Re: community managers

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 4:12 PM, Andre Klapper <ak-47 gmx net> wrote:

On Mon, 2012-11-12 at 15:17 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> But I am looking for some good people who can fill the role of
> community manager.  Clearly, we have a problem relating to our user
> base and some of the decisions have become more controversial than it
> needs to be.

Could you elaborate a bit more what you expect a community manager to
do, especially refering to GNOME?

Sure.  Here is what I envision:

The community managers are the interface between the general community and GNOME project.  Primarily, their goal is to communicate GNOME design goals, address concerns and common mis-characterizations of GNOME.  CM will monitor mailing lists, blogs, and other places and engage.  I used to do this quite often back during the 3.0.  I will say that it was somewhat effective.  It was especially effective with kernel developers who I think have a better opinion of GNOME than initially, but the contact must be continual.

Additionally, I want to  add a filter on issues that are relevant or different than the common complaints we have.  That might require filing bugs on their behalf or maybe suggesting solutions.  Like I did for Linus or others.

Another important aspect is that you want to also raise the profile of community management.  They should have some input in release-team decisions.

At work, community managers exist for Yocto and are a big part of how Yocto works and something we take seriously.

CM will need a thick skin, and will probably need to give a steady drumbeat of information with an even, friendly tone, without getting emotional.

sri

andre
--
Andre Klapper  |  ak-47 gmx net
http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/