Meeting-20151114

WPLUG will have a General User Meeting and presentation on Saturday, November 14, 2015 starting at 3:00pm at HackPittsburgh. Elections for the Board of Directors will be held.

Schedule for the Day

3:00pm - Doors open, set up
3:15pm - Business Meeting starts, election
3:30pm - Featured presentation
5:00pm - Meeting ends, everyone out.

Election

At this meeting, we will elect the WPLUG Board of Directors for 2015-2016.

Votes may be cast by mail or in person at the meeting. Your vote must be received before the polls close to be counted, so show up by 3:00pm to be sure you get to cast yours.

The ballot for this election has been e-mailed to the membership and is available as a PDF on the wiki. Blank ballots will also be available at the meeting. Detailed instructions for voting are given at Election Instructions.

Those who were nominated at the October 24, 2015 nominations meeting and have agreed to be candidates are (in alphabetical order):

• Patrick Barron
• Terry Golightly
• Vance Kochenderfer
• John Lewis
• Joseph Prostko
• Justin Smith

Candidate Statements

Patrick Barron

In my view, WPLUG's primary focus in the upcoming year must be to re-engage with the local tech community. To do that, we must offer programming and experiences that people want, in an environment that people want to be part of. I believe the most important problem we need to solve is the problem of convincing potential presenters that WPLUG is a good venue for them to communicate their content. While we've taken on some of these issues before, I think the last couple of years of organizational knowledge, and reflection on the results of previous efforts, put us in a better position to take effective action now than we have been previously.

If elected, this would be my fourth consecutive term on the Board. While I acknowledge that I have not had as much time in the last year to devote to WPLUG as I've had in prior terms, I've been happy to be able to help serve the interests of the FOSS community, and look forward to continuing that service for another term, in whatever ways the organization finds most valuable.

Terry Golightly

To be added.

Vance Kochenderfer

My focus for 2015-2016 is the presentations at WPLUG meetings. By recruiting speakers well in advance, and focusing on quality, we can have a program to promote and build the organization. We have seen a continuing drop in attendance, and I believe that having pre-announced talks on cool topics by great speakers is the way to reverse this. I base this on past experience; for example, between December 2004 and June 2005, we had talks on the following subjects: DocBook, Kernel Configuration, User-Mode Linux, RPMs, SysAdmin Basics, Managing an Open Source Project, Linux in Mission-Critical Applications, Subversion, MythTV, and Regular Expressions. Attendance was much stronger then, and we can get there again. I will put my energy into reaching out to potential speakers using my network and others I know through the Ohio LinuxFest and WPLUG's past.

John Lewis

I have improved WPLUG dramatically since I started my term as Vice Chair. I sponsored WPLUG's move to HackPGH and lobbied HackPGH at every Members meeting to make sure that our club doesn't get ignored. I booked the speakers. I got WPLUG acknowledged at Pittsburgh Code and Supply. I refocused the Linux Users Group on the thing that attracts people to it, which is aiding people in the use of GNU/Linux. Doing my next term we are going to make sure we can take membership payments on line using USD and BTC, and get a VoIP system up and running with the stretch goal of finally incorporating. Vote for me because I revitalized the organization.

Joseph Prostko

I have been a WPLUG member for quite a few years, and a Linux user and open source developer for many more years. This year I am running again for the WPLUG board of directors, which I have served on since 2011. If elected I will probably want to try serving a role on the board that I haven't already served previously, just to round out my experience.

As mentioned in a couple of other candidate statements, I agree that offering quality programming is crucial to continued interest and growth of WPLUG. I think this may mean that WPLUG would then have less meetings over the course of the year, but as long as there's quality content offered each time there is a general meeting, I think it will be well worth it. I also think pursuing joint events with groups like Pittsburgh Code & Supply would be worth exploring as well, as it could be good for both groups.

I'd like to continue to see WPLUG grow as an organization with respect to meeting attendance and membership, and would like to do my best to help with that effort if elected to serve on the board.

For more about me, please check out my User page, located here: User:Jprostko

Justin Smith

I'm running because I want to make WPLUG a more welcoming organization. There are some in the Linux community who feel it's acceptable to express the same sort of condescending arrogance that popular figures such as Linus Torvalds espouse. It isn't. That attitude has damaged our reputation to such a degree that many of our long-term members/attendees now want little to do with us.

While I think we can all appreciate some good-natured teasing, such as the Vim vs Emacs holy wars, we need people on the board who can invite participation from users of all walks of life, and I have a record of doing just that.

The year before last, I was chairman of the board. I helped arrange for several meetings that were particularly successful, such as a talk about Blender at Pittsburgh Filmmakers that was widely attended - not just by WPLUG regulars, but by people who hadn't had prior exposure to open source software.

I hope to be a positive influence by arranging for similar such events and encouraging WPLUG's participation in open source projects. I will work against any individuals who attempt to tear down our community.

Speaker/Presentation

Speaker: Vance Kochenderfer

Topic: MediaWiki Use and Administration

MediaWiki is the software which powers Wikipedia and many other wikis (such as the one you're viewing right now!). Vance will give an overview of how to use MediaWiki and some background if you want to install and maintain your own wiki.

Slide presentation

Meeting Minutes

The regular meeting of the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group was held on Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 3:15 PM at HackPittsburgh, the regular presiding officer and secretary being present. The minutes of the October 24, 2015 meeting were approved as read.

The Chair reported that he has been in contact with individuals working on Arch Linux on the ARM architecture about speaking at a future meeting.

The Vice-Chair reported that he is still working on Asterisk and Django, and that he has a media server that may potentially be useful for recording and/or livestreaming meetings. He stated he is planning to speak with Pittsburgh Code and Supply about listing WPLUG meetings among their events.

The Secretary reported that WPLUG currently has 19 members.

The Treasurer reported that there is $446.47 in the checking account, with $60.00 in dues recently deposited and $12.50 recently paid to Linode for hosting expenses. He stated that the refreshment fund currently has a $0.00 balance as it was used to purchase food for the August picnic.

The Event Committee reported that Robert Blackwell and Roland Hess have been contacted about speaking at future meetings; both will not be available until at least January. John Lewis stated that he can ask individuals at PittMesh to speak.

The election for the Board of Directors was put before the membership. Stanley Slomberg and Gene Kern were appointed as election tellers, and the polls were opened. Once all members had the opportunity to cast their votes, the Chair declared the polls closed.

The meeting then recessed to allow the election tellers the opportunity to count the ballots. The Chair called the meeting back to order at 3:48 PM and the tellers delivered their report.

TODO: insert tellers' report here

Accordingly, the Chair declared Pat Barron, Terry Golightly, Vance Kochenderfer, Joseph Prostko, and Justin Smith elected.

The meeting adjourned at 3:52 PM.

Meeting Staff

If you would like to volunteer to assist with this meeting, please add your name to one or more of the categories below.

• Host: Your name here
• Co-Host: Your name here
• Setup: Your name here
• Clean Up: Vance Kochenderfer, Your name here

Carpooling

• Your name/location here