[Mageia-discuss] UK user community?

[Margot]

On Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:21:17 +0200
Thomas Lottmann <skiperdrake at gmail.com> wrote:

>   Le 20/09/2010 11:44, James Kerr a écrit :
> > On Monday 20 September 2010 Margot wrote:
> >
> >> Other countries seem to be organising user communities, but
> >> I've not seen anything for the UK. Perhaps it is easier for
> >> some other countries as they already had active Mandriva user
> >> communities - I never managed to find one for the UK, so
> >> perhaps it never existed!
> >>
> >> Has anybody set up anything for UK Mageia users? If not, would
> >> anybody from the UK be prepared to help me to start something?
> > Could you elaborate on what purpose you see such a group
> > serving? Perhaps one never existed for Mandriva is because no
> > one could think of a good reason for creating it. :)
> >
> > It seems to me that geographically based user groups serve
> > little purpose. In contrast to language based user groups which
> > clearly are needed, as evidenced by the success of Blogdrake
> > and others.
> >
> > Jim
> 
> It may be useful to create a mageia-uk structure to promote and
> regroup users in all the United Kingdom, but only a website
> portal then, because the anglophone forum would be the
> international one in english.
> 
> There could also be a mageia-us website portal, linking to the
> same anglophone wiki and forum. Yet, an independant portal would
> help informing local users of local news and events, in addition
> to the worldwide news and events. The aim is to help UK and US
> users to also have local news according to their territory and be
> able to organize and avertise about Mageia events in the UK or
> the US, and also have some Open Source news form these
> territories.
> 
> The forum and the wiki that are still in construction (if they
> are) are language-dependant. But I think that a website portal
> can be community maintained and can be dependant on a territory
> to be able to offer specific news and events as well.
> Non-anglophone countries do have their own portals and local news
> and events, I see no reason for UK and US communities to not have
> their own, despite linking it to the anglophone/international
> forum.
> 
> Well, that's just an idea...
> 
> Skiper.

Several reasons why I thought a UK user group would be useful:

1) The international language of computing is English, but WHICH
English? A UK group could check documentation and make sure that it
is understandable to UK users and does not use words or phrases
which mean one thing in UK English and something completely
different in other varieties of English (the pants/trousers
problem!).

2) Making it easier to organise a physical presence to promote
Mageia at UK computer/FLOSS/Linux events.

3) Identifying (and, with any luck, finding some way of fixing) any
problems with interfaces between Mageia and UK-specific devices or
services - for instance, the UK government seems still to be going
ahead with DAB radio while the rest of the world is using something
else.


-- 
Margot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
**Otford Ducks Computers**
We teach, you learn...
...and, if you don't do your homework, we set the cat on you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~