Re: [native-lang] Opening of an Eurasian Languages Native-Lang Group

Hi Aiet, all

Aiet Kolkhi wrote:

[...]

> Sophie,
> you have addressed a very important issue. There really is a
> communiation problem between NL projects and central NLC. I think this
> was one of the reasons Charles supported the creation of NL Groups.

Yes, this issue exist almost till the beginning of the NLC and Charles
is battling for a long time now against us ;)

> 
> As the oldest NL lead, could you describe how you have handled the
> communication issues within your community? As the scope of your NL
> spreads over many countries around the globe, it is very interesting
> how you have managed to keep one of the best coordinated, communicated
> and publicised NL project.

Thanks a lot for your compliment :)
As you may know France is very well represented in FR community, and
sometime they forget that they are not in a French project ;) Taking
care of each of the country represented by the francophone community is
my leitmotiv and I recall them any time I can that we are representing
several countries, not one.
I know that some of them are very shy and found it difficult to
integrate the group, so I try to highlight what they are doing (not only
for the project but their local LUG for example), to bring on interest
from the community members. Once the dialog is established, most of the
communication issue is resolved. I try also to make them participate to
the sub projects we put in place (doc or QA for example) because working
together and sharing the difficulties, progress and results consolidate
a group. Those sub projects are very important to cement the community.

We are not equal in front of the technology too, this is why there is no
IRC chat for the FR project for example, some countries won't be able to
participate and may feel excluded, so giving people the same access to
information and communication is very important too.

Our list are very focused on their topics, no discussions are allowed on
the users list for example, only support is permitted. At the beginning
of each month, I send a reminder on the users lists explaining how to
ask questions and how to answer and on which list to post depending the
topic. As those rules are quite strict, I have open a list which is
called 'OOo New Bar' (out of OOo), this is a kind of café where people
speak about very different topics, it could be open source, or the
region there live in, or wine, or computers or politic, there is no web
archive of this list :)
This list has been put on the second time the OOo mailing list were
down. Lot of members felt "alone" without the noise that make usually
the fr mailing lists during the day ;)
The FR community is originally based on a group of people (about 20
person) who were on the same SO mailing list about 8 years ago now. We
are used to work together, we know (virtually) quite well each other.
This group has bring a very convivial ambiance to the community and I
think that new comers can feel it (every body, who you may be, says 'tu'
to each other, the familiar form of 'you' in English and even if the new
comers are surprised, they accept it and like it because they feel more
inside and equal very early).

My difficulty actually is to bring them out of the francophone project
and make them join the whole community. They are aware of what is
happening in the OOo core projects because I try to do a lot of
communication, and I would like to inform them more about the NLC
projects :)

Kind regards
Sophie




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