ubuntu-us-wisconsin team mailing list archive

[Simon Quigley <tsimonq2@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Good evening,

Mike Putnam wrote:
> I've drifted away due to a personal disinterest in evangelizing Ubuntu
> or trying to create converts.

To an extent, I agree. It gets repetitive after a while. But I think
that if some members want to do some things and others do, well, other
things, this will help, so not everybody has to evangelize. We just need
to find members to do that.

> I'd like to "talk shop" with other Ubuntu users who already have an
> interest. Maybe learn how others are directly participating in open
> source (so that I may join them). Or demonstrate ways I've found success
> with Ubuntu.

I do too. :)

> Further, I think that an in-person gathering or communal project would
> need to come *AFTER* a stable, somewhat closely-knit, group of people
> exist who communicate regularly - "a community". In our situation that
> community would need to be online due to geography.

I agree, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.

> P.S. I find it heartening that this conversation thread even exists, as
> it demonstrates that there is already some amount of online community
> somehow interested in Ubuntu, in Wisconsin(ish). Let's figure out how to
> keep it alive by staying in contact online and via email.

I do too, let's keep up the trend. ;)

Sam Klein wrote:
> Many people may say -- go do this, etc. and then when you're there,
> people will respond. But honestly, I think it's best if the team did
> what it was most comfortable with and something that they can engage as
> much to or as little as they want/need.

I agree.

> I think one approach is to use a decentralized blogging community to
> keep people engaged -- like Planet Ubuntu [2]. This way -- we can stay
> in our own counties -- never needing to head off to some arbitrary town
> every month.

Well we shouldn't have frequent meetings that requires long drives.
Maybe a release party every 6 months. :)

And, we have a planet for this LoCo[1] hosted by my friend Thomas
Ward[2]. If you want to be added/removed from that, let me know. You can
also submit a pull request[3] or if you don't want to do that, send me
patch mail.

> If few of our members have websites, we can use Dreamwidth, a
> decentralized journaling web application that you can register with
> using either Dreamwidth or an OpenID account. Members can subscribe to a
> "community" account and post to it. I could set it up.

Set it up, let's try it out and see how it works. :)

> For physical meetings, I propose a yearly meeting instead or bi-yearly
> if the first meeting is fun enough. That way we get pictures of all
> Ubuntu users, have some drinks (or not), play some FreeCiv or RedEclipse
> on our Ubuntu/Debian machines, and then maybe do some minor official
> things -- like talk about resources or future plans for the group.

I really like this idea, I'll start a separate thread tomorrow after I
get our mailing list situation sorted, it could be a release party or an
informal get-together. Let me know in that thread tomorrow. :)

[1] http://planet.ubuntu-wisconsin.org/
[2] https://launchpad.net/~teward
[3] https://github.com/ubuntuwisconsin/planet.ubuntu-wisconsin.org


Josh Hertel wrote:
> Others have pretty much covered what I think. In 2006/2007 I had a lot
> of interest in trying to spread the word about Ubuntu, but then life got
> in the way of things. I'm not as interested in converting folks
> nowadays, but I'm happy to talk shop when I meet a fellow user. I also
> enjoy reading posts from this community, info from the local LUG, and
> helping (a little) with Full Circle Magazine.

I agree, and I think this is generally a shared interest. But there is
probably *someone* who wants to evangelize. Speak up! ;)

> During the school year, life is pretty hectic for me (as others have
> noted on another thread) so I'm pretty much in read mode with emails
> (responding only when necessary).

>From what I've heard, high school will be a lot more hectic than 8th
grade(what I'm in now). If this is the case, I still have summer,
weekends, and winter/spring break. :)

> Regarding a physical meeting, I don't think I'd really be drawn to an
> install fest. However, if there were some community-focused project that
> a member needed help with (e.g., installing computers in a community
> center, updating machines in an existing place), that would probably
> draw me in.

Would you be drawn to the sort of meetup Sam described earlier?

> Like Mike, I also appreciate the conversation and the energy.

I do too, let's keep it up. :)

Thank you all for your feedback and have a nice evening!

-- 
Simon Quigley
tsimonq2@xxxxxxxxxx
tsimonq2 on Freenode