[Ambassadors] Mentors, Sponsors, etc...

[Yannik Stadelmaier]

Hi All,

until now i tried to back off from this topic, because i'm a so called 
"Ambassador Newbie" myself.

But since there were some interessting postings, i could not longer hold 
off.
And just to make it clear: I don't want to offend several people here on 
the list, i just want to say a few words.

First, i totally dislike the suggested "point system" (like "Beeing at a 
event -> +100pts).
Remember, beeing Fedora Ambassador doesn't mean to be a hero in a MMORPG 
where you can earn Experience Points for succesfully finishing quests.
I don't want to come to a a point in future, where i pay someone 200€ to 
get a eminently respected 100.000 Ambassador Points worthy Fedora 
Ambassador identity (or avatar).

And there is another critic point at this method. Who decides, wich 
activity drops how many points?
I mean i can stay for 2 weeks on an event or convention and tell all 
people about fedora. What if (i know it is exaggerated but it is just an 
example) everyone i talk to on the event already knows Fedora, 
contributes already to another distro and is absolutely not interessted 
in my "drivel"?
Then, my spent time was without succes, and i should get 0 points, 
because i have achieved nothing.
But if i convince 3 friends of mine to use fedora (and offer them 
support) (wich i did in my few weeks as Ambassador now) do i now get 300 
points (for just much less hours of engagement)?

The point is: No matter what someone does or doesn't, no one here is 
able to rate his engagement in points.


Another suggestion was to send every month (or every half year e.g.) a 
validation mail. This would be more acceptable to me than the points 
system, but it is still unsatisfying. There would be too much troubles 
and sentences like "oh, please give me my Ambassador Status back, i 
haven't known anything from the mail, you know, my Spam filter...". 
Maybe i'm a bit pessimistic, but in my experience, it is always the same.


I think, the main problem and reason for this debate is: We have many 
Ambassadors, many inactive and every week a few new Ambassadors.

Problem A): Too many inactive Ambassadors.

The Validation mail is as i said not the best method. And it has another 
disadvantage. You can be as inactive as you want, as long as you answer 
a short "i'm still active" mail to the mailing list.

Problem B): Too many new Ambassadors who become inactive after a few 
days/weeks/months and who have no idea how to contribute.

I think it is also our topic to tell new fedora people, how and where 
they can start contributing. If we don't manage this task inside the 
Ambassador the team, how can we handle it for the rest of the Fedora 
Project?
So my idea would be, to spend time with talking to new ambassadors about 
their abilities and give them some hints where they can start 
contributing with their abilities.
For example, Joerg read, that i'm a ongoing social/cultural 
anthropologist stressed on central asia, so he introduced me to Mirlan 
(i wrote him already a mail, waiting for his response).
Maybe it would be helpful to create a mindmap wich clearly describes the 
organization of the Fedora Project with all ways of contributing.
Also we maybe should concentrate some work on the New Ambassadors Guide 
someone here works at (sorry, i forgot who exactly it was).

Just my 2 cents.
Yannik

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 259 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/attachments/20090401/b0cf5c8b/attachment.sig>