Czajkowski

I’ve been talking to a few members of Ubuntu Local Community Teams lately and had some thoughts on how the LoCo Council helps and also how we can improve our communication with teams.

Firstly the LoCo Council consists of six volunteers from the community who are spread over multiple timezones. As with other volunteers, they have work commitments and families. We all come from LoCo teams that are active in some way or another. Most of us are online on IRC either in our LoCo team channels, and sometimes also idle in the #ubuntu-locoteams channel. Some of us run our IRC client in a GNU screen session, and when we’re not there we look like we are, and can catch up with the conversation later

I regularly come back to my screen to find numerous ‘pings’ on IRC about how I can help a team with a query. The medium of IRC communication in Ubuntu is massive but I do wonder how helpful it is at times. If people don’t get an answer they log off or are unhappy they’ve not been helped, when in fact the people they’re addressing probably haven’t seen the problem yet.

I and others do try and answer as many queries as we can on IRC but I am sure we miss some and also people don’t know which channels to find the relevant information. One of the most useful channels to idle in to help locoteams is #ubuntu-locoteams many people idle in there from different teams and their experience in day to day running of their team may help you if you’re stuck.

I do notice there is a massive focus from teams on the status of being approved loco. Teams seem to perceive this as a elitist status and I’m not sure I’m happy about this. A LoCo team should be a team who is community based and who want to help to promote Ubuntu, be that installing it for someone, helping trouble shoot a bug or an issue, giving talks or organising conferences, there are numerous ways to be a LoCo, being approved or unapproved doesn’t change this one bit.

I am a firm believer being a LoCo is just as much about being friends with your team mates as installing Ubuntu on numerous machines or explaining what OSS/FOSS is all about. At the end of the day we are a community and sometimes that means doing casual non Ubuntu events, these can be added to the LoCo Directory (LD) also. Not every event has to always be about Ubuntu.

For example two weeks ago, the Ubuntu UK team went to the pub to watch a rugby game, people turned up who had no interest in rugby but they got to catch up with people who do over a few beers and just chat. I’ve found the best conversations happen outside of the formal conference environment.

I would love to see teams focus less on the ticking the box approach to getting approved and more on being a community who all work together for a common goal, to help people more understand how Ubuntu could possibly help them or at least show them there are alternatives out there for them to chose from. Less focus on the status of your team and more on the fun community interacting.

There are over 140 teams in the LD, I love to read the monthly reports and see how teams are doing, and I would love to see less technical events and more unconventional ways to interact with one another.

As most people on here I love Ubuntu and promote it where I can, another thing I love however is RUGBY no not Ruby! When there is a match on the tv I tweet it for folks I follow to join in the rants/discussions on how the game is going, but also on IRC.  I am also a firm believer that any community is based upon people who have other interests outside of Ubuntu/OSS want to meet up and discuss other things and not just go to conferences.

When I moved to the UK I had nobody to go watch games in the pub, I decided after talking to people in the #ubuntu-uk who also like Rubgy and Ubuntu to organise a meet up to watch a game together.  Dan Fish picked the pub and I picked the game.

Next week on Saturday 19th Match the Ubuntu-uk LoCo are going to go watch a game of rugby over some drinks/food and catch up with people who like Rugby and Ubuntu.  Even if you’ve no interest in Rugby but do want to meet people come along. If Ubuntu is not your flavor, or you’ve no interest in OSS but just love rugby come along! Be nice to meet more folks over here.

I chose the Ireland V England game! It should be a good game and everyone is welcome to come along, I’ve added the event to the LoCo directory so do sign up if you’re coming along so we can get more seats.

Lets hope the ref will be able to make better judgement calls than he did over the Wales game ! *mutters*

There is an enormous amount of useful information on wiki.ubuntu.com however there is also a lot of duplicate triplicate and redundant material on there also.  This weekend why not get your loco reviewing a section of the wiki and help to clear up some of the pages.  I’ve noticed sometimes that a page was created in lower  case and then never used as someone else created the wiki in upper case, well then the one not used should be removed.

The LoCo Council are going to be looking over the sections of the pages LoCo Teams and if you want to help that would be great.  A lof of that information is on the LoCo Directory – I’d hope by now folks know about the directory………………

If you go through the wiki and find all the pages that are out of date, unused or the information is over on the LD already  add the Category “CategoryLoCoObsolete�? to it.   We the LC will review the pages and decide their fate.  So don’t be worried.

FYI — to add a Category, just append:

----
CategoryLoCoObsolete

to the bottom of a page. If there’s already a Category, do this:

----
CategoryAwesomeTag CategoryLoCoObsolete

I’ll be in #ubuntu-locoteams on Satuday from 9am UTC – 4pm UTC and on Sunday from 10am UTC – 7pm UTC

Not long left till Maverick Meerkat aka 10.10 is released with that in  mind it’s time for loco teams to start to plan for their release party.  I’ve added the global event to the LoCo Directory Maverick Meerkat is scheduled for  release on the 10th of the 10th 2010. To celebrate 10.10 LoCo teams have  organised parties to celebrate these events.

Release parties are a great way to celebrate, meet new friends and often introduce new people to Ubuntu and to our local communities. Release parties are not only great way to meet people but also they are a lot of  fun.  Please add your event to the LoCo Directory

If you want to organise a release party:

* Learn more. Read the guidelines on how to run a party.  Many of the release parties are organised by Ubuntu LoCo Teams. Check with your local team to see if  you can work together on a party.

* Get advice. Ask other loco teams what they have done in the past and what to do, ask on the loco contacts list, or in #ubuntu-locoteams
* Let everyone know. Announce your party on the loco-contacts mailing list to spread the word!

If you have a release party scheduled, be sure to:

* Add your party to the LoCo directory – http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/team/add

* Spread the word. Blog about it, advertise it, tell your friends, tell local media, tell podcasts and otherwise promote it, tag it with #locoteams

* Stay in touch. Join the IRC channel #ubuntu-release-party on irc.freenode.net

* Add picture tags. If you post photos to Flickr, please tag them with *ubuntu*, *release*, *party*, *2010*, *10.10* and *Maverick*.

Jono Bacon the Ubuntu Community Manager is wanting to put together a collage of release party group photos, so take a group photo of your party people and email jono AT ubuntu DOT com with a link to the photo online and the subject *”Maverick Release Party Photo”* — ensure that you specify which LoCo Team party it is at.

We now have this fantastic all in one place information on teams, global and local events.  It makes finding information for everyone a lot easier.  It’s come on a long way and looks rather pretty also and is still being worked on there are bugs logged for some issues so with every week there are new improvements coming.

What I have noticed however is the amount of teams there on the LD with not up to date information, no wiki page listed, no mailing list, no website, no IRC channel listed or any information about themselves and in many cases most of the teams are providing this help.  We need you to update your information, that’s either through your team leader, point of contact or you have admins set up on launchpad who can edit the loco directory,  if you see your team has other resources that are not listed there PLEASE ASK OF YOUR TEAM TO ADD IT!

This morning there were 69 teams listed on the LD with no fix abode they had no country listed against them.  I’ve gone in and added them all, bar 5 which I need help on.  In the LD Language is a mandatory field, I’ve added the one language against each team, you can select more, PLEASE SELECT MORE if you have more than one language in your team.

Think of the directory from a new persons point of view a yellow pages of information they can access.  If someone was in your area and wanted to learn more about your team, that information should be visible.  They shouldn’t have to join a mailing list or an IRC channel just to find out where your wiki page is located.

Also a really handy tool for people who are travelling is they can view the LD and see if there are any events going on in the area so they can drop by and say hi.

After spending some time on wikpedia and learning a lot about other countries and their languages I was able to reduce the list to following 5

*edit: All teams are now listed under a country! including the 5 homeless ones above!  See I won’t be beaten!