PLUG website (was Re: class this Wed!) and kitchen sink

[David Uhlman]

It seems that several issues always relate to one so I apologize for jumping
to references about several different ongoing threads.

Foremost to me is what I see as PLUGs goals, put simply they are:
1) Bring new users to Linux, primarily this will consist of "early adopter"
type people and what I call the "day user" crowd. Early adopters have a low
barrier to entry because they are technically savvy and as a result can
easily transition there daily tasks to the better software available on the
Linux platform. Day users have a low barrier to entry because they are
technically unsavvy and so as long as email,office suite, web browser can be
provided it doesn't really matter to them what platform they use. The
reality is that this is the low fruit of the end user market, it is
important to note as well that a huge proportion of business users are "day
users".
2) Provide general advocacy, this is essentially marketing where as bringing
new users to Linux is a sales approach. This is things like classes. This is
the most important in my opinion.
3) Educate current Linux users about different technologies that relate to
the platform. This is the prototypical PLUG meeting with presentation.
4) Provide support, this is abundantly provided through our members at
meetings, on the mailing list, and at events such as IFx. Classes also in
some sense provide support.
5) Offer technological advice to non-profits and offer referrals to local
businesses. I thinks hands on support in these circumstances is best left to
groups like AZOTO and OSEF.
6) Provide an arena for networking amongst Linux hobbyists and professionals
alike, this is done through things like stammitsch (sorry for the spelling
hans), occurs equally at all of the plug type events and on the list.

How does this relate to the PLUG website?

The website in this instance should be a public intranet as well as being a
portal to those looking for PLUG information. What I mean by this is that,
in my opinion, we need to lower the barriers to contributions. The first
step to this is to create an authoritive, centralized repository of
information, that is an intranet. The mailinglist and IRC work well as a
means of working out actual details, processes, and plans, but what then?
IRC logs, and mailing list archives, at least for me, make an absolutely
horrible store for the enormous amount of information we generate.

We do generate an enormous amount of information, thousands of email
messages, the content of discussions, let alone classes, so forth and so on.
What this leads to is a fairly high barrier to contributing to anyone of
what PLUG does. I really don't think it can be argued that to contribute to
PLUG is as easy as it is to say contribute to some of the local arts
organizations or hospitals, etcetera. There is no reason for this, as far as
I am concerned anyone who can read and write should be able to contribute to
PLUG.

Finally, my point!

Quality information management would serve to lower barriers to
contribution, free up time for the PLUG spokespeople/organizers (you know
who you are), provide a good record of what has been done, what is being
done, and what is going to be done. This makes getting new members up to
speed really easy.

These classes represent a really powerful opportunity to pursue our goals
and I would say so far that we are blowing it. Classes start in 3 days and
we haven't really come up with a good plan other than to say we will
generate the "curriculum" on the fly and between classes. This seems almost
unprofessional and does not give due courtesy to the people who are going to
be taking these classes. I am not saying that we don't have smart, quality
people teaching them, it is just that we have built an extremely shaky
foundation to support them. I would love for "business type people" to
attend these classes and come away with a "wow that was impressive" type
attitude.

I will go out on a limb here and say that I think postnuke could provide us
with a quick easy solution to be exploring a web collaboration/information
repository kind of paradigm. At least until we find or write something
better. The postnuke is overkill argument, to me, fails in two accounts.
Postnuke is not overkill taking into account the goals and quantity of
information we actually deal with. Overkill sounds like a cost-benefit
analysis, except that fails because postnuke is free, so as long as we get
any benefit out of it we win. I would never suggest replacing the mailing
list but I think it is vital to supplement it with a web based system.

Aesthetics are terribly important and postnuke solve that problem, I don't
expect to see a flash intro for PLUG but something that does not scare away
"day users" would be really nice. We can customize different "portals" for
those that prefer non-busy pages, and if we can't make a system that is easy
to navigate then who can?

In response to adams comments I would like to acknowledge his enthusiasm and
motivation for creating a system from scratch, however for a lot of reasons
already discussed I don't think it would be possible soon. This is not to
say that if adam wanted to create a system to our specification that
performed comparably or better than postnuke I am sure there would be little
resistance to changing to it. I suspect though, that a project of that sort
would take 5 people about 60 days to get to a state of reliability that
postnuke has. Also what about future program maintenance and such, I can
certainly say that the last thing I want PLUG doing with its time is fixing
security holes in its php infrastructure.

The "freeing up time argument" for PLUG organizers works because right now
very little makes it to the website. Only updating a calendar and 2 pages of
information is easy, but how about an IF page and a Classes page, and a
member blog type page (say for those who went to LW and events like it), a
support page they displays problems solved on the mailing list so others can
benefit, status pages for the 50 other ongoing projects and so on. How about
a credit page to illustrate and highlight the important contributions of our
members.Well now that sounds like a lot of work.

To say that only a few people will actually contribute fails because it
seems clear to me that this is because of the high barriers to contribution.

The more I blather on about all of this the better postnuke is looking to
me. In an ideal world I want to have a system where PLUG members could put
in an hour a month (or 15 minutes a week) and with that, in the aggregate,
we could greatly expand on our abilities to make a difference. Lets make an
example with open source technologies and lets document our use of them so
others can benefit. Lets improve them and put our "money" where are mouth
is.

If we can't make something like this work then what are we advocating to
people, to use mailing lists and IRC? Sorry for the length, maybe next month
I can put it on the website :)

Sincerely,
David Uhlman
CTO 50km Inc.