ubuntu-us-wisconsin team mailing list archive

[Simon Quigley <tsimonq2@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning,

On 05/01/16 09:19, Ian Weisser wrote:

<snip />

> The same symptoms --lack of activity or interest, quiet mailing list,
> no meeting attendance, no events-- have been discussed many times since
> 2008.
> 
> There has been little interest in analyzing the issues, nor developing
> a consensus on the causes. I proposed this problem statement ('three
> big challenges') based on experience with other groups over the past 20
> years. Maybe some agree, maybe some don't. For those who disagree,
> propose your own problem statement, and let's cherry-pick the best
> elements from all of them.
> 
> Without a consensus on the nature of the problem, discussions about
> possible solutions usually sidetrack into ideas for specific projects
> (logos, platforms, Ubuntu Hours) merely because that's what those
> participants are interested in at the time. Since the proposed
> solutions don't solve a problem, the problem remains and the solution
> fades.

Well we have people now, we obviously have people, albeit not a lot, but
we still have people here that can probably help with that.


> Seems like a subject for a different thread.
> Sure hope something comes of it.
> Come on Madison, get together and meet each other! Do that first step!

I agree, come on guys! Start a thread and schedule a meetup! Take the
jump! :)

> The wiki page to gather location data is a helpful step to indentify
> concentrations. Clever!

I think this was a good idea except for the fact that some people may
not want their location in a public database. I'm fine with it, but
others may not be. So we can only gauge so much. LoCo members, do any of
you think this is a *bad* idea or do we all agree that this is beneficial?


> Most departures are quiet expirations, unannounced.
> 
> Four years ago, there were about 25-or-so members of the LoCo Launchpad
> group. Today the numbers are similar, but over 75% of the names are
> different. And these were people who were interested enough to register
> for a Launchpad account!

I see, gotcha.

> Huh? I just proposed a whole list of goals yesterday.
> Here they are again:

Whoops, I'm sorry. ;)

> 1) Help enthusiasts find upstream projects to help

Are you saying to help members contribute to projects such as Debian and
further upstream? This is what you are implying?

If so, I think this has it's pros and cons, and here's what I think:

PROS:

 1. More upstream contributors means better upstream, always good
 2. Members can learn a lot of skills doing this

CONS:

 1. Fragmentation, it's not all on one place. To solve this, I'd suggest
maybe doing a collaborative effort, being part of a team and all
contributing to one project that the same time. While it may not be 100%
practical, it's a start.

(side note, check out the Month of LibreOffice[1] going on for the month
of May, I'll be participating)

> 2) Teach enthusiasts how to contribute to Ubuntu (testing, bug triage,
> documentation)

I think this is one of the goals the LoCo council set up for us. Because
I've heard about teams like the Ubuntu Beginners Team and the Ubuntu
Youth team that no longer have a place because we have LoCos. I would
really love to participate in helping people get their Ubuntu
membership, so I've been writing a blog series[2] to help people, but I
think this is really good to do as a whole LoCo. This should be
something we discuss.

> 3) Coordinate and support the Ubuntu-related events of local LUGs
> and/or upstream projects.

We have people from Minnesota here, and I strongly believe coordination
with the LoCos in the midwest would help us and them a lot. While I
think you are implying coordination with the local LUGs, which I am all
for as well, we should really collaborate with other LoCos.

I don't know what you mean by upstream projects in this case, could you
elaborate a bit more on this?

> 4) Assist local Ubuntu users with support and installation help

I've installed most of the Ubuntu flavors and Ubuntu many times, so I
would be glad to assist with that, but I'm not good with end-user
support most of the time. This is something to discuss for sure.

> 5) Conduct Ubuntu-themed events so fellow enthusiasts can meet and have
> a good time

I like this idea. While it's too late to have a party for 16.04, one for
16.10 definitely isn't out of the question.

> 6) Spread word of Ubuntu to people and organizations; grow new users. 

I agree, but this shouldn't be our first priority when we are at this
stage. :)

Let me know what you think!

[1]
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/04/28/coming-up-the-month-of-libreoffice/
[2] http://tsimonq2.net/blog/2016/04/06/


-- 
Simon Quigley
tsimonq2@xxxxxxxxxx
tsimonq2 on Freenode