On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 09:57:17AM -0400, David Nalley wrote:
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 4:15 AM, Mathieu Bridon
<bochecha(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 08:28, Christoph Wickert
> <christoph.wickert(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
>> Am Mittwoch, den 28.04.2010, 23:04 -0700 schrieb Jeff Sandys:
>>
>>> But when a user carrying an imac (comparing it to colorful OLPCs)
>>> asked if we had a powerPC version, I answered incorrectly, saying no.
>>
>>
http://download.fedpraproject.org/pub/linux/fedora/linux/releases/12/Fedo...
>> You just failed your exam. ;)
>>
>> This why I don't like the idea of certifying ambassadors. Of course we
>> agree that the ambassadors should a have a certain amount of knowledge
>> about Fedora, but as you see in this example, there is no consensus
>> about what is important for each and every ambassador. Many of them are
>> involved in other groups of Fedora too, but one is into translations,
>> the other more into packaging and the third into design. It is up to the
>> ambassadors mentor to judge is someone is ready to be an ambassador yet
>> and to educate them.
>
> As a young mentor, allow me to chime in.
>
> Do people think the role of a mentor is to not validate a candidate
> ambassador until he has sufficient knowledge, using some kind of
> certification mechanism? Or should the mentor rather establish the
> base of a never-ending journey towards getting that knowledge, while
> making sure the candidate is mature enough to either ask for help from
> another ambassador or ask for some more time to answer?
>
> I'm certainly in favor of the second possibility, but I've only
> mentored 4 people until now, so I'm most certainly doing it wrong. ;)
>
> As Christoph said, different ambassadors are involved in different
> groups, and thus will have different knowledge. To me, that's a reason
> for having more than one ambassador on a given event, so each one can
> answer questions related to his field of expertise.
>
> Finally, when I'm not sure of an answer, I like to ask for the
> person's contact, so that I can later ask someone who does know,
> acquire that knowledge for myself and then write to the person who
> asked me the question in the first place, providing him a proper
> answer.
>
> Wouldn't that address your concerns Jeff? Or should we launch a huge
> validation campaign after which only 5 ambassadors will remain? (and
> I'll probably not be one of them)
>
> Of course, nothing (and no one) prevents you from writing a FAQ if you
> believe that's appropriate, but I fear it will quickly turn into a
> summary page for all of the Fedora Project wiki. :)
>
There is no one who does or can know everything about the Fedora
Project, so I certainly don't think your goal as a mentor is to ensure
that that someone know $incredibleamounr about Fedora. You of course
want to make sure they at least know a bit about Fedora, and more
importantly how to find answers. A number of people refer to this as
"productively lost"
Max and I have humorously poked at each other about this many times in
the past. In some of our interviews together, almost without fail
we'd each get questions that we'd have to throw to the other person to
get a good answer for the interviewer. So you're absolutely right --
no one can know all the answers, we just have to be willing to find
them, and engage the person asking the question to help them become
interested in being productively lost. Not everyone wants that, so
we should judge that desire, and be willing to find an answer and give
it to them later if needed.
The bigger question though (and one that would, in my mind, satisfy
the above points) is: Are you satisfied that the person your are
mentoring is capable of representing Fedora appropriately? It's
completely subjective, but a lot of trust is placed in the hands of
mentors, much as it is with packaging sponsors.
Exactly -- that's how we provide scalability.
--
Paul W. Frields
http://paul.frields.org/
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