[clug] The harsh realities of CLUG

Troy Heland troyjh at gmail.com
Tue May 18 21:43:58 MDT 2010


Are we talking about how to get more people to attend CLUG meetings? Or
their overall relevance?

Are we talking about the CLUG Mailing list or its relevance?

Are we talking about increasing the 'Linux' profile in Canberra?

All of the above?

I came from Ballarat on January so I have no idea what CLUG has done
historically.  I was involved in starting up Ballarat Linux Users Group
(BLUG).  At our very first meeting we prefaced it with an Installfest
(Attended and backed by LA and LUV).  It was reasonably well attended (By
Ballarat standards) and it interested enough people to stay and attend our
formation meeting.  BLUG has gone on to become rather successful.  If CLUG
wants to inject some life into its meetings or user base and wants to
distance itself from this image that its too technical or that members have
chips on their shoulders then I would suggest holding an InstallFest or
something similar, make it an event, have guest speakers talk about products
that the average Joe can use and make sure everyone who attends is given
information about CLUG, its meetings and even this mailing list.

Ballarat was incredibly lucky to have the full support of the Uni of
Ballarat and full (Sort of) access to its facilities.  An InstallFest is a
lot of work (As I am sure a lot of you know) but if its done right (And
advertised to the right groups.... ANU IT School would be a good start) it
could really raise awareness of CLUG and breakdown some barriers regarding
the group being too technical for the average punter.


Just my two cents.


NB. I haven't yet been to a CLUG meeting but I will get there....

Troy.


On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 12:18 PM, jhock <jhock at iinet.net.au> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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