Welcome, WPLUG members, to the "meet the candidates" forum for the 2012 Board of Directors election. Note that this discussion is being logged and a transcript will be publicly posted on the WPLUG wiki. I, happylemur, am Vance Kochenderfer, and will be your host for this evening's event. The format is an open question-and-answer forum. You may direct your question toward a specific candidate or to all of them. As background, see for statements from the candidates. By my count, we have three of the five candidates here to participate: Oflameo is John Lewis jprostko is Joseph Prostko Centinel is Justin Smith Pat Barron (patbarron) and Terry Golightly (kubuntu_terryg) may join us later. To kick things off, I'll ask the first question. To all candidates, what are the areas where you think WPLUG needs to improve? I think the biggest thing that needs to be improved is increasing the membership counts. We need to find out what needs to be done to entice people to become members of the group and be active in the community. I think WPLUG needs to improve on its education effort. I think that there are quite a few places where the group needs to change. When I started thinking about how I'd fix the group, I realized that it may be better to transition the group to something a bit different rather than fix the existing structure. I'll be the first to admit that I have a bit of an outsider's perspective with this. Not just as a newer member, but also as someone who is, admittedly, a bit less technical than the rest of you. So I've designed a three-point plan called WAG that improves upon the concept of a LUG. It's designed to broaden the appeal...from an outsider's perspective, to a certain extent. (I'm done) Thanks, anyone else want to expand on this? I just wanted to say that I look forward to seeing Centinel's WAG plan, as it has me intrigued. :) Justin, I was wondering about your choice of Google+ over over source diaspora? I don't understand WAG but we can start building links from our wiki to the best FOSS resources on the Word Wide Web. It's based on experience more than anything, to be honest. I see a lot of positives for Google Plus even though it's not open source. * jprostko is reading up about WAG now It has an ideal audience for us and a variety of tools that expand on our ability to reach new people. WAG is definitely a fresh look at things. I can definitely see you put some thought into it. Justin, I see what you mean about Google+, I started typing your name. I got only three letters out before you were the top choice. That's amazing. I see a lot of positives for Google plus as well but remember that RMS fought for decades to stop the dependence on proprietary software. Well, if you want to grow a group, you need a certain amount of mainstream appeal. This is not the same as compromising your principles. You can have mainstream appeal while still being a niche group. Google+ comes bundled with Android now. It's something that a lot of Android people are familiar with. And if they're not, well, just about everybody has a Google account. GMail is popular. So is Google Docs. Part of the reason I think everyday people get...scared...about Linux is that everything seems so unfamiliar. And that applies to open source in general as well. If we can give them a certain degree of familiarity, they may be more likely to seriously consider what we've got. I'll give you an example of something that puts that into practice. I imagine some of you have been to LAN parties, right? Well, Steam for Linux is going to come out very soon. You've also got the Ouya console allegedly being released. Sure The problem is that we current fail to appeal to our niche, that is why the membership is so low. I see many people using Linux on a personal basis. I made many of them. What if we had a themed LAN event that emphasized Linux gaming? Iron Storm: Linux edition or something, I don't know. Yeah, that would be cool. Then it would appeal to gamers in general, and maybe get them interested in checking out Linux in general. Why game on a LAN when we can game on a WAN? We tap into an existing market by dangling the carrot in front of them. We need to do more of that with a lot of markets. Are there any audience members out there who want to pose a specific question? Please, go ahead. Instead of chasing after the gaming market, why not capitalize on the developer market? They already have an interest in us. * markd2 raises his hand markd2: Fire away. I've only been to one or two wplug events in the last couple of years - and one turn off has been some disruptive members who seem to be having a good time, but kind of lower the quality of the meeting for everybody I don't know if improving the quality of membership is something appropriate for this discussion or not. but that's been my pain point So you think there should be some sort of qualification for members, or if not, perhaps a set policy in place about behavior at meetings? the latter I'm on the investigating committe™, and we looked into one problem attendee who was pretty belligerent through the whole thing. it's a tough problem . The annoying folks are the ones with the biggest mouths that'll complain on mailing lists far and wide sometimes threatening lawsuits (anyone remember Mr_Verizone?) Lawsuits? This I have to hear... can't annoying foks be removed from mailing list? but the can also scare away first-timers. I wish I had an option Yep, I'm familar with that case, as I was on the committee for part of the time. Having a set code of conduct at meetings available (in print at events) would help out in this instance. We also talked about how to change the bylaws to help deal with these situations better. Something needs to be done one way or another though. Shavasana: I'm talking in-person jprostko++ I will say that there are a lot of misconceptions about the sort of people you're talking about, and that's unfortunate. They're the type of people who take the passion in what they believe so far that they can't see the good parts, where we're working together to achieve common goals even though our ideas may differ. *so far that other people can't see the good parts I co-hosted the GnuStep presentation. There were two folks (out of like 6 who came), who were carrying on a side-discussion about android tablets. from the front row. I concur with Centinel. has anyone been at wplug for a long time and can estimate the average number of assholes per year? just a couple, but they keep coming back. like boomerangs :-) What is the criteria for an asshole? basicaly loud, inappropriate talking and comments during a presentation. (and harder to define) general rudeness and belligerance by "asshole", I mean someone who significantly reduces the quality of the WPLUG experience for others. another was using installfest resources for (and encouraging) downloading and distribution of bootleg movies (that's the one that eventually threatened a lawsuit when he was asked never to return) Yes, we certainly don't want to be affiliated with condoning piracy. People like that just don't make any sense to me. If you download bootleg proprietary software, you're still supporting proprietary software. Why doesn't Adobe crack down on Photoshop downloads? Because they know that it keeps their product's market share artificially high. Or movies, or whatever. You know, I wish there was more money in open source. I really do. I was looking at jprostko's idea for having WPLUG members work with potential Linux users, and I think it's great. Part of open source is keeping computing available to the poor. But what if we offered some basic stuff for free but offered to do some of the more complicated stuff for a fee? It would give WPLUG members who are out of work something to do. Who other than me wanted to do complicated stuff? That's just me thinking out loud. I think of new ideas all the time. I certainly wouldn't mind doing it. I am all for complicated stuff. I want to update some of my man pages. I should figure out how to do it and post the link on the wiki. Does someone want to jump in with a new question? Just go ahead and ask. I'd like to get back to Diaspora. While Google+ and Facebook are necessary evils, I would suggest we are being hypocrites in not doing Diaspora also. I have a Diaspora account. I think I logged on once and that was about it. I do see your point though. I don't think Facebook is a necessary evil at all. Its privacy policy is horrid, it isn't doing anything to support open source, and the community is...shall we say, not the highest quality. Google+ is a good compromise. Google does support open source projects, even if Google+ itself isn't open source. That is another thing we completely agree on Centinel. Google+ is really nice with the Hangout capability, as well as the technically-minded userbase though, for sure. (LIke Centinel mentioned). I rarely use Diaspora myself. I can live with Google+ for now. I feel like we should pick one thing and focus on it because our resources at present aren't particularly vast. In the future, we could certainly expand, but I think Google+ is a good starting point. We still have a whole website to use as well. That's right. In fact, there seem to be a lot of basic points about certain things that we all agree on. I think it would be good if we articulated that on the WPLUG Web site. I went to a lot of different LUGs to see what their sites looked like, and many of them had short articles like that. can I ask a question? and that isn't it. Please, go ahead. bethlynn: Ask your question any time. we used to try to market the free software related events to the wplug community this is so that the mission is strengthened with little internal work and it serves the community better this past year, this was not done I would like to hear from the candidates regarding the promotion of non-wplug relevant events why or why not I feel that it was very unfortunate that it wasn't done. If we communicated with similar groups better we could have saved the Perl Workshop. We absolutely need to do this. It's like I was saying before about tapping into existing markets: if we can go to these events and make our presence known, then we benefit from the additional exposure. And I'm sure the events themselves are great fun, of course. did wplug do anything with Pittsburgh Tech Fest? We did co-host an Installfest with Hack Pittsburgh this year, but yes, I definitely think that cross-promotion could be done better and much more frequently. I also would to see if can use Hack Pittsburgh's venue more often, they have many potential cross over members. I go over there on Fridays nearly one a month now. That installfest with Hack Pittsburgh was the best one since I have been a member in my humble opinion. I unfortunately had to miss it, but I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it, and that you agree that partnering with them and other groups is a mutually-beneficial thing. If we ever did something like the Linux LAN party I mentioned earlier, we could probably bundle that with an installfest if we found some good (free) games. We should also talk to SNAPGH. They advertise on our mailing list. Hmm, the Central Pa. Open Source Conference was this past weekend. I wasn't aware of the date. happylemur: Yeah, I found out last second, and registration had closed some time ago, apparently. They canceled it last year, so I assumed it wasn't happening this one either. The Big Android BBQ wasn't so long ago, either. Maybe should develop a conference calendar. there may be opportunities to parner with the google pittsburgh office. meeting space, or swag, or folks to give presentations Not just Google, we should try to go after all of the local ISPs as well, even Comcast. All good ideas and suggestions, for sure. We may want to start talking to Computer Science teachers in the area. My introduction to Linux from her is how I found you. Without her I would have remained ignorant for at least another year. I have a question which ties into some of the previous themes. It's initially directed to Centinel because of his proposal regarding online services, but everyone can answer. One idea behind the WPLUG wiki was to be easy for people to edit and add items like the events we've been discussing. However, very few have actually taken advantage of this and a small number of people are responsible for most edits. How would your vision for online services encourage broad participation and contribution? Well, one of the great things about Linux and the open source community is that everyone is free to participate as he wishes. I feel like people may be more willing to participate if they felt like their work had more of an impact. Now let's say you write an article for the WPLUG wiki. Sure, it's great, but it's probably not going to be seen by too, too many people. But if we were directly connected with Google+, you might have more of a willing audience for things. Every post you'd made about WPLUG would be going to a technically-inclined audience. If you get a lot of +1s, your post will show up a lot of people's feeds as a popular post. To be honest, since G+ isn't as vast as Facebook or Twitter, it doesn't take all that much work to get a featured (popular) post. A Java applet for IRC would also make it easier to get into chat, even if you're on a public computer (or a friend's computer). That about covers my end of it, I guess. I could dump the links to some of my free and legal programming and software books I found as well as links to popular writers such as RMS and ESR for those of us who haven't been introduced to them yet. Thanks, Centinel. Anyone else? * loko- is now known as loko Other than what was said, maybe we should explicitly mention that we welcome open contribution to the Wiki. Even though it is a Wiki format, people may see it as us "owning" the site, and they may be afraid to add relevant content. So yeah, exploring other options like Centinel mentioned is definitely something to examine. OK, we're 1.5 hours into our one-hour session. :) Anybody have another question to pose? Just modified the wiki's front page :) Great, thanks! Where is the installfest on Saturday, December 8th, 2012? Found out today it's going to be at the Monroeville Public Library, from 12:30-5:00. I suppose that should get updated. :) * Shavasana has quit (Remote host closed the connection) The chicken/egg thing is hard to break (sorry) for wiki contributions. If it's not a destination, folks won't have much incentive to put in the work to write something (might as well blog it). If there's no content, it's not much of a destination Hey, before I forget - don't forget to vote in the elections next Tuesday! Remember to get out there and vote for the political candidates you believe in. The US elections, that is. It seems like the (WPLUG Board) candidate discussion has wound down, so I'll call this officially to a close. Too slow Joe, I just updated the wiki again. :-D Be sure you vote in the WPLUG election, too. You don't even have to show up in person. Thanks, everyone for participating.