15:02:21 <mizmo> #startmeeting
15:02:21 <zodbot> Meeting started Wed Aug 12 15:02:21 2015 UTC.  The chair is mizmo. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
15:02:21 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
15:02:41 <mizmo> decause, how do you name the meeting?
15:02:45 <mizmo> #chair decause
15:02:45 <zodbot> Current chairs: decause mizmo
15:03:07 <mizmo> Jiri: I'm still the chair of famsco...
15:03:12 <mizmo> FAmSCo is dead nowadays
15:03:23 <mizmo> I still feel some responsibility so I'm trying to continue some level of activity
15:03:36 <mizmo> but FAmSCo itself has not been active for several months already
15:03:49 <mizmo> all the people in FAmSCo have been serving at least me for the last several years
15:03:56 <mizmo> and i feel that most of us are kind of burned out from that
15:04:09 <mizmo> so even if we decide to keep famsco we will need new blood
15:04:17 <mizmo> i dont think there will be a lot of ppl from the current famsco who will be down for it again
15:04:35 <mizmo> i'd like to start the talk with the tasks of famsco - what it is doing nowadays
15:04:41 <mizmo> what are the tasks the new body would have to take over
15:04:45 <mizmo> famsco tasks
15:04:49 <mizmo> - steering the ambassadors projects
15:04:52 <mizmo> - regional support budget
15:04:55 <mizmo> - membershi administration
15:04:57 <mizmo> - escalations
15:05:02 <mizmo> - reviewing events (fads, fudcons)
15:05:05 <mizmo> - coordination between regions
15:05:10 <mizmo> - collaboration with the rest of the project
15:05:27 <mizmo> we try to direct the ambassadors subprojects... it didn't work that way before when i joined...
15:05:37 <mizmo> mattdm: the leadership vs the governance?
15:05:51 <mizmo> jiri: when i joined famsco we did mostly day to day business
15:06:02 <mizmo> if someone wanted to buy or produce some swag for $50, famsco had to vote about it
15:06:04 <mizmo> so it's something we have changed
15:06:10 <mizmo> it should be the leadership of the ambassadors project
15:06:19 <mizmo> over the last couple of years has taken care of the regional support budgets
15:06:33 <mizmo> we get money from red hat / osas, we try to spend it in the regions and spend it wisely
15:06:42 <mizmo> famsco still responsible for this
15:06:50 <mizmo> mattdm: for the budget - is 100% of that delegated to the regions?
15:06:51 <mizmo> jiri: yes
15:07:09 <mizmo> we wanted to keep a portion of that budget for some kind of global initiatives, but it didn't treally work out
15:07:15 <mizmo> we didn't have any global initiatives
15:07:25 <mizmo> if we wanted to do something, the regions took it and each allocated some of their budget to make it happen
15:07:29 <mizmo> we also take care of membership admin
15:07:44 <mizmo> that includes the mentorship program, who make sure new ambassadors are capable of doing that and know enough abut the project and so on
15:08:07 <mizmo> so we still have new mentors trying to set the rules or at least guide the mentors what the new ambassadors should know
15:08:27 <mizmo> we also solve escalations - if there are any problems in the regions and some conflicts, they can be raised to famsco. unfortunately we haven't had such abn issue for a long time
15:08:42 <decause> s/unfortunately/fortunately
15:08:43 <decause> :)
15:08:46 <mizmo> we also review events..... if one of the regions want to organize fedora FAD, they always first go to famsco
15:09:03 <mizmo> if famsco likes the choice of the region and then they go to mattdm
15:09:22 <mizmo> mattdm: we have moved that from being just me to the council at large
15:09:31 <mizmo> jiri: ah okay. well historically famsco would approve the bid then forward it
15:09:46 <mizmo> famsco also serves as a coordination point between regions
15:09:52 <mizmo> so that we can coordinate things globally
15:10:17 <mizmo> this is definitely an important function of famsco
15:10:23 <mizmo> so people from all regions can talk to each other
15:10:38 <mizmo> famsco also helped enabled collaboration between ambassadors with the rest of the project. sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't
15:10:49 <mizmo> #topic what has changed in famsco in the past 2 years?
15:10:51 <mizmo> i joined famsco in 2012 so since there
15:10:59 <mizmo> 1) we created a new system for budgeting
15:11:05 <mizmo> before that, every single expense had to be voted on famsco
15:11:13 <mizmo> so wechanged this by just approving the tickets
15:11:22 <mizmo> most of the power moved to the regional communities
15:11:23 <mizmo> the regions
15:11:26 <mizmo> - plan events and activities
15:11:28 <mizmo> - create budgets
15:11:34 <mizmo> - set their own mechanisms, rules for approving expenses
15:11:39 <mizmo> all of the regions have picked up these tasks pretty well
15:12:05 <decause> 2) clear criteria to "remove" inactive amabassadors
15:12:30 <decause> In india/apac, we organize FADs in December for the next year
15:12:53 <decause> this is the base for the budget, so that FamSco puts the regional budgets togehter into one budget for OSAS, and now the council.
15:13:19 <mizmo> there was a bit of aheated discussion about this
15:13:25 <decause> "removal" of ambassadors was a long and heated discussion
15:13:27 <mizmo> (removing the inactive ambassadors)
15:13:48 * decause bows out to mizmo transcription now you're back
15:13:52 <mizmo> maybe 2 active out of 10 or 15 ambassadors, it becomes confusing when users/contributors want to contact an ambassador from their country
15:14:04 <mizmo> so we wanted to find a way to clear the list of ambassadors that were inactive
15:14:15 <mizmo> on the other hand there was a big pushback on removing ambassadors completely from the ambassadors group
15:14:45 <mizmo> so then we came to a consensus that we don't remove them completely - there was also a philosophic question is ambassador status for a lifetime in fedora, or if it has some conditions and you have to be active or do something to maintain ambassadorstatus
15:14:54 <mizmo> in the end, we decided it's for lifetime,
15:15:23 <mizmo> but to clear the list of inactive ambassadors - then we flag them as inactive, whenever he or she feels they want to come back and be active, they just need to go to fas account and switch flag back to active
15:15:27 <mizmo> we managed to clear the list quite a bit
15:15:42 <mizmo> question: you're setting their fas acct to inactive or their ambassadors status inactive?
15:15:46 <mizmo> jiri: their fas account marked as inactive
15:16:06 <mizmo> jzb: apache has an emeritus thing to handle this. if you don't have time to contribute anymore, we want to recognize what you did, so we call you emeritus
15:16:45 <mizmo> jiri: someone doesn't have to be active on mailing lists
15:17:00 <mizmo> jiri: if you know nothing about someone's activity online, but they could be very active locally at event
15:17:08 <mizmo> it's extremely hard to measure fedora ambassador activity
15:17:11 <mizmo> we can't really jduge that
15:17:18 <mizmo> so we dont want to remove them completely
15:18:10 <mizmo> we also wanted to have the criteria of being independent of someone's decisions.. historically for example the indian community just made a list of inactive ambassadors and they were removed
15:18:34 <mizmo> kushal was not extremely happy about our solution but one of the objectives people had is that they didnt want the process to be dependent on one person's decision
15:18:45 <mizmo> criteria:
15:18:49 <mizmo> - has to be active every 18 months
15:19:01 <mizmo> - we check online activity. if you are active as packager or anything else, you'd wont be set as inactive
15:19:09 <mizmo> - we don't just check ambassador activity but whole fedora activity
15:19:12 <mizmo> - we check fas logins too
15:19:20 <mizmo> - we just try to cull people who aren't interested in fedora anymore
15:19:24 <mizmo> #topic why fosco
15:19:34 <mizmo> fosco supposed to be fedora outreach steering community
15:19:39 <mizmo> mattdm proposed maybe 10 months ago
15:19:50 <mizmo> can we think about this new body that may potentially include famsco
15:19:55 <mizmo> i found it a good idea
15:20:02 <mizmo> famsco definitely does stuff beyond boundaries of ambassadors
15:20:06 <mizmo> eg we manage regional budgets
15:20:31 <mizmo> budgets is not just meant for ambassadors but for historic reasons - bc mostly ambassadors manage budgets and organize activities/events that involve funding - ambassadors tend to manage it
15:20:36 <mizmo> on the other hand we don't want to exclude anyone else
15:20:40 <mizmo> so we like to be inclusive in this
15:20:45 <mizmo> and invite other groups in fedora to participate in this as well
15:20:57 <mizmo> for me it was a good idea that we could create a body that could easily include other groups
15:21:05 <mizmo> so ambassadors aren't doing this stuff almost exclusively
15:21:14 <mizmo> frankly after the changes we have made, i dont think ambassadors need their own steering committee
15:21:30 <mizmo> we've moved so much agenda to the regions that i think we've got capacity to oversee other subprojects as well
15:21:37 <mizmo> a shared committee would definitely support collaboration
15:21:53 <mizmo> even in famsco one body - meetings really helped coordinating stuff
15:22:01 <mizmo> so could help with coordination between ambassadors, marketing, design so and so on
15:22:12 <mizmo> on the other hand..... we haven't moved as far from then
15:22:18 <mattdm> that's why we're here :)
15:22:19 <mizmo> this is when i'd like to start the discussion
15:22:22 <mizmo> #topic open questions
15:22:41 <mizmo> 1) should fosco be an additoinal body? should we keep famsco and create another body above that, to oversee ambassadors/fmasco and other groups?
15:23:01 <mizmo> my opinion: we shouldn't. we should have as few bodies as possible and solve problems instead of creating new bodies and committees
15:23:12 <mizmo> if we decide for fosco, i think it should definitely replace famsco
15:23:20 <mizmo> 2) what should be its agenda? community operations or outreach activities?
15:23:25 <mizmo> famsco mostly did community operations
15:23:40 <mizmo> but outreach activities could involve focusing on the outside, looking at metrics, etc
15:23:54 <mizmo> mattdm: when i initially proposed outreach - sometimes has a connotation of specific diversity outreach
15:24:04 <mizmo> so maybe we should avoid outreach name to not take on that meaning
15:24:15 <mizmo> imeant all activities - ambassadors, marketing - things that go outside of our community to new folks
15:24:33 <mizmo> jiri: yeh we had 2 or 3 irc meetings about this, and there were deifnitely different interpretationsof this word
15:24:52 <mizmo> some interpreted as engaging people from outside, some people thought it was a replacement for famsco
15:25:04 <mizmo> so that's definitely a good topic for discussion
15:25:11 <mizmo> 3) What subprojects should it oversee?
15:25:18 <mizmo> ambassadors, marketing, design? others? documentation?
15:25:31 <mizmo> mattdm: my imaginary idea here is to end up with everything not under fesco under fosco
15:25:47 <mizmo> mattdm: so everything has a nice orderly place for it to connect up to - not to be controlled by but to pluginto a tree
15:25:57 <mizmo> ryanlerch: because about half of that stuff is not outreach - eg i wouldn't call docs outreach
15:26:18 <mizmo> jzb: i disagree, docs is the first thing - once we get someone to come to fedora, that's one of the first things they interact it
15:26:29 <mizmo> ryanlerch - yeh but the OS itself is what they interact with too, the docs is part of the product part of the os
15:26:46 <mizmo> mattdm: people say i had to do something, how to do it in ubuntu came up, so i'm an ubuntu user now. that's why for me docs is part of the outreach thing
15:26:51 <mizmo> ryanlerch - yeh but for me it's part of the product
15:27:01 <mizmo> jiri :for me it's also definitely tied to the product
15:27:08 <mizmo> jiri: but it's also connected to outreach
15:27:28 <mizmo> ryanlerch: docs is part of the product, not part of the messaging
15:28:28 <mizmo> someonei don't know: docs fits into marketing into an internal collab context... but not a ux way. if you want to coordinate features, etc you coordinate ambassadors saying what is awesome about fedora, you have marketers pushing that feature, you have docs so once user bites on that hook they know how to grab onto it. but as a governance group - my concern has been that kind of collaboration could happen without a governance group
15:28:44 <mizmo> better to hvae individuals driving for that collaboration between groups and if you need to build up org structure to support people doing that, you do the way they did organically
15:30:15 <mattdm> mizmo -- that's randomuser (aka pete travis)
15:30:34 * mizmo ranting about design getting dumped a bunch of stuff with no higher level plan
15:30:54 <mizmo> and how having some kind of steering body aboard could help us plug into a higher level plan
15:31:01 <mizmo> mattdm: can i go back one sec?
15:31:27 <mizmo> one of the things about having individuals having collaborations - when we have strong ppl in those positions that works. i worry that if you have structures and if that person goes on to other things, the structures make the vacuum obvious
15:31:36 <mizmo> if it's people based, we notice the vacuum 3 months later - wait nobody did that who was doing that
15:31:47 <mizmo> having those things a little more formalized can i hope help with that
15:31:55 <mizmo> but i do see the appeal of what you're saying (pete)
15:32:03 <mizmo> we dont want bureacracy bogging things down
15:32:15 <mizmo> pete: worried about it being slow to get momentum
15:33:35 <mizmo> decause: i've been here fora  minute, still discovering new pieces of fedora, treasure troves of info. the thing i think here is iportant - ppl assume bc we're a foss community, that it's everyone's responsibility and that it's noones responsibility
15:33:56 * randomuser proposes "the wiki" as official flock 2015 scapegoat
15:34:06 <mizmo> decause, messaging / outreach - it's not just those people's responsibility. it's everyone's and no one's. codeifying it into something that's a manifestation that people can show is important
15:34:24 <mizmo> decause, everything that's visual that falls into design, etc etc no coordination between them because people think of these teams as silos
15:34:28 <mizmo> ryanlerch: there's no overarching plan
15:35:01 <mizmo> ryanlerch: a lot of "this would be nice" but lacks oomph, no major pushes, this is the plan, even in the magazine we sort of just write articles. if we had some plan .... to tie into the project plan, to tie into outreach, use that as our guide
15:35:19 <mizmo> ryanlerch - could just be a group, we come up with a plan and that way when something comes up, we can figure out how it applies to the overall plan
15:35:24 <mizmo> jzb: did we completely hijack this?
15:35:31 <mizmo> jiri: no i'm completely okay with this, we need todiscuss
15:35:44 <mizmo> ?: maybe we talk about it as a messaging body not an outreach body
15:36:03 <mizmo> ?: that gives it better definition. it's kind of a junk drawer - everything not in fesco... you'll wind up with screwdrivers next to knives and forks
15:36:07 <mizmo> mattdm: you're right that was bad
15:36:15 <mizmo> mattdm: do you ahve more slides?
15:36:17 <mizmo> mattdm: one more
15:36:22 <mizmo> jiri: question for remy
15:36:29 <mizmo> 4) How does CommOps fit into this?
15:36:36 <mizmo> #topic proposal
15:36:53 <mizmo> 1) FOSCo takes over the agenda of FAmSCo as is (so mostly operations), build on that, and add the outreach agenda
15:37:02 <mizmo> 2) Oversees ambassadors, marketing, and design
15:37:12 <mizmo> 3) Structure: 4 representatives of regions, 1 design,1  marketing, 1 elected
15:37:24 <mizmo> the budget we oversee - we can't just leave it in a vacuum
15:37:31 <mizmo> so the new body would definitely have to take over the budget
15:37:35 <mizmo> then we can figure out what to include in the grouop
15:37:48 <mizmo> my prposal / opinion - we start with ambassadors / marketing / design because they are the obvious target for this
15:38:08 <mizmo> then, again... as it goes we can .... if it makes sense to include another subproject because we feel that some coordination with them is necessary, then we can again work on that
15:38:23 <mizmo> but starting with something like let's include everything !fesco is a bit too vague of a plan for the beginning
15:38:28 <mizmo> so better to start with something smaller and add
15:38:36 <decause> #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommOps
15:38:48 <mizmo> and the structure pretty much move from completely elected body to appointed partially... something similar to the council
15:38:54 <mizmo> i really like democracy but i dont think its the best model
15:39:02 <mizmo> in the elections, people vote and most of them know very little about the candidates
15:39:15 <mizmo> mattdm: "democracy and voting aren't always the same thing and our mechanism for voting hasn't always resulted in democracy"
15:39:31 <mizmo> jiri: The idea with the council - elections to appointed members that are of particular expertise is something i definitely like
15:40:10 <mizmo> my prposal involves 4 representatives of regions.... we feel it's necessary to keep the coordination between the regions... they have their own budgets but we still need to make sure they are doing the same thing from a central point of view so the swags aren't completely outside of our strategy
15:40:31 <mizmo> if one of the regions are missing from famsco meeting, we noticed issues with what the region was doing, so we think having reps from each region was really important
15:40:59 <mizmo> regional communities of ambassadors - we should shift from the ambassadors only thing to be more inclusive, so a regional rep maybe doesn't have to be an ambassador, just a contributor from that region
15:41:16 <mizmo> we shuld also change the way other contributors can participate in decisions. now its mostly set up so just ambassadors vote
15:41:31 <mizmo> then we should also have representatives from other groups - design, marketing - to ensure coordination from those groups
15:41:37 <mizmo> then we could have one or two seats elected
15:41:44 <mizmo> i think a body with 7 members is the right size
15:41:56 <mizmo> i dont know if we want to really want to have a group with 15... i would like to keep it a small group
15:41:59 <mizmo> but its up to discussion
15:42:06 <mizmo> if we need to include more groups would require more members
15:42:25 <mizmo> ?: fedora magazine rep?
15:42:32 <mizmo> ?: i think magazine is standalone?
15:42:35 <mizmo> jzb: no it's not
15:43:09 <mizmo> ryanlerch: in marketing we should be making stuff for ambassadors to use and vice versa
15:43:15 <mizmo> ryanlerch; ambassadors the footsoldiers going out there
15:43:56 <mizmo> jzb: similar to what mo said sometimes ambassadors come to us in marketing asking for materials last-minute
15:44:18 <mizmo> jzb: my concern with the proposal is that it seems very ambassador heavy. four reps from ambassadors, 1 marketing, 1 design, 2 random. no docs, no translators...
15:44:30 <mizmo> jiri: what i want to emphasize - i want to move from ambassadors only ...
15:45:01 <mizmo> jiri: i'd like to change that we include other contributors as well, and then it doesn't have to be the regional rep doesn't have to be an ambassador, could be active in design or marketing but contributes from a specific region
15:45:10 <mizmo> we want to solve and take over what famsco is doing in a more inclusive way
15:45:23 <mizmo> ryanlerch: for me the main goal of what we're trying to create here is to increase the communication and collaboration between these groups
15:45:41 <mizmo> ryanlerch: for me, that's the goal. so even if the groups stay a little bit a part, i dont know if a board of ppl from each group can do that or....
15:45:54 <mizmo> pete: overall branding strategy / messaging is what we need then go out and do it
15:46:06 <mattdm> mattdm: +1 :)
15:46:19 <mizmo> ryanlerch: yeh one problem we have at the moment - unless you have a member of two teams - like i'm in marketing and design - there's no collab, we don't get together and talk all together about the goal outside of those little things
15:46:24 <mizmo> ryanlerch: that's the wall we're hitting
15:46:28 <mizmo> remy: i have a lot of thoughts about these things
15:46:41 <mizmo> mattdm: session is over and its now lunch but im happy to stay maybe we should talk more later
15:46:48 <mizmo> remy: i'm giving a lightning talk tomorrow at 4:30 about commops
15:46:54 <mizmo> ryanlerch: what is commops?
15:46:58 <mizmo> remy: that's what we'll talk about :)
15:47:01 <mizmo> remy: three diff conflicts:
15:47:20 <mizmo> 1) governance bodies that are elected vs appointed.... how do you xfer responsibility when people move in and out of a volunteer project
15:47:27 <mizmo> 2) outreach is a loaded term, means a lot of different things to diff people
15:48:06 <mizmo> 3) the work that needs to be done is a kind of work that is a heterogenous thing. a lot of devs in the community, a homogenous experience when they share - git, trac, etc dev tools. a contrib in design or marketing is very different. coordinating thesse htereogeneous contributions is going to need a new focus / strategy
15:48:18 <mizmo> a lot of stuff from this discussion and other discussion that commops is going to attempt to solve and is going to need a lot of help
15:48:27 <mizmo> check the link in irc, we have a wiki page to start laying out everyone's priorities
15:48:30 <mizmo> pete: that
15:48:34 <mizmo> s a separate group from fosco?
15:48:36 <mizmo> remy: yes
15:48:46 <mizmo> remy: you dont want people to choose between building things and figuring out how to build things
15:48:58 <mizmo> remy: you dont want someone who's building a project to choose between writing the blog post about it and actually doing it
15:49:20 <mizmo> remy: want a frictionless system, leverage fedmsg amazing infrastructure, we're just starting to analyze and figure that out, but from that we can publish heat and light
15:49:29 <mizmo> bring light to stuff thats happening so we can bring more people there
15:49:32 <mizmo> still very new
15:49:36 <mizmo> we're still figuring out
15:49:39 <mizmo> need more input here at flock
15:50:15 <mizmo> jiri: we can definitely meet again here
15:50:48 <mizmo> if the proposal going to happen who has to approve it? council?
15:50:51 <mizmo> mattdm: i think fedora council
15:51:00 <mizmo> mattdm: the pppl involved have to want to do it then council rubber stamps
15:51:04 <mizmo> council cant make things out of cloth
15:51:29 <mizmo> jzb: thought fosco was done, going to happen. didn't realize how tentative. just found out about commops last week
15:51:34 <mizmo> remy: just happened, still happening
15:51:48 <mizmo> jzb: ties into groups that never heard of the proposal... it's a thing, it's happening...
15:51:57 <mizmo> mattdm: ironically symptomatic of the problem we're trying to solve
15:52:10 <mizmo> jzb: should be an rfc with an idea rather than a fully formed proposal
15:52:43 <mizmo> remy: but its not a fully formed proposal. a wiki page, an idea on mailing list, posted to council and famsco, thats where it started bc theres a fundamental time sensitivty between absorbing famsco duties and coming up with long term thing we need to take slowly
15:52:50 <mizmo> council has absorbed most of mission critical stuff
15:52:54 <mizmo> mostly have bases covered
15:53:04 <mizmo> but the overarching - what does the community strategy look like?
15:53:10 <mizmo> theres certain mailing lists and people that need to be brought in
15:53:20 <mizmo> this is the beginning of that. it's not hey everyone heres a thing that exists
15:53:30 <mizmo> we're starting as any effort in fedora does, infra started up
15:53:45 <mizmo> need everyone to be involved in and have a stake in community
15:53:54 <mizmo> i really stick by the heterogenous contribution thing
15:54:01 <mizmo> its a more difficult problem than merging patches in the same languages
15:54:09 <mizmo> need big tent strategy, hard for people to self identify, join, come and go
15:54:17 <mizmo> not supposed to be decision making body, place where people can add to a stack
15:54:21 <mizmo> a stack ppl can build not a queue that blocks
15:54:32 <mizmo> you contribute want you can and funnel the stuff you're already doing into it and start talking about it
15:54:37 <mizmo> not a done deal, not just a thing
15:54:47 <mizmo> based on input from council, ambassadors, famsco as the base bc of the more time urgent needs
15:54:54 <mizmo> but will require a big tent where everyone should be involved
15:55:03 <mizmo> this flock is the first time i've been able to talk to a wider base of folks
15:55:09 <mizmo> im interested in finding out the places to approach
15:55:23 <mizmo> but its also really excited bc the more places we find that are big tent spots, the more likely i think this is going to work
15:55:28 <mizmo> all the stuff thats already being done - so much to pull from
15:55:41 <mizmo> its like middleware for ppl. want communtiy layer to hook into what is already happening
15:55:59 <mizmo> fedmsg has changed things significantly, once we tap into will be alot easier to integrate things
15:56:17 <mizmo> clear paths, clear tools to get people involved
15:56:34 <mizmo> we'll hopefully use each of these things to make those ideas into something larger
15:56:39 <mizmo> a lot of ppl have had input we need more of it
15:56:50 <mizmo> famna brainstorming session is coming up, that could be a good place to talk about this
15:56:55 <mizmo> open workshop on last day could be a good time
15:57:30 <mizmo> jiri has a talk on fedora swag on the third day
15:57:34 <mizmo> #endmeeting