#141 Dealing with events that don't get event reports [Needs adding to docs]
Closed: Complete 4 years ago by riecatnor. Opened 5 years ago by bex.

We have several open tickets where no event report has been filed. We need a policy on this. I am putting this strawman out there:

  1. Event reports more than 30 days late result in the following:
    a) The reporter is unable to get reimbursement for any event expenses until the report is complete
    b) The reporter is unable to solely sponsor any additional events or request swag

  2. Event reports more than 90 days late result in the following:
    a) All 30 day consequences in #1
    b) They are not able to be an official part of the event team for additional events until they have both cleared the old event report* and been a helper at 3 events and reported as successful by other event owners.
    c) They are ineligible for any advance payment for travel funding/requests not related to event ownership, for example, travel to Flock
    d) They are removed from the roster of active ambassadors, if applicable and not allowed to become active from emeritus status until the event report is cleared (per b above)

  • After some point the value of an event report becomes dubious. After 120 days, an old event report is no longer required. Instead to "clear the old event report" the person needs to establish a history of helping as a non-event owner at 3 events in a 1 year period.

This is very drafty, so please propose changes.


It looks good to me but:
2.b could be hard to fulfill if it's the only one in a region, let's say the contributor is in Texas and the closest contributor that make events is in Washington (it's just an example, but could be worse like a korean and the closest could be an Indian).

I think that we need to try is to create a "Trust path". I will think it better before proposing something, but the idea is "how I built and re-built trust inside the project?"

the 2.d looks a little drastic for me, maybe after 120 days.

and as @x3mboy says can be some constraints to participate in other events (as helper) making it very difficult to recover the "active" status

They are not able to be an official part of the event team for additional events until they have both cleared the old event report* and been a helper at 3 events

I was curious, what is defined as the event team? If they cannot be a part of events but must help at three events, this appears like a catch-22.

I agree with @x3mboy and @bt0dotninja that regaining trust through events may work for those who are connected to other active, local contributors, but it could be an insurmountable blocker for some contributors to regain that trust. I think the right solution is enabling multiple pathways to regain trust instead of a "one size fits all" approach.

To add a strawman to a strawman, here are two alternate ideas that could exist in combination with the event pathway:

  1. Looking outside of event participation for regaining trust (e.g. actively participating in other parts of the Fedora community, even though these activities may not directly correlate to events)
  2. Submitting a written appeal for the restriction to be lifted (perhaps through private tickets reviewed and decided by Mindshare Committee or Code of Conduct review committee – important to be aware this does permit unconscious bias and reviewers should go through a training first)

I like the idea of a trust path - as that is what we need.

Responding specifically:

@x3mboy regarding 2b: Being part of the official event staff meant to me that you were part of the request for funding/activities. Helping is ALWAYS welcome.

@bt0dotninja regarding 2d: 120 days is 4 months. Except in unusual circumstances it shouldn't take anyone 4 months to write an event report.

@jflory7 I understand the catch-22 of not being able to do anything if you are "alone" in a region. But perhaps the way forward would be for them to find other people and have them help them with the next event. Remember, we are talking about people who asked for our resources and then refused to report on them for 120+ days. I like the idea of rebuilding trust through participation in other areas of the project. Perhaps we could combine that with a 14 month break? (I deliberately think it should be more than a year).

I dislike an appeal process through the CoC or other groups for the reasons cited and more. I think anyone should be allowed to offer a reason why they had something exception come up that prevented them from finishing an event report in 120 days.

Per Meeting on 26 June - we need a doc for the trust path to help solidify this. An option is a set of suggested actions, but recognizing this is subjective.

As we talked in the meeting on 06/03/19 we need some rearranging / add statements to avoid catch22 situations. From the meeting the changes can look more or less as follow;

Event reports more than 30 days late result in the following:

  • a) The reporter is unable to get reimbursement for any event expenses until the report is complete
  • b) The reporter is unable to solely sponsor any additional events or request swag

Event reports more than 90 days late result in the following:

  • a) All 30-day consequences in #1
  • b) They are not able to be an official part of the event team for additional events until they have both cleared the old event report* and been a helper at three events and reported as successful by other event owners or otherwise show the Mindshare committee that they are actively involved in Fedora SIGs or other online events
  • c) They are ineligible for any advance payment for travel funding/requests not related to event ownership, for example, travel to Flock.

After 120 days,

  • a) an old event report is no longer required. Instead to "clear the old event report" the person needs to establish a history of helping as a non-event owner at 3 events in 1 year or otherwise show the Mindshare committee that they are actively involved in Fedora SIGs or other online events.
  • b) They are removed from the roster of active ambassadors, if applicable and not allowed to become active from emeritus status until the event report is cleared (per a) above)

WDYT?

Thanks @bt0dotninja for taking the time to write this up! This is the hard work. :grinning:

Event reports more than 90 days late result in the following:
b) …not able to be an official part of the event team…and been a helper at three events

I suggest changing the language here to "not able to be an event owner / propose an event". My original catch-22 concern is requiring someone to help with an event, but not being able to participate on an event team.

This is not a logistics problem but a wording problem. It could remain as written, but needs more description to differentiate between being "part of an event team" versus being a "helper". What is the difference?

Therefore, I see it as more straightforward that someone cannot be an event owner or take a leadership position in organizing events. This is less confusing and uses vocabulary already in use in the project community. It is this way in North America at least. I'm not sure about other regions, but when I was active as a NA Ambassador, there was a difference between being event owner and attending an event.

Event reports more than 90 days late result in the following:
b) …at three events…

I suggest not using fixed quantifiable metrics for re-establishing trust (i.e. not having a minimum number of events). Instead, qualitative feedback with transparent guidelines may be a better measure and can be decided on a case-by-case basis by the Mindshare Committee.

Consider this scenario: an active contributor with a precedent of organizing successful events does not write an event report in 90 days after an event. Assuming there is not an accepted excuse for the lateness (e.g. a personal emergency), three event reports might be asking a lot for someone who was an active event organizer before. This could be demotivating for someone who has successfully organized events before and now lost that privilege. For this contributor, it might only need one event with an on-time report and positive feedback from an event owner to re-establish trust.

In an alternative scenario, a new contributor who has not participated actively in the community before but receives event funding does not write an event report in 90 days. Assuming there is not an accepted excuse for the lateness (e.g. a personal emergency), there is little historical context to understand who this person is or whether this was a one-off mistake or a repeating bad habit. For this contributor, three events with on-time reports and positive feedback from an event owner may be a better way to establish trust.

Therefore, I suggest a qualitative approach to determine a quantifiable measurement. To illustrate my point, consider this small but important line from the Flock funding FAQ:

It is a conversation, not an algorithm.

My takeaway is instead of using fixed requirements to (re-)establish trust, use flexible requirements that vary for unique people with unique situations. I think the structure @bt0dotninja wrote gives some transparency into the process for the community, and also allows the Mindshare Committee to remain flexible for how an individual contributor can regain or obtain trust for organizing events.

I like the rest of this proposal as written.

I am +1 to these language and qualitative changes suggested by @jflory7 .

I would like to see it clarified that advance funding is gone for 14 months for all reasons if you hit the 120 day mark. I would like it to be clarified that advance funding is not available after 90 days, but is cleared with the clearance of the event report.

I made some additional tweaks and clarifications in the below:

Event reports more than 30 days late result in the following:

a) The contributor is unable to get reimbursement for any event expenses until the report is complete
b) The contributor is unable to solely sponsor any additional events or request swag

Event reports more than 90 days late result in the following:

a) All 30-day consequences in #1
b) The contributor is not allowed to take a leadership position in organizing events until they have both provided the missing event report and re-established their activity in the project. Re-establishing activity is a conversation, not an algorithm and is generally met by being a helper at other people's events or otherwise showing the Mindshare committee that they are actively involved in Fedora SIGs or other online events. Mindshare strongly considers a person's history and the circumstances.
c) The contributor is ineligible for any advance funding for travel funding/requests until this is resolved.

After 120 days,

a) The contributor is not allowed to take a leadership position in organizing events until they have re-established their activity in the project. Re-establishing activity is a conversation, not an algorithm and is generally met by being a helper at other people's events or otherwise showing the Mindshare committee that they are actively involved in Fedora SIGs or other online events. Mindshare strongly considers a person's history and the circumstances. At this point the old event report is no longer required as it probably has limited value.
b) The contributor is ineligible for any advance funding for travel funding/requests for 14 months from the date of the original event or 6 months from the date they have re-established their activity in the project, per a above, which ever is longer.
c) The contributor is removed from the roster of active ambassadors, if applicable and not allowed to become active from emeritus status until they have re-established their activity in the project, per a above.

If my vote counted, you would have my +1. Thanks @bt0dotninja and @bex.

+1 from @jsmith in meeting on 10 July

This has passed and needs to be implemented and documented.

Metadata Update from @bex:
- Issue assigned to bex
- Issue priority set to: None (was: next meeting)

5 years ago

Metadata Update from @bt0dotninja:
- Issue assigned to bt0dotninja (was: bex)

5 years ago

I merged the PR, but upon further review I think this also needs an explanatory intro paragraph to outline why this part of the event process is valuable and important to the Fedora project. I would like to have that in there before we poke people on overdue reports. I can write that up and drop it here for discussion.

I'm adding comments in the overdue tickets about events

This ticket is not ready yet?

Mindshare TEAM open another ticket to deal with this:

Mindshare TEAM provide additional INFO in this ticket

https://pagure.io/mindshare/issue/232

+1 for close it

Regards.,

Mindshare looked at this in their meeting today, we are +1 to close

Metadata Update from @riecatnor:
- Issue close_status updated to: Complete
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

4 years ago

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