Joining Ambassadors

Joining the Fedora Ambassadors Project

If you have any question on your Fedora Ambassadors Membership, please contact FabianAffolter, JoergSimon for Membership Service.

The following steps are imperative to join the ambassadors project:

1. Sign up in the Fedora Account System.
2. Complete the CLA through the Account System.
3. Join the 'Ambassadors' group in the Account System & follow the Instructions you will receive from Fedora Ambassador Membership Administration FAmA
4. Pick a Mentor! The Mentor is your Partner to get sponsored! Contact and start working with one of these mentors in your region: Regional Ambassador Mentors . The recommended way to start is, contact the Mentor via email and introduce yourself (see point below for the wiki page creation requirement). A wiki page will help the Mentor to assess your suitability to be an ambassador. Further, the email should contain a bit of information about, what you have done so far, to promote Fedora, amongst your peers/friends and what you intend to do.
5. Create your personal wiki page in the Fedora Project Wiki https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Your_FAS-username . The page must contain: valid contact information,i.e. who you are, what your are doing, what you will do, what your goals as an ambassador are, etc. A template can be found at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Template:Userpage . As an ambassador, you also represent Fedora through your personal presence, and you should constantly keep an eye on the quality of your wiki page.
6. Subscribe to Fedora Ambassadors Mailing List It is an imperative rule that, if you want to be an ambassador (in FAS), you have to be subscribed in the only, official mailing list of ambassadors!

DO NOT SEND NON-AMBASSADOR RELATED MESSAGES to the fedora ambassadors mailing list!!!! This includes invites to social-networking sites, welcome messages to new ambassadors (should be sent in private), technical support questions or advice (Fedora only problems, should be directed to the Fedora support list or the #fedora IRC channel), and anything else, which is not deemed Fedora ambassador related!

After FAmA gets your request approved by your mentor, and you have completed all of the above steps, FAmA will sponsor and approve your membership to the Ambassador Group in FAS.

During first 30 days of probation, the new ambassador would not normally be able to request money or materials from the project. Exceptions can be made in extraordinary cases.

If a person, already actively contributing to another project with Fedora, joins the ambassadors team, they may skip the "probation" period.

Find regional Ambassador Mentors

If you need help with special regional requirements, you can obtain help from one of these mentors:

• NorthAmerica
  • Clint Savage (available)
  • David Nalley (available)
  • John Rose (available)
  • Brian Powell (unavailable from Oct 14 2009 until Nov 20 2009)
  • Larry Cafiero (available)
  • Ben Williams (available)
• SouthAmerica
  • María Leandro (available)
  • RodrigoPadula (available)
• EMEA
  • RobertScheck (available)
  • JoergSimon (to choose when RobertScheck is unavailable)
  • FabianAffolter (unavailable till January 2010)
• EMEA-Africa
  • NayyarAhmad (available)
• Asia
  • KushalDas (available)
  • SusmitShannigrahi (unavailable till November)
  • RahulSundaram (unavailable)
• Asia - China
  • Yuan Yijun (available)

Fedora Ambassador Membership Administration (fedora-ambassadors-list-owner AT redhat DOT com) will make group introductions as soon as your ambassadors request has been approved.

Please Note: The status indicates, if an ambassador is available or unavailable. Sending an email to an unavailable mentor will result in an unspecified delay!!!

Be active as an Ambassador

Below you find a list of suggestions, on how to be active as an ambassador.

• Participate in regular meetings This is an imperative task!

Meetings take place at regular intervals in the channel #fedora-meeting on irc.freenode.org. There is a meeting for each region (the time of the next meeting is usually posted in the topic of the chat and on the mailing list). Should you miss a meeting, follow up on the meeting's minutes on the following page: Fedora Ambassadors Meeting Minutes

• Be a speaker at an event.

Clubs, Linux User Groups (LUGs), schools/colleges/Universities can all benefit, by hearing about Fedora, what we do, and how people can participate to benefit from Fedora. Talk to people after events or other gatherings. This can be as informal or formal as you like.
If you were asked to talk/make a presentation at an event, do NOT panic. Browse our fedoraproject.org wiki and you will find some material to get you started. FUDcon pages might be a good place to start too, as most of the talks, that were given in the past, are available for download.

• Collect press articles about Fedora

Collect and post articles about Fedora and post them to the Press Archive

• Collect feedback from community members

Collect feedback/comments from community members and submit it to the Fedora Marketing List or let any Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee member know about them.

• Promote Fedora events.

We organize a FUDcon (Fedora Users Developer Conference), about once every three months(different regions). Use your contact base to engage speakers, attendees, helpers, et al.
If you want to help out organizing a FUDCon or other Fedora event, visit FUDCon/Organization to see what tasks need to be done.

• Distribute Press Releases to the local press

Distribute Fedora press releases to the local press, translating them into a local language, if required.
Require a press release? Press releases can be found at the Press Release Repository .

• Support and coordinate offline, Fedora and Open Source activities,

Support and coordinate Fedora and Open Source activities, such as Software Freedom Day, handing out flyers, the distribution on DVD, and so forth.
Watch this list of upcoming offline FedoraEvents

• Sign up Fedora Project for regional events

Sign the Fedora Project up for regional or local events. I does not have to be a computer/IT-related event to be relevant. Go to a music trade show to talk about free culture and open music formats, go to a university event, to talk about Fedora to students and faculty, go to a local Linux event and get some space for a booth in the .ORG pavilion...
Once you have secured participation in an event, please add it to the FedoraEvents list!

• Just make sure to coordinate with Fedora Marketing so you get support in form of money for travel, space, booth signage, trade show infrastructure, giveaways, etc.
  Event Organizers' Resources page is a good place to start.
• Communicate eloquently. Fedora Ambassadors should be the conduct leaders for the community. Make sure you don NOT talk rubbish, that is, make unqualified statements or be rude to anyone, while wearing a 'Fedora' shirt. Conduct also applies in general, while talking to the community. See CommunityConduct page for general guidelines and Ambassadors conduct for specific information.
• Become an expert at Fedora (both the project and the distribution). This way you're a constant resource to your local user base, which will make new users more welcome to the project/distribution. When in doubt however, ask others in the community for support or advice.
• Keep Up with Current Issues - Fedora Ambassadors should keep up with Current Issues by tracking and reading various news resources such as Fedora News Project , Red Hat Magazine and even Planet Fedora.

If you are unsure of messaging, Fedora Talking Points is always a good source

Need Event Support ?

If you need support for an event, make sure that this event is listed at our Events page, before the deadline passes for the period where the event is in. Support can be provided in financial(funding), advice/help or marketing (give-away) terms. If you miss the deadline for the budget, it would become more complicated, if not impossible, to get financial or other support. This is due to the fact, that other event owners ,would have to try and provide you with some of their funding or resources.

Any questions? Ask FAmSCo