[Mageia-discuss] UK user community?

Mon Sep 20 13:41:52 CEST 2010

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!
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+