are preparing a particular event/legal
local fedora association
- Preparing for the F7 release.
- [...]

Example:
Recently we have seen, some fedora ambassadors having difficulties
with their particular events. What the fedora ambassador project has
promised them during the preparation, they didn't receive it in time!
And this, we have already talked about it before the previous FAMSCo
election and we all agreed to some point. But have things changed
since we last talked about it ? No. Then, we must solve internal
problems/work first.

Example2:
If ThomasChung doesn't chair the weekly meeting, there is no meeting.
Last thursday some of us on IRC didn't know when was the meeting, even
me. Well is he the only one who is a Fedora Ambassadors ???

If we are definitely going to merge these 2 lists, it will only
- make the above statements harder to realise
- bring chaos with the booth/event organisation with respect to trust.
- [...(things I can't recall for now).....]

Well for the """Since there are two groups with two different opinions
on which list should be eliminated and which list should be
survived,""":

the 2 groups don't have different opinions, afterall we all converge
to marketing fedora and spread the fedora word. Where the two groups
differ is in the organisation of the ambassador project in REAL WORLD.

If we merge the 2 mailing lists:
     ambassador ML + marketing ML = ONE ML
then
     ambassador project + marketing project = marketing project
since ambassador project is a subset of the marketing project.

Ok, now let's ask do we need fedora ambassador project after all ?
Fedora Ambassadors will lose their fedora ambassador status.

This implies we(the fedora project) are losing something which is
unique to fedora. This uniqueness has unknowingly solved many local
fedora problems. Since, Fedora Ambassador Project what else it does,
it:
1- makes every local marketing agent of fedora to meet other local
marketing agents of that particular country.
2- makes all local marketing agents of a particular country
talk/discuss with other local marketing agents of different countries.
(IRC meetings at #fedora-mktg and fedora ambassador mailing list,
Fedora Ambassadors Day)
3- makes all these local marketing agents solve problem together FOR
the SOLE fedora interest.(Fedora Ambassadors Day, FUDCons)

You see now that local marketing agents are what we call Fedora
Ambassadors. With this Fedora Ambassador Infrastructure, we are NOT
creating internal fights between Fedora Ambassadors of a particular
country for an event for example.

Example:
Those fedora ambassadors who prepared some events before, may have
noticed that in the Ubuntu Community (the what so called largest linux
community), 2 or more local Ubuntu teams apply for that particular
event. You can even see something during the early stages of the event
preparation, the organizers send those local Ubuntu teams emails that
to tell them that there is in fact more than one Ubuntu booth
registered. And very often those local teams doesn't like each other.
I have see some :) and I'm happy it isn't the case till now in the
Fedora World.
What can we concluded?:
- lack of organization
- contributors don't converge to the same objectives
- [...]
While in the Fedora World, we inform the fedora ambassador list for
the event preparation. And generally work on that ML rather than local
MLs. I hope you see the "Upstream benefit" that Fedora keeps on
saying. We had great local fedora communities popping up from that
_Fedora Ambassador Infrastructure_: French, German, Indian,
Brazillian. We are seeing right now brilliant Belgium Fedora
Ambassadors in action.

Ok, enough blabla, if not you won't read all of them. :)

All these should now be telling you that we shouldn't destroy the
wheel when we are the first to create one. But rather put on our
effort to ENHANCE the wheel.

Fedora Ambassador Project brings QUALITY to the Fedora Marketing.
Fedora Marketing Project brings new Fedora Ambassadors in.

And yes, -1 for the merge.

regards,
Chitlesh
-- 
http://clunixchit.blogspot.com