Re: Re: Is this LUG Still Active -- Confusion

On Sun, Jul 07, 2002 at 11:33:28PM -0500, Kendall Dugger wrote:
> I didn't want my inbox filled with emails about how to get a particular
> video card working with X, so I avoided the luni list because it was
> described as 'technical discussion'. Instead I joined the list described
> as 'general (non-technical) discussion'. I didn't see the description
> 'Off-Topic' associated with any of the lists.

There's a wrong-headed notion that a LUG list ought to be serious-minded and
prim and proper and I'm not sure what all.  In fact, the luni list is a
wonderful, lively mix of things, from the obnoxiously technical to the
occasionally daft - but we do have luni-d for stuff that's really out there,
such as sparkler bombs and, if only we could get them to come here,
political arguments.  It's both a social list and a technical one, and every
time I've seen a serious attempt to chase the "fluff" out of a forum that,
like luni, is in fact the primary meeting ground for many of the
participants, the results have been much the same: either the effort failed
or the now serious as a funeral parlor list shriveled away to nothing as all
the life moved to the place it was allowed to happen.

Short form: social forums need to be social.

But it can be overdone, and it sometimes was, and still is, and that's what
luni-d is more or less for.

> Great.  Can you give me any pointers on how to go about organizing
> meetings or who I should talk to for guidance?  Perhaps you could give me
> a clearer description of what LUNI is and does in relation to the other
> LUGs.

Luni, the list, is a pan-LUG forum.  It has historically been associated
with a specific LUG that used to meet downtown (or close enough to it from a
suburban perspective); those meetings have dwindled because the person who
took on the task of announcing them and making such arrangements as they
needed no longer lives and works in the city.

Speaking from my own experience with a similar job, years ago and in fight-o
net, 99% of it is finding a place that doesn't mind (or, ideally, welcomes)
your gang to gather there, and announcing the time and place.  After a while
you may or may not find that the group feels a need for a more organized LUG
event; you may or may not be interested in organizing talks, speakers,
vendor demos, etc.  Of course you can talk about it here (well, more likely
the main luni list), and that's probably a good idea, but in the end it
comes down to one person being willing to pick up the job and do it.

That's all... aside from criticism and even insults from those who have the
silly idea that you're under contract to do this thig, and they aren't best
pleased with the way you're doing it, and you'd better fix it right now! 
From what I've seen, the folks here are less prone to that than other online
groups I've known.

> Are there any active groups in the city proper?

One called Windy City - at least I think I've seen their meetings announced
in the luni list quite recently.  And there are a couple of what might be
called SIGs that meet inside the city's limits.  I'm sure those who are
familiar with them will be telling you all about them in the near future.

> It looks as though you might, then, be the person that I was looking for.

He is!  Simon was the man behind the curtain until he moved to the 'burbs.

-- 
Anyone who calls economics the dismal science
has never been exposed to educationist theories
at any length.  An hour or two is a surfeit.