Hey All. Woha, what a Thread.
I would like to put my personal experience here, just to share different perspectives from the same situation:
I consider myself to have been a quite active member of Fedora project since I joined back in 2007. Started with design, then became an ambassador, then became a mentor, helped in several teams "as ambassador", was part of FAmSCo, then became Diversity advisory, etc etc. You could say I'm an "active" ambassador and was an Active Mentor. it all looks good until here. Ambassadors were not event handlers, that was the least of our tasks... our main task was to get newcomers, ask them what they were interested on, and direct them to the team within Fedora that fit their skills. Events were just a way to catch new talents.
I became a mom in 2017, and my country internet/power situation became a hell, so this is how my activities within Fedora changed:
* I stopped joining IRC because my bouncing rate would make me always be banned from freenode, so I opted to be on the telegram channels that are linked. most meeting channels are not linked, so, I don't go to meetings.
* I stopped interacting as an "official mentor" because my latency in response to people was "unacceptable". Most newcomers are more interested on "be named" ambassadors than to do the work required. I was one of the few who tried to implement different processes to accept ambassadors [1] [2] and not accept those who were only looking to have the "easiest" recognizable title within the community. This hasn't changed for what I can see...
* I didn't stop hosting events, but without power, it's quite hard to host even a small talk. Without internet, it's hard to write a blog post. So work is done, but it has become harder to "let the board know"
* I'm online on different hours and for short periods because work/kids. I don't work for Fedora or RedHat, so my priority is my work and my kid, and my small spare time is for the community right now.
Am I a bad ambassador for dropping my available time? I would like to believe not.
Am I a bad mentor for demanding to know the real interest behind someone who wants to become an ambassador? of course not, specially when one of my requirements as Mentor was that, if you want to be an Ambassador, you have to be part of another team inside Fedora so you can actually know what you're gonna spread to the world.
People forgot that they don't need permission to contribute inside the project, so why don't we put our energies on that instead of this kind of futile debates of recognition for works that are NOT being correctly done?
In any case, I'm with Joerg in a lot of parts, I'm with Sirko in some other, I'm with Eduard in a few more.
Fedora was a place where you felt welcomed to do, without having to "work" in a company. If you had a couple a weeks a year to contribute, the team said "thank you" instead saying "you're not doing enough". Fedora doesn't feel like a family right now, it feels like a corporation, with metrics to fill, tasks that "have" to be done... and that drops motivation instead lifting it. Most of us are here because we want to, not because we have to, and until we start to treat people like contributors again instead as employees, this kind of discussions won't stop, and the ton of changes to have a more organized structure will only increase in an attempt to handle people's time.