Just moving this discussion to this list, and adding to it :o)

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Duncan Sample To: social@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [alug social] lugs 'round these parts?

Are the LUGs round generally weekly or monthly? Apart from the Cambridge one being weekly I haven't heard much about the LUGs round these parts, and the websites don't say much :o)

I was wondering lately about whether it would be a good idea to start up a Cambridgeshire Fenland LUG (oh no, not another LUG!, lol), to bridge the gap between Peterborough and Cambridge.

I want to have a regular social LUG like the classic LUG model of the home-brew club... people submitting bugs online and saying what gathering they're planning to go to, then people can try and find a solution if they have a free moment, and if it's not fixed online, I'd print the list of unsolved problems for people turning up that night and take the list along for people to thrash out.

That's the main thing I thought of for the site, the fact that there would be a central store of people's questions (I know there's sites for that already), but most importantly, them saying where they're planning to meet, and whether they'll have their computer there for people to hack there ideas out until it's solved :o)

I'm starting to make the site for it anyway, since I get bored at the weekend and start doodling new things (hey, it keeps me occupied) lol, just wanted to ask for the general opinions, and any other ideas for things that would help the running of LUGs :o)

Duncan

PS: Of course if it turns out my hair-brain idea would be useful, I'd see about starting an SF project for it so everyone can benefit

-----MJ Ray replied-----

An ALUG question-site seems a good idea. I'd link to it. How would it play with the email? Are you planning to use a bug tracker like mantis or something like that? There's probably things that would need adding, like being able to subscribe to get email notices of problems.

I was thinking of making it from scratch, with the possibility of bringing in code from other projects to produce a cohesive tool that any LUG/group of LUGS could use.

The questions side of things I was thinking would be made so that people could submit questions through the web (and possibly link into an e-mail account/SMS system so people can send questions in different ways). The person would enter the question, possibly a category, and the route they'd like to get their answer (Just e-mail/web or through a gathering) and details about the gathering they want to attend.

The question would then get e-mailed out to everyone who's selected to get new questions (either all new questions, or all for that LUG/venue/particular gathering). All responses to the question (again web/sms/wap/email, etc) would get sent to the originator (and anyone subscribed to the question) and added to the discussion for that question.

Before a gathering (I'm thinking pub social), the organiser would go onto the site and print out a summary of all the questions that people would like answered at that gathering (export to PDA compatible file/PDF an option), this would print all the questions that haven't been marked as 'answered', and depending on the quantity of responses those aswell.

After a gathering, any answers would be entered onto the website against the relevant questions, and those questions then closed (e-mailing all interested users about the final answer).

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Other things I thought might be useful to include in the package are:

An in depth venue and gatherings/events database... with links to maps, directions, type of venue, features(net connection, pool table, private room, etc) for each venue. Gatherings would have details such as the type of gathering (social, hack/install fest, etc), and possibly a list of everyone interested in that event.

Guides Archive... more than just a howto archive, more of a book about running Linux in the real world, written by the people who use it, the LUGs/users could make chapters/articles to go into an central ebook. Each chapter could be set up in a discussion-thread-like format (or wiki) while in development, and a system made so that when a chapter is finalised it is brought together nicely into one document. People would then be able to read the current finalised book online or download it as a PDF or XML.

If it was made so that things are assigned to users/LUGs then we could make the site customisable enough that every LUG could have their own complete site within the system (template completely customisable through a content manager), then they could link to events/questions/venues from all LUGs on the system (especially useful for LUGs that share coverage or partner up as with ALUG), and generally interweave all the LUGs into one cohesive community.

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So... as I have thoroughly bored everyone with my ramblings I'll stop there (I just realised how much rambling I'd done, lol). The ideas are just that at the moment, but if enough people are interested/would like to help develop the ideas into a workable system with me, then I'll draw up a plan and we can get the ball moving on getting a SourceForge project started.

Duncan Sample http://www.antimatters.org.uk http://antimatters.homelinux.net