LoCo Council Oneiric Review

Tue Nov 1 14:59:29 UTC 2011

During the Oneiric cycle the Ubuntu LoCo Council reviewed many teams
and dealt with team issues, this post is to explain what the council
has done during this cycle and to let people know how they can
approach us if needs be.
Firstly we had a large re approval of teams this cycle  this was
down to the re approval process that was introduced three cycles ago
and has proved to help teams keep up to date and let everyone know how
things are progressing. So for the Natty cycle we looked at the
following 26 LoCo Teams which were up for re approval having been
approved for 2 or more years:
The following teams were selected for the Oneiric cycle for re
approval:Thai Loco TeamUbuntu Venezuela TeamUbuntu DKUbuntu UKUbuntu
Team PhilippinesPennsylvania – US LoCo TeamUbuntu-MichiganUbuntu
Maryland LoCo TeamUbuntu Malaysia LoCo TeamUbuntu Japanese TeamUbuntu
IrelandUbuntu El Salvador TeamUbuntu Swiss TeamUbuntu PortugalUbuntu
Polish LoCo TeamUbuntu PerúUbuntu NorgeUbuntu Croatian AdvocatesThai
Loco TeamUbuntu Tamil TeamUbuntu IsraelArizona LoCo TeamUbuntu New
York StateUbuntu CaliforniaGeorgia LoCoUbuntu Brazilian UsersArgentina
LoCoUbuntu China LoCo Team

To simplify things we create a bug in launchpad for each team that is
due for renewal. The text from this wiki page
http://loco.ubuntucom/loco-council/approved s sent to their team
contact and we use the bug to keep track of progress throughout the
cycle. We ensure all communication is posted to the bug report, and
send reminders & comments via the bug. Finally we vote on the approval
and then make the bug public after the process is finished.
This process has worked out very well for teams who are not able to
take part in the IRC meeting but do want a more interactive review. We
also still have a monthly IRC meetings which gives teams the
flexibility to talk to us directly or use the bug tracker to manage
the approval process. We have found this makes our team more
accessible to LoCos around the world.

There was some initial reluctance to use the bug tracker to manage
approvals, but it was quickly accepted once we explained it's needed
for us as a council to be productive to keep things on track and not
let the ball drop on our action items. A by-product of this is it's a
great way for teams to communicate with the council and document
information when needed in the bugs.
We keep the bugs private initially so they don't end up being spammed
with inappropriate comments and we use them to remind one another to
vote or attend to items.  They have worked well now in the last cycle
and we will continue to use them again in the future as we do feel
they have served the council well and helped up keep up to date with
teams.
8 Expired          ( 30% Total )18 Processed     ( 69% Total )
Unapproved: 2   ( 11% Processed )Approved:   16  ( 88% Processed )
Total Unapproved: 10 ( 38% Total )Total Approved:   16 ( 61% Total )
26 LoCo Teams were processed
During this cycle we were called (by IRC or email) upon by some loco
team members to help in mediation or give advice to them to help their
team. We often invite them into our IRC channel which while it is
private as we can be dealing with people from teams in there at a
given time is open to anyone who wants to talk to us all you have to
do is ask to join to discuss something. We had to make it private as
we had people popping in during sensitive discussions and having this
channel has helped us help teams. It is also where many of us idle or
log sessions so we can review the conversation and give advice.
We can invite multiple people in here and help resolve issues or
bounce ideas and solutions off one another in a real time environment.
We follow this up by joining their IRC Channels in some cases, in
order to be there for them whenever needed idling so they can ask
questions but also so we could see for ourselves how things flow as
every team is so different.
We get weekly if not fortnightly requests for help with changing of
ownership of a team mailing list, ownership, website and domain issues
and lot regarding RT tickets, here we help where possible, logging the
issues for teams on launchpad, or asking for IS help in resolving the
issues.
We've also worked closely with the LoCo Directory Dev team and helped
reporting bugs to make the Loco Directory more user friendly.  We
idle on IRC in #ubuntu-locoteams and we even had our own factoid
created if people used it it pings the team but also tell the user how
to contact us.  !lococouncil lococouncil is The Loco Council is
itnet7, czajkowski, paultag, huats, leogg, popey - they are there to
help, just ask! :) You can send them an email at
 loco-council at lists.ubuntu.com
I am sure the Precise cycle will be just as interesting for the
council working with loco teams and look forward to hearing from the
ubuntu community.

Laura Czajkowski on behalf of the Ubuntu LoCo Council 
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