Hey folks! 
Here is the summary of the September 15, 2026, Fedora Community Operations (CommOps) Team meeting.
As a core part of the Fedora Mindshare branch, the Community Ops team monitors community health and operations to support contributors and optimize workflows across the project. Today’s meeting focused on organizing the upcoming Fedora 45 Release Party, surfacing historical project metrics for Fedora Docs, and charting a path forward to fill the vacant CommOps seat on the Mindshare Committee.
Topics discussed in this meeting:
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Virtual F45 Release Party: Wrangler planning and role assignments
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Creating an official account of Fedora’s history for Fedora Docs
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Identifying a new CommOps representative for the Mindshare Committee
Note: AI (Google Gemini) was used to summarize the transcript of the public video meeting. I reviewed and corrected the AI-generated output before posting.
Links to Meeting Logs
Executive Summary
With the Fedora Linux 45 Release Party approximately 1.5 months away (scheduled for October 30th), the team prioritized rallying resources for the 3-hour virtual event (commops/tickets#143). Three of the five core organizer roles were locked in during the meeting:
- Justin Wheeler (@jflory7) stepped up as Party Wrangler
- Shaun McCance (@shaunm) volunteered as Promotion & Content lead (possibly shared with @cybette who volunteered in June)
- Aoife Moloney (@amoloney) confirmed as Speaker Management lead
Outreach is underway to recruit potential leads for Design (Emma Kidney (@ekidney) / Madeline Peck (@madelinepeck)) and Production & Video (Neil Hanlon (@neil)). Additionally, @shaunm will follow up with Carol Chen (@cybette) regarding co-handling content and promotions, and prepare an early save-the-date article for Fedora Magazine.
The team also discussed surfacing Fedora’s historical timeline for Fedora Docs (commops/tickets#146). Building on Matthew Miller’s (@mattdm) brontosaurusifier project, Michael Winters (@mwinters) developed an explorable Apache Superset dashboard hosted on Hatlas. This sanitized dataset maps Fedora “geological ages” using RPM repository hits to provide context behind metric shifts (such as post-release download surges). @mwinters will document links to these datasets directly in the ticket so future documentation authors can integrate historical narratives with empirical data.
Finally, the team addressed the governance vacancy on the Mindshare Committee (commops/tickets#145), which has remained unfilled since @gwmngilfen stepped down. CommOps holds one appointed seat, which is crucial for advocating for community data analysis during event planning and budget decisions. Rather than rushing an appointment or prematurely deprecating the seat, the team agreed to revisit the topic at the next meeting to select an interim representative through the F45 cycle, with an aim to appoint a full-term representative for the remaining F46 cycle.
Action Items
- @jflory7: Reach out to potential Design and Production & Video leads to confirm participation.
- @shaunm: Draft a short Fedora Magazine save-the-date article to announce the October 30th F45 Release Party.
- @mwinters: Consider submitting a Data WG 10-minute talk for the F45 Release Party
. - @amoloney: Begin pulling together a list of contacts for F45 Release Party speaker sessions.
- @shaunm: Reach out to @cybette to reconfirm her interest/capacity for helping out with Content & Promotion.
- @mwinters: Add a comment to Ticket #146 pointing to the Hatlas data for a future author to dig into and explore.
- @jflory7:
Post a meeting summary topic on Fedora Discussion. - @jflory7: Post ticket-specific meeting outcomes as new comments in each ticket.
Detailed Meeting Log
Roll Call & Agenda Triage
The meeting began with introductions and roll call. Present were @jflory7, @shaunm, and @mwinters, later joined by @amoloney and @sfaulken.
The team reviewed the agenda and selected three active Forgejo tickets for focused discussion:
Ticket: commops/tickets#143 (Virtual F45 Release Party: Wrangler Planning Ticket)
@jflory7 noted that the Fedora 45 Release Party is scheduled for October 30th—roughly six weeks away—and called on the team to organize staffing for the 3-hour event. The ticket defines five primary roles: Wrangler, Promotion & Content, Speaker Management, Design, and Production & Video.
@jflory7 agreed to take on the Wrangler role and use the biweekly CommOps meetings for planning checkpoints. @shaunm agreed to serve as the Promotion & Content lead. Mid-discussion, @amoloney joined and confirmed she would reprise her role managing speakers. With three roles filled, the team turned to the remaining spots. @jflory7 will reach out to @ekidney and @madelinepeck for Design, and to @neil for Production & Video. Additionally, @shaunm will draft an early save-the-date post for Fedora Magazine and check in with @cybette to see if she has capacity to collaborate on promotion. @jflory7 also floated the idea of organizing a social game during the party, and encouraged @mwinters to consider presenting a 10-minute lightning talk highlighting Data Working Group insights.
Ticket: commops/tickets#146 (Create an official account of Fedora’s history for Fedora Docs)
@jflory7 passed the floor to @mwinters, who shared recent progress extracting and structuring historical Fedora milestone data into DuckDB. Utilizing @mattdm’s brontosaurusifier project, @mwinters built out public dashboards on Hatlas (such as the bronto-index and bronto-fedora-updates-systems.
@mwinters explained that this sanitized “countme” repository hit data illustrates the “geological ages” of Fedora releases, allowing graphs to be accurately annotated with key events (e.g., explaining sudden surges in system updates or downloads). @jflory7 noted that this structured dataset provides a solid foundation for future Fedora Docs writers to craft an accurate narrative history. @mwinters was actioned to add a ticket comment summarizing these findings and linking to Hatlas so contributors can explore the data.
Ticket: commops/tickets#145 (New CommOps representative needed on the Mindshare committee)
The team addressed governance representation on the Mindshare Committee. The CommOps representative seat has sat vacant for three months following Gwmngilfen’s departure. @jflory7 highlighted that CommOps offers valuable perspective to the Mindshare Committee through Community Social Analysis, particularly regarding data-informed event planning and funding impact. Because @shaunm already serves as Mindshare Committee chair and @jflory7 is currently stepping back from formal governance roles, a new representative is needed.
The team weighed options between recruiting from active sub-teams (such as the Matrix Working Group), putting out a broader call on Fedora Discussion, or deprecating the seat if engagement is insufficient. @mwinters expressed interest from a data-advocacy standpoint, though noted uncertainties regarding future work availability and onboarding requirements. @sfaulken noted heavy commitments over the next few months. To ensure thoughtful onboarding without rushing, the team agreed to postpone a final decision until the next meeting in two weeks. The goal will be to confirm an interim representative through F44 and identify a full-term appointee for the F45–F46 cycle.
Open Floor
In the closing minutes, @jflory7 recorded action items to publish the meeting summary and provide per-ticket updates on Forgejo. Hearing no further topics, the meeting was adjourned.