On 2013.11.25 11:33, Chris Schumann wrote: > There are many opportunities to gather and exchange ideas in the Twin Cities, at least for software development. > Ruby.mn; jsmn; android, iOS, and dozens of other meetup groups for developers and users of software platforms... > > I think TCLUG remains small because there are just not a lot of fans, and we are not organizing or promoting the group. I'm sure the > moderators or the people who used to do that would welcome more enthusiasm and volunteer work. (There are even a few prominent RedHat > employees in town we could talk to about sponsoring meetings.) I would definitely like to see some more interaction with other related local user groups, and we certainly could promote the group more. I noticed that there is a Twitter account for the group, but it hasn't been used in years. I'd be willing to manage it, tweeting about upcoming meetings and some of the more interesting things that come up on the list. Twitter can be a lot more inviting for lurkers and potential group members than the mailing list. Also, something I'd like to have a discussion on at the meeting (if there is one) is how to make the group appear more friendly on the outside to people using other open source operating systems. Fortunately, I've seen that, on the inside, this group is open to the use of other operating systems such as the BSDs, but quite often, Linux communities tend to be completely ignorant at best and openly hostile at worst. Since this is a Linux group in name, and since the installfests seem to be quite focused on Ubuntu, it is not hard to see why people would assume the group is not going to be welcoming to users of open source operating systems that don't use a Linux kernel. I had to actually convince someone from the PC-BSD project to come out to the January 25 meeting to help talk about ZFS, and the people in the #freebsd channel on freenode (which is where I had the conversation with him) were a bit surprised when I explained that TCLUG is actually generally not hostile to *BSD users. I don't have a 100% confirmation from him that he'll be there, but the outlook is good.