[clug] The harsh realities of CLUG

[jhock]

On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 21:31 +1000, Paul Wayper wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I happened to meet a couple of people who are experienced Linux users but
> aren't regular CLUG attendees and are not on the CLUG list.  I asked them what
> their opinions of the CLUG were, and (paraphrasing and coming through the
> imperfect filter of my memory) they basically said that their experience of
> the CLUG was of an intimidating bunch of know-it-alls with a whole motherboard
> of chips on their shoulder and an intolerance to anyone who broke the
> unwritten and arbitrary rules of the list.
> 

I have found that any questions that I ask on this list are answered
without intolerance and intimidation. I sometimes feel that the topics
are well over my head but I like the list very much.

> Now, I like email lists as a way to have conversations and keep a group
> together.  I like pressing one button in Thunderbird and getting all the
> conversations, rather than having to click around on web forums.  And
> generally I think that the list is reasonably tolerant of new people and
> questions, it doesn't get too heated too often, and we get a good range of
> people and opinions on it.  I haven't seen the offence that drove one of them
> off the list so I suspect it was from before my time in Canberra, and I
> explained the other as a misunderstanding about personal convictions.
> 

I prefer email lists. I usually read the initial email of a thread and
if I don't have interest in it or know what the topic is about (this is
the usual ;--) ) then I just  delete all emails about that thread.

Other forms of web discussions require me to read more than I want to.
So lists are best in my opinion.

> But I think we can probably open our horizons a little to add some other forms
> of modern internet social interaction.  I don't have a Facebook account, which
> shows my opinion of it, but I'm open to someone starting a Facebook group for
> the CLUG.  I'm also open to setting up a web forum on clug.anu.edu.au (which
> we had somewhere, where's it gone...), although I don't have time to admin
> that as well.  LinkedIn groups, twitter, rss feeds, etc. - there's plenty of
> things there we can explore.
> 

The facebook and NZ wiki were mentioned in another email. May I suggest
that if these are considered very useful by the list then the links to
these be added at the bottom of the emails along with the links for the
list?  That way, people who don't know about them are reminded that they
exist.

> One problem (as I comment above) is that I don't have time to do all that.
> Judging from the resonant silence when I ask for volunteers to help with the
> meetings - not do all the work, just help - I get the feeling that there are a
> lot of people even on the list or who come to meetings who are expecting
> everyone else to do the work for them.  The best thing I can do about that is
> to try to inspire people to help, but I'm no longer sure I'm doing this.  Tell
> me what I'm doing wrong and I'll fix it if I can.
> 

I don't have time to help. I only come to the meetings where I think I
would know or learn something about the topic. For example, I was very
interested in listening to someone talk about how to create an e-book. I
don't think that has happened yet but I would try to go to that meeting.
In most cases the meetings clash with family duties.

I try to avoid the pizza and drinks for health reasons.

> The other problem I see is that at the moment the CLUG website is a very fixed
> format based on very fixed ideas of how what should be there.  It makes it
> very difficult to add anything that looks like we're vaguely up to date.  My
> plan here is to try to get all the people who have control over
> clug.anu.edu.au and clug.org.au (which includes me, somewhere) together in a
> room to hack together a way several people can update the site without too
> much pain.  Then we can get some progress on keeping the site up to date.
> 

I have never been to the CLUG web site. I didn't know it existed. I'm
happy with the list.

> Any other thoughts on ways we can improve the CLUG group and make it more
> accessible to people are welcome!
> 

Summaries were mentioned in another email. I try to provide summaries
but I wasn't sure if that was expected. In most occasions I don't get a
chance to try all the great suggestions so I feel that I'm not qualified
to make a summary. I usually try the easiest option and if that works
send out a thanks on the list explaining that it worked.  I hope that
this is sufficient.

Thanks.


John

> Have fun,
> 
> Paul