[Novalug] OT: old white men blabbing

Peter Larsen peter@peterlarsen.org
Sun Aug 16 15:10:39 EDT 2020


On 8/16/20 1:34 PM, Karri Balk via Novalug wrote:
> 
> Maybe we can look at the issue of diversity a different way:  How can we 
> attract a more diverse and younger crowd?  I imagine some of the people
> in that diverse and younger crowd will eventually want to give talks and 
> that will bring in new ideas and topics for the group. 

Thanks Karri - this was really the motivation for me creating the survey
in the first place. How can we "re-energize" the group (which to me is
the mailing list) so it doesn't go silent for weeks at a time. I wasn't
sure WHY that was but getting more people to engage, new people to
engage, was absolutely on my mind.

It would GREAT to have more new speakers - I would argue we've had
speakers young, old and different ethnicity etc.  It's really hard to
qualify as we don't record this kind of stuff. You may be able to find a
photo of someone or try to deduct things from someone's name, but that's
not very precise.  That said, the ONLY goal the organizers have had for
many many years is getting ANY speaker. It's like pulling teeth I tell
you - not something a wast majority here wants to do - even getting a
list of topics so we can find outside speakers is hard.

Note - speakers isn't the same as posting to the mailing list. I started
going to meetings, not because of the speakers/topics, but of the other
Linux people that was there. "My people" and I've enjoyed having the
opportunity to meet in person once a month with people who shared my
interest - particular when I was the only one at my job who was into
Linux. Perhaps we need to be sure to separate the two. At least for me,
the meetings while they have their challenges, isn't the same as a
silent mailing list.

So if you and others can help find a way to increase the crowd; keep the
discussions going (from my perspective, being able to educate the next
generation of IT folks) it would be great for the group's future.

> Which meetups had the best attendence so far and could we do more in that
> vein?  I recall the awk/data science talk having good attendence, which is 
> not surprising given the popularity of data science. 

We do record the attendance number - and one thing that's clear is that
we attract a LOT of people to NOVALUG meetings (relatively). So much so
we've had to upgrade the venue many times in the last years. Currently
we tell companies that want to sponsor us that we expect no less than 50
and often close to 100 when a subject is popular. It's typically the
venue size that limits us.

Meetup changed things - we have a lot of attendees who doesn't know
about the group. They just found a subject on meetup they are interested
in, and showed up. Perhaps we need to do a bit of self-promotion as a
group to get them to join?  That said, a good subject brings in people.
I cannot tell if that's enough to bring in a wide range of ages, genders
etc. - we've never measured that.  And to be frank - not sure it makes
sense doing so. What I DO want to measure is if we're turning people
away - ie. are there things we do when meetings are announced (in person
or online) or things being said on the mailing list that works against
us?  My wife tells me all the time I suck at reading people, so
personally I know I need help here. Having things pointed out to me when
I screw up is pretty much the only way I know I stepped in "it" and need
to reconsider. So if there's a systematic issue that holds someone back
who wants to join a Linux group, we (I) would definitely want to know.
That's the first step in being able to address the problem.

If anyone doesn't feel comfortable asking Linux/FOSS questions because
of feeling discriminated or not welcome that's a problem.

> I can't recall if we've had a recent survey for meeting topics on Meetup 
> (versus the NOVALUG mailing list), but if we haven't, could we try that
> but keep the survey simple and just ask for topic suggestions?  I think
> Peter's list of topics in his survey for the mailing list could be expanded 
> and maybe reworded.  That could be discussed in an informal weekly talk.

We actually have collected topics many times. Not as part of a survey (I
think what I did was the first time) but we've used this mailing list
before and the organizers would then put that information into a
document used to coordinate speakers, schedules etc.  The problem is,
when you ask for topics you get crickets. When you ask if people are
willing to talk about what they are doing with Linux you get mainly
crickets.

I'm in a position that someone can throw pretty much any Linux topic out
there, and I would be able to negotiate with a SME in that subject to
come in (lead developer, expert user etc) - even if they had to travel
(with online meeting it's even easier). But I rarely get a chance to do
that when there's no topics out there. Last time was the Python talk -
which granted was recent (and was a young male - outside of being Czech
I have no clue what other labels may apply). John Kennedy got a young
woman "of color" talking about "Girls Who Code" and the cool things they
do. We try to reach out but if there's no foundation to build the talks
on it's really hard.

https://girlswhocode.com/
(sign up, donate, get involved!)

Btw. I really feel uncomfortable having to label folks like this. To me
it's "person of Linux" - it's how my mind helps me remember who people
are here. That's the only label I really care about - perhaps why using
a mailing list is easy for me. I don't need to know anything else.

I see no problems taking the list of ideas on the survey and those
suggested by Gary and use them to plan future meetings. John tells me
he's got most of this year full (just needs confirmation from some) but
it will very quickly be 2021 (that cannot happen quick enough!). Btw.
that organizer list typically is a public document - we've tried with
Trello, we've tried with a simple spreadsheet - outside of the initial
announcement it seems only the organizers look at it - so it tends to
quickly become a private/local document instead.

> It doesn't solve the problem of making people feel welcome, but if 
> you have a larger crowd of newer people, it could dilute the "clubhouse" 
> atmosphere.  It is no guarantee though -- when NOVALUG met in Chantilly a 
> long time ago I recall a large number of people attending the talks, but 
> I felt hostility when I asked questions and I stopped attending for awhile.

Do you mind elaborating? This is very worry-some to me. I attended
NovaLUG in Chantilly (not all of them but a lot!) and I loved the
location (huge auditorium) and I got to know a lot of Nova-luggers in
person there for the first time - something that's lasted into today.
I'm not going to say that every meeting there was great and had no
problems, but there's a long way from that to what you say here. In all
my years, the only heated discussions we've had were around subjects
like "vim" vs. "emacs" - ie. how Linux should work, how Open Source
should work (like our talk around RMS). Linux folks may be silent by
default but try to convince us our favorite distribution or editor is
bad, and we use BIG LETTERS in emails!  I don't see that as a problem -
all social groups experience this.  To me it's always felt like we've
had a heated disagreement but it stayed friendly. It didn't change my
mind about a person because they think VIM sucks ... I may just not buy
them a beer ... that will show them!

Seriously - being able to understand what hostility it was - perhaps it
not obvious to someone like me and I need to be educated, or perhaps we
really need to get better at organizing so things like this can be
discovered and dealt with.  You have John Kennedy's email - he plasters
it all over his posts - you don't have to talk about this in public, and
I'm sure he'll listen and keep it confidential.  Or who knows, he may
suggest that you join the organizer team (careful what you wish for).

> The NOVALUG meetup group shows 1160 members, so there is interest in 
> Linux/Unix, but our talks don't appear to be drawing them in.

Compared to any other LUG on the east coast that I'm aware of, we bring
them in, in DROVES. I do (did *sad-face*) regular meetings in
Fredericksburg - in person meetings we would be ESTATIC to have 15
people there. The same up in Maryland. NOVALUG's 50+ is just amazing - I
only see that surpassed in commercially sponsored meetups where there's
food, people get the afternoon or full day off to attend etc.

But the member list number sure is interesting - as anyone can tell by
looking at the mailing list, it's only a small fraction of the list
members that participate. I wanted to know why (with the survey). Out of
those 1000+ members, we had 28 responses. So calling the results of that
survey a representation of the WHOLE group is a long stretch. But it is
an representation of the currently active members.

And I guess we need to realize that some of those members have been on
the list forever, may have moved away, do other stuff but just keep it
around, or may send all incoming emails to a folder (spam?) they never
check.

-- 
Regards
  Peter Larsen



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