[lug] Re:Tossing out ideas...

[Wayde Allen]

OK, I've accumulated all of the ideas recently posted about the KISS
suggestion, and thought I'd offer a few comments.

   On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Hugh Brown wrote:

   > Make a KISS session that is 1/2 hour demo and 1/2 hour instruction or QA, 
   > then leave the regular meeting format alone. 


   On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Gary W Holbrook wrote:

   > ------------------------------------------
   > Hugh said -
   > Sounds like a good idea.  So we'd be having a monthly newbie meeting
   > and a monthly guru meeting?
   > ------------------------------------------
   > 
   > Instead of two meetings, why not just run the "newbie" meeting the hour
   > before the "guru" meeting?  That way, if any "newbie"s are
   > interested, they may stay over...
   > And there is still only one meeting per month.

   On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Kyle Moore wrote:

   > I would suggest doing this after the meeting or making sure it breaks
   > off when the regular meeting is supposed to start. I have gone to a few
   > CLUE meetings and every time the KISS runs long. It is bad enough that   
   > the regular meetings don't normally start on time because of some
   > logistical problem....I would hate to see a newbie meeting make the
   > regular meeting start 1/2 hour later.

I personally keep busy enough keeping the one BLUG meeting running each
month.  I simply can't volunteer any more of my time to coordinate two
meetings each month.  So for me more than one meeting is simply not really
an option.  That means that somehow we'd have to roll a KISS session into
the existing meeting.

As far as the 1/2 hour demo and 1/2 hour instruction an QA idea goes, that
would mean the meetings would be extended by at least another hour.  I
already get complaints about our meetings being too long. So ... that
brings us to having the meeting before the existing one.  That could work,
but we already have an informal meeting at the Dark Horse before the
regular meeting.  Several people have been known to show up with their
questions at this time.  Having a pre-meeting meeting would mean that the
Dark Horse get-to-gether would probably need to be canceled.  (However, I
will still be interested in getting something to eat before the meeting.) 

One thing I have tried in the past was a 10 minute demo of some simple
software package or feature at the start of the meetings.  This works, but
as Kyle points out seldom can be kept to 10 minutes, if for no other
reason than you really don't want to stop people from asking questions.
We quit doing this primarily because of complaints of long meetings, and a
general lack of people willing to give the 10 minute presentations.  If we
want to try doing this again I'd suggest that we do it at the beginning of
the question and answer period after the main speaker.  That way people
could leave if they wanted to.

   On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Glenn Ashton wrote:

   > I like the idea of a "lab" session where people can work in small
   > groups to fix problems that they have.
   >
   > This would allow hands on learning while also fostering a sense of
   > friendship and community.
   >
   > The big challenge to this is a physical setup issue.
   >
   > I think two or three folks would sign up to bring in their boxes and
   > folks could gather to discuss the problems and solutions as well as
   > the troubleshooting rationale for fixing certain kinds of problems.
   >
   > "Show someone Linux and they'll Linux for a day- Teach someone to
   > 'Linux' and they'll do it for a lifetime.


I agree with this wholeheartedly.  In fact, this was my original vision
for the BLUG.  I thought we'd get a group of people together with
computers and kind of have a lab like environment where people would show
each other how to do things.

In practice we've never had this work.  The BLUG has always left it open
for people to bring in machines to get help configuring things, or simply
to show off something they think is really cool.  In fact, at one time we
had a committee of people who would coordinate installation and help
activities.  We went so far as to consider setting up a separate room at
the meetings just for this activity.  In practice, it is a hassle to bring
in a desktop machine, and very few people do it.  We still offer the
service, but the committee to support it doesn't really exist.  If anyone
wants to bring in a machine just let us now in advance if you need any
special help.

The other problem is that if one or two people want to show off their
machine in a room of 50 people this quickly becomes a "presentation" (48
people watching and 1 or 2 people running the machine).


   On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Doug Dew wrote:

   > BJUG has had good success with a dual ("newbies" and "regular") 
   > meeting format. The newbies meeting occurs immediately before the
   > regular meeting.  The agendas of the two meetings are coordinated, so
   > that the presentations of the regular meeting tend to build upon the
   > presentations of the newbies meeting.  
   >  
   > The newbies meetings are well attended, and many of the people
   > attending the newbies meeting stay for the regular meeting.  
   >
   > The newbies meeting also recieves regular support in the form of food
   > (pizza, cokes, etc.) from a local recruiting agency.

I certainly can't argue with success.  What BLUG needs to figure out is
whether or not we want to do this and if so how?

As far as food goes, we really can't do that at NIST.  At least not
without paying janitorial fees.  In other words, this would cost me money.
 

   On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Steven wrote:

   > I agree...as a new/infrequent user, I find the meetings very
   > interesting although not always germane to my immediate needs. My
   > personal observation is that (within the linux community) there is a
   > focus on installation  and it takes a big leap(of expertise) from
   > there. Not to slight the resources that be, such as books, websites
   > and all the archived questions/answers they provide, I think that
   > perhaps more focus could be given to the new user who
   > has installed successfully and now needs help administering/trouble
   > shooting the machine.(Will this not be an even greater area of need
   > if linux really does take off as the operating sys. for the masses?)

I find this comment a bit curious.  For the most part I don't believe that
BLUG has concentrated on installation, but rather issues of system
administration and application.  BLUG has only hosted one install fest
since it was formed back in 1995.  Our presentations have dealt with: 
Configuration of Dialup Networking (PPP), Network Security, Firewalling,
Web Page Generation, SPAM control, Samba configuration, etc..  The
difficulty I see on my end is finding someone knowledgeable who is willing
to talk about many of these issues.  If there is something specific you
want to see a presentation on, let us know so we can find a speaker.  Even
better yet, give us the name of the speaker or talk to them yourself.  We
just need to coordinate dates so we don't have two people ready to talk on
the same night.

Finally, one other thing that I think was kind of useful was a series of
articles I posted to the mailing list some time ago.  These were simple
one screen sized messages based on the idea of introducing a very few
commands or ideas about Unix each week.  The first of these posts can be
read at http://archive.lug.boulder.co.us/bymonth/1998.12/msg00129.html.
You can see the entire installation by visiting our web site at
http://lug.boulder.co.us/, clicking on the "Mailing List Archives" link
and doing a search on "Intro to Unix".  I got quite a few good comments on
this series and each post spawned some rather interesting discussions.
These only stopped since I haven't had a chance to create any new ones.
We could continue the idea if a few people would be interested in picking
up the ball.  

So, with all this in mind.  Where do we go from here?

- Wayde
  (wallen at boulder.nist.gov)