This post is a response to the Flock talks about Latam and the Mexican Fedora Community:
We want this to create a new topic to recompile new ideas about reviving the Latam communities and the cross-cooperation between these communities.
We have some active communities in Latam, like Panama, Mexico, and Brazil, and some active members in Argentina and Chile.
I think we need to:
Recollect data about active contributors in the Region (How many peer countries, ambassadors, recent activities) so we can know our base.
Get a list of regional events (like Flisol and other conferences) to do presence, give talks, and onboarding.
Make regional technical/community talks using streaming platforms and open them to as many countries as possible. (Maybe bi-monthly and rotating the host of the events).
We need to list the problems by country to receive swag, for example, the hefty tax applied to importation in Argentina, and look for alternatives voted on and approved by the mindshare committee.
Get a list of tasks we can do for the Fedora project (Translation, packaging, design, etc.) and look for mentors in those areas (working closely with the Fedora Join team) to do a better and more effective onboarding of contributors from Latam.
When people ask me what is the secret of the actual success of the Mexican Fedora community? I always say: “We just stop being lonely ambassadors or contributors and start being a community of friends working together to share our passion.”
I want the same for our Region. Please share your ideas and doubts, and all comments are welcome.
It’s not like I don’t like the idea, but Latam had tons and tons of problems before COVID-19. If you don’t address those problems, you’re just going to repeat the history.
I don’t want to vent those problems here, but from my POV we don’t need “country communities” (kind of Ubuntu LoCo approach), I think what we need is to engage conversation in main channels, having the latam channels to allow people communicate in Spanish (the latam matrix that recently went up, the latam telegram channel and maybe other channels can be up), but I think in terms of collaboration, we just need to engage people to go and do work, connect with the WG, and SIGs and teams in general that I’m just doing the work.
If you look what you’re suggesting is already “identify events”, “future events”, “swag”, when, IMHO, you should be asking the people from latam, what do you need to integrate into a team? What interest do you have in Fedora to focus your energy and enthusiasm? Do you know how the Fedora Project is structured?
And from there, then start building a “country team” or “regional teams”, because IMHO, the Latam team just reach the end of its lifecycle, because it didn’t evolve
I’m sorry if I sounded hard and/or harsh, but it’s how I see things. You know I love all of you guys, we shared precious moments together, but I think it’s time to evolve
Hence, we must identify these smaller groups within various countries so that they can contribute to integrating individuals into specialized groups such as documentation, packaging, translation, among others. It’s also essential not only to seek out newcomers but, if feasible, to reintegrate veterans so that we can collectively support one another as a team. Let’s cease dwelling on the past and instead embrace novel ideas, moving forward as you’ve mentioned. Let’s evolve!
We desire contributions! However, they also require events in their respective countries – not only small workshops and meetups, but also other forms of engagement.
Nice to hear from you again. Like you, I lived through the pre-pandemic Latam problems, but I see what people can do to make a community. The more time I spend with the Mexican Fedora Community the more I spend working as a bridge with the main project (updating Mindshare tickets, making reports, following tickets about newcomers in Fedora Join, and moderating chats). It’s not glamorous, but it is the work that we need to do as the older contributors.
I see your point, but you are missing something, What are the long-time collaborators made of? Maybe nobody knows, what we already know, the contributors first were users and then they fell in love with the Fedora project (At least this happens with me). Enlarging the current user base of the region is the best strategy to attract new talent to the project and this is the reason why looking for events, swag, and other ideas in this sense is important.
With this strategy, what will happen if we do not generate enough contributors in the region? Still will have a large (and happy) Fedora user base, and that is awesome too.
Let’s agree to disagree. IMO events, and now more than ever because of the huge success of virtual events, aren’t a need, I think they should be a consequence of the work.
In my case was backwards, once I stepped away for the regional community I was able to contribute better and bigger with the global project.
I’m ok with your initiative guys, seriously. But I will say it again and for a last time, if you start without fixing what was wrong (and most of it was because the work was only focused in doing events) you’re going to repeat the same history.
They aren’t as much of a need as they were before, but specially small-scale, education-focused events can still be quite effective on a smaller scale.
I’m on the camp of virtual events being a priority, and I agree that focusing only on events is missing the forest for the trees, but something local and physical is still a good thing to have.
I am curious how virtual events could fit in. I also wonder about using Fedora Project infrastructure for localized virtual events. For example, could we have more events on Matrix for the LATAM community, like the Creative Freedom Summit successfully did? What would a Fedora LATAM contributor summit look like if we did that once a release?
I like local events as a connection point for people who live nearby to connect and organize around Fedora. I also see where @x3mboy is coming from with his thoughts about connecting people from LATAM into the main contributor channels, and the risk of overemphasizing events above all else.
I think we can have both though. But the conversation should note whether we are talking about users or contributors.
This kind of work is important. We need people to help with this. Yet, this kind of work is not for everyone. This kind of work is also mentorship. One thing missing from this discussion so far (that I want to see more of) is mentoring best practices for experienced contributors working with newcomers or even veterans who come back after a long time.
It’s wonderful to hear from all of you and to learn about your concerns regarding the Latam community.
Expanding our user base is a crucial step in our roadmap to grow the number of contributors in the region. Local events play a pivotal role in achieving this goal, especially when local contributors have the chance to meet newcomers and offer mentorship, fostering collaboration and friendship. This is exactly how the Panama Fedora community began and flourished. While some members might become less active for a while, the bonds of friendship will always bring us back together, especially during local events that provide the opportunity for face-to-face interactions.
Starting with local or country-specific communities is a great beginning. However, it’s important that we always strive to be part of the global community, rather than limiting ourselves to local or regional channels.
Events oriented to the broad public (Fedora users, potential users, contributors, etc.), for example, release parties, University talks, podcast interventions, and streaming events. The correct platforms for these events are the most massive ones, like X, FB, Twich, and YT. Using more specialized media like Matrix or Mastodon will reduce the audience of the events (not because they are wrong, but usually aren’t part of the users’ current social media stack). The Mexican Fedora Community implemented an OBS server to make simultaneous streamings to mani platforms with at least one moderator in everyone. First, this infra was deployed to have a good Flisol experience in the pandemic and still use it to stream all community events.
Contributor-oriented events: The contributor already uses Matrix, which we can use, so we don’t have concerns about whether the platform is adequate.
I understand, but we must generate momentum and increase the user base. Why? It is easy because making active contributors and a stable user base is a good breeding ground for new contributors, and again, what happens if we don’t get new contributors? We still will have a significant user base on Latam (what if the BIGGER user base across regions? Imagine that); of course, it is valuable for the project.
Sounds like an excellent idea, at least once a year
The existence of one friendly local community helps to overcome many of the initial thoughts of the newcomers (mentorship, language, technical issues, etc.). I think we need to look at these communities like “Ambassys” and it is nice because we already have ambassadors.
I don’t have much to add to this discussion as I’m new to contributing to Fedora. However, I’d like to share that it’s great to see a discussion going for the LATAM community here, and I’d be happy to help with any efforts we come up with.
Arriving a little to the discussion. I really enjoy online events because it’s easier for me to participe, specially as someone located in Brazil. As @cgranell I also would be happy to help with anything that comes up in LATAM.
