[Klug-general] LUG thoughts musings & ideas

[David Halliday]

First of all don't take any comments here as being "flame bate" or
attempting to start a war, I'm into piece, love and good happiness
stuff… I don't want to end up like the last person who asked all the
people he could "can't we all just get along" (being nailed to a
couple of pieces of wood). This is just thinking out loud.

I'm aware that many of these ideas are in the pipeline and a new
website is being talked about so I may be repeating things that have
already been covered.

I'm not sure about others but the big drive for me of the LUG
involvement is the social interaction side. Many questions and
problems can now be solved by sites like www.linuxquestions.org and
installation is getting easier (I'm by no means saying we shouldn't
aim to help people with installation etc…) but I think that this is
what other people are interested in. Finding likeminded people and
sharing ideas and also the aspect of "networking" with people who have
experience in the IT industry which is useful for the younger ones of
us.

I just signed up to the Thanet lug site and have a few ideas/comments
(for both LUGs) I have to say it seems strange to me that the account
has to be OK'd first. While I appreciate a potential need to stop
idiots from posting and causing problems is it not better (at least to
start with) to allow people who want to, to get going faster… What
does the Kent LUG site do for this?

Also for both sites, is it worth showing a map of the perceived
"catchment area" along with links to transport websites to
document/aide people in finding their ways to locations for meetings.
Something on the front page to let people know where you are like
here:
http://www.tourism.thanet.gov.uk/pages/maps_travel.aspx

I feel in general for LUG matters the social aspect is something that
should be encouraged and made as accessible as possible. From a number
of angles:
1: The dates, times and places should be clearly listed in the home
page of the lug site (like we have for the monthly meetings on Kent
LUG).
2: Taking that idea further… Perhaps a nice clear calendar of some
kind. Is it possible to set up a KLUG calendar to coincide with the
Google calendar or some other calendar that people may use that can be
synchronised with?
What calendars do people use? I use the outlook calendar (tied into my
works exchange server and my PDA) and occasionally Google calendar.
Both have some scope for shared/community calendars to be mixed in.
Are there any OSS calenders that can be shred online?
3: I think that social locations should be as well documented as
possible, like the directions I have for the Rochester location (sadly
a couple of people got lost on Saturday). here are my directions (if
you have any ideas of changes let me know):
http://david-halliday.co.uk/downloads/RIC-gainsburagh-directions.pdf
Once the company site goes live I will also post details for the
"Gainsborough conference centre".
4: Perhaps if we are still using it there should be a link to any IRC
channels along with links to software that is both easy to install and
use, plus guides. I feel that a key part of any community is to help
new people get started, get involved and feel welcome quickly and
easily.

I hope this makes sense to the people responsible for the various
different aspects and isn't treading on any toes.

Both the presentations were good on Saturday and some nice
demonstrations. Sadly we were unable to video them due to technical
difficulties (lack of batteries, chargers and adapters for the
cameras). But like the organization of the presentations and the
technical problem of the projector not being plugged in properly this
is all "work in progress" with some "teething issues".