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Thread: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

  1. #11
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    This is a public forum. Is this really where we want to hang our dirty washing out?

    What about something constructive?

    1. Call for interest in acting as a Coordinator for your State.

    That way the coordinators can meet for discussions and also act as representatives for those unable to attend meetings. Topics for discussion can be emailed to the coordinators. Keeping in mind that the term meeting is used here very loosely since IRC is just fingers tapping on a keyboard. Perhaps another communication medium should be used - IRC is really very primitive. What about VoIP telephony or telephone conferencing or face-to-face.

    2. Tidying up the members list does not mean erasing names willy-nilly.

    There are names on that list of members long gone. It needs affirmation. Some users of Ubuntu have no interest in declaring themselves and that wish for anonymity has to be respected so don't expect a rush of replies.

    3. Be sparing with your use of "I". Teams use "We".

  2. #12
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Being constructive, as I have been critical (of which I have the right and in public).

    1. Mission Statement: What about creating a 'Mission Statement' ?
    Searching the Internet I ran across the Belgian team LoCo, I think that this is a great example of trying to define what purpose a loco fullfills.

    (As a side note, they have an interesting discussion about Team organisation)

    2. Goals: What goals can we set to fullfill our mission, how will we achieve them?

    Both 1 & 2 need to be placed firmly on the wiki and web page, so that potential members can see what the Loco stands for and how it achieves its goals, this might encourage more active participation.

    IDEA
    A. An Ubuntu Suporters Pack: Contains a Hat, T-shirt, Stickers, pens etc.
    Cost: $50 (These can be ordered in bulk, saving shipping expences)
    Distribution: A person gets given their supporters pack when they attend a release party. Gives members a reason for attending, increases participation rates.


  3. #13
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Quote Originally Posted by gandella View Post
    1. Mission Statement: What about creating a 'Mission Statement' ?
    Actually a great idea, perhaps it can be raised at the next meeting? The Belgian statement seems a little light on specifics, but perhaps this is appropriate for such a document. Also, a first draft should probably be quite general: specifics can be added later.

    Chris

  4. #14
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Hi there,

    I really don't mean to be a bother, I think some good conversation is going on.

    One thing I have noticed (from the emails I've been lurking on) is gandella.

    gandella, it seems you have posted 6 out of the 13 posts on this thread, 46%.

    If you decide to post, please put all your posts into one post (three posts on the same topic right in a row is not very nice), and try to let others into the conversation.

    I can't imagine you post like that to a mailing list, so why do it here?

    Again, sorry if I've crossed any lines, and I don't mean to be a bother, it's just something that piqued my interest.

  5. #15
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    @paultag - Sometimes the urge to add yet another comment takes precedence over the nicety of "waiting for your turn". There is no need to gag a contributor. All positive contributions are welcome.
    Are you playing mother on the Australian LoCo Team Forum?

  6. #16
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Quote Originally Posted by gandella View Post
    Hi Paul

    The only thing that has changed is the monthly online meetings, however the numbers of participants are dwindling. The true membership number is not reflected because I doubt people actually remove themselves when they loose interest.

    I had advocated some changes before we lost our approval and they were squashed by a few favoured members. There was no compromise, no-mediation, no negotiation. Sure we had a few polls and out of the 320 odd members at most we had about 20 (I think) actually bother to vote.

    Really!! Did all of those release parties really happen? Who knows, no pictures no reports. Sure the stand at LCA was a success. I wonder if it was held in another city where the 'Team Contact' didn't attend and the Canonical staff didn't lend a hand, would have been a success?
    Not true, we've not just had online meetings, we've held 2 successful events, managed a much larger footprint for a release party than we've ever achieved previously and we're getting more people involved in the running of the team. We're working with Canonical to have the website updated so we can theme it appropriately and encourage more participation.

    As for "quashed by a favoured few" again I will point you to previous comments on this on the team mailing list where you basically just spammed the list until people unsubscribed in numbers never seen before.

    Quote Originally Posted by gandella View Post
    How would asking people to re-affirm their commitment alienate people?

    Which list? The wiki membership list. How many of these people are still active?
    Is the information accurate, I'm sure the LUG contact list is way out of date.

    So who are these 'active' members, how have you Identified them? What are they doing? As it stands now, our Team contact is the only really active member because he is the 'TEAM CONTACT' and that is all that we have.
    I personally have been contemplating toying with the idea of putting a 1 year expiry on the launchpad team. I have to investigate further but if it were possible to make it so that users could automatically resubscribe on a yearly basis this may help. I believe we have a lot of users on the list by "default". I'll have a talk to some launchpad people to see what is and isn't possible for moderated teams.

    Quote Originally Posted by kyphi View Post
    What about something constructive?

    1. Call for interest in acting as a Coordinator for your State.

    That way the coordinators can meet for discussions and also act as representatives for those unable to attend meetings. Topics for discussion can be emailed to the coordinators. Keeping in mind that the term meeting is used here very loosely since IRC is just fingers tapping on a keyboard. Perhaps another communication medium should be used - IRC is really very primitive. What about VoIP telephony or telephone conferencing or face-to-face.

    2. Tidying up the members list does not mean erasing names willy-nilly.

    There are names on that list of members long gone. It needs affirmation. Some users of Ubuntu have no interest in declaring themselves and that wish for anonymity has to be respected so don't expect a rush of replies.
    1 - That would work if we had hundreds of members evenly spread around the country but the fact is we don't. Adding more bureaucracy and levels of governance is not the way forward for a team our size at this point.

    2 - See my comments about expiry dates on launchpad, might be a way forward for this.


    Quote Originally Posted by gandella View Post
    Being constructive, as I have been critical (of which I have the right and in public).

    1. Mission Statement: What about creating a 'Mission Statement' ?
    Searching the Internet I ran across the Belgian team LoCo, I think that this is a great example of trying to define what purpose a loco fullfills.

    (As a side note, they have an interesting discussion about Team organisation)

    2. Goals: What goals can we set to fullfill our mission, how will we achieve them?

    Both 1 & 2 need to be placed firmly on the wiki and web page, so that potential members can see what the Loco stands for and how it achieves its goals, this might encourage more active participation.

    IDEA
    A. An Ubuntu Suporters Pack: Contains a Hat, T-shirt, Stickers, pens etc.
    Cost: $50 (These can be ordered in bulk, saving shipping expences)
    Distribution: A person gets given their supporters pack when they attend a release party. Gives members a reason for attending, increases participation rates.

    1 - We already have a very similar setup to the Belgium team from what I can gather having a quick read over that page. Our missing statement isn't long and large but from our main team page "The Australian team focuses on distributing, advertising and demonstrating Ubuntu within Australia. Through the development of our projects we focus on the areas of schools, business and home users." is what I would consider our current mission statement. If it needs revising then lets have discussion on it on the mailing list and talk in the meetings.

    2 - See point 1, it has general goals. If we want specific ones lets hear some ideas.

    There is no real shipping saving to be had on the shop.canonical.com from my 3 or 4 purchases but feel free to poll the mailing list to see who is interested in a bulk order. If I recall correctly this was actually recently done but Paul Gear and he had a number of people go in for an order of stickers.

    Quote Originally Posted by fabricator4 View Post
    Actually a great idea, perhaps it can be raised at the next meeting? The Belgian statement seems a little light on specifics, but perhaps this is appropriate for such a document. Also, a first draft should probably be quite general: specifics can be added later.

    Chris
    Sounds like a plan. I notice no one has added any of this thread to the next planned team meeting.

    As a general comment to one and all it's great to have conversation on ideas but what it really comes down to is action. Unless people are willing to put more time and effort in to running events, attending meetings and organising local events around global ones (global jams, release parties, community weeks, etc) then what does it matter what structure we have. As it stands there is no resistance at any point to anyone organising events under the Ubuntu-AU flag and I feel this is a good thing instead of the bad thing it's being made out to be. If we add more levels of structure and governance it will most likely add resistance to running events and promoting the team and Ubuntu. If you want to improve Ubuntu-AU the best thing you can possibly do is get out there and organise something in the public. The best way to achieve that is to write an email to the list "I am wanting to do xyz, is there anyone willing to help out and does anyone have any suggestions on how to best achieve this?"

    Remember, you don't have to have a special title within the team to be constructive within the team. I was no more than any other member when I organised the free shipit service and I was only voted team contact AFTER running the LCA event.

  7. #17
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Affirming membership registration on a yearly basis is what is required by the Linux Counter project among others and seems like an excellent way to keep the Australian Team Members List up to date.

    The reason for my suggestion for State representation was that communication and promotional efforts could be managed on a local level. The current "one size fits all" approach has been shown not to work. Consider starting it off in Brisbane where there are sufficient interested members. You can meet face-to-face and may even get to like each other. The argument that there are insufficient members to localise on this vast continent cannot be substantiated. How are LUGs organised? They are localised under the umbrella of Linux Australia. We can do the same.

    Apropos the Australian Team website - put a bit of colour in it please. It is looking far too bland and unattractive. I can help with graphics.
    Last edited by kyphi; June 17th, 2011 at 11:10 PM.

  8. #18
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    At the risk of being accused of spamming this list , I feel that I must speak out and would like to request that future communications here are kept brief.

    Now that I have had the time to evaluate head_victim's very long epistle here are a few comments:

    If you are accusing Gandella of being responsible for the mass exodus from the mailing list then you owe him an apology. It is quite likely that there was so much traffic generated that people switched off but the cause for Ubuntu-Au's near demise lies elsewhere. In any case, dwelling on the past will not help us move forward and pointing the finger is contrary to the governing Code of Conduct and achieves nothing.

    What is this talk of governance and bureaucracy? No-one suggested that we have a president and an upper and lower house? Is this reviving false perceptions from the past?

    Remember that 1 is one, 2 is a pair, 3 is a crowd and 4 is a group. It only takes four people to form a group.

    I have already taken the initiative (in 2010) and formed a group called The Australian Ubuntu Seniors. We have 8 members and we are a happy crowd .

    Why not form a group for each population centre? I think that this should be encouraged, don't you?

  9. #19
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Quote Originally Posted by head_victim View Post
    I personally have been contemplating toying with the idea of putting a 1 year expiry on the launchpad team. I have to investigate further but if it were possible to make it so that users could automatically resubscribe on a yearly basis this may help. I believe we have a lot of users on the list by "default". I'll have a talk to some launchpad people to see what is and isn't possible for moderated teams.
    My initial concern was that only the grass roots membership would re-apply. Members who might be moved to contribute in the future would be excluded. Thinking about it though, as long as contact is maintained through for example the mail list this shouldn't be too much of a problem. People can rejoin when they want to.

    I agree the process needs to be automated though - something like an activator email with a link that you visit to confirm continuing membership.


    1 - That would work if we had hundreds of members evenly spread around the country but the fact is we don't. Adding more bureaucracy and levels of governance is not the way forward for a team our size at this point.
    I have to agree with this. If the membership grew to the point when it was difficult to manage then creating sub-branches would be the way to go. Until then though, I see no point in adding extra levels of managment.

    1 - We already have a very similar setup to the Belgium team from what I can gather having a quick read over that page. Our missing statement isn't long and large but from our main team page "The Australian team focuses on distributing, advertising and demonstrating Ubuntu within Australia. Through the development of our projects we focus on the areas of schools, business and home users." is what I would consider our current mission statement. If it needs revising then lets have discussion on it on the mailing list and talk in the meetings.
    Again as the newcomer, I did read that but didn't really equate it with a "mission statement" as such. It also gave me only a sketchy idea as to how the group actually operated, and much of that was assumption I guess.

    A mission statement should (I feel) give some idea of how the group operates. A good place for it might be the wiki, and it could be linked in the main menu right under "Australian Team Home".

    Sounds like a plan. I notice no one has added any of this thread to the next planned team meeting.
    I've now added a couple of items to the agenda in line with gandella's ideas.

    Chris

  10. #20
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    Re: Australian LoCo team Re-Approval

    Quote Originally Posted by kyphi View Post
    @paultag - Sometimes the urge to add yet another comment takes precedence over the nicety of "waiting for your turn". There is no need to gag a contributor. All positive contributions are welcome.
    Are you playing mother on the Australian LoCo Team Forum?
    What Paultag mentioned is just common Internet courtesy, as gandella is new and doesn't mind being blunt, I assume he will be fine with the advice.

    http://jiggmin.com/threads/61146-How...double-posting



    Quote Originally Posted by kyphi View Post
    This is a public forum. Is this really where we want to hang our dirty washing out?
    Well our IRC channel is logged and is a public chat room, the logs are stored on a public website accessible by the public, our mailing list archives are also accessible by the public and is a public mailing list, I don't think we have dirty washing or clean washing, we just have washing.
    Last edited by ikt; June 21st, 2011 at 01:51 PM.
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