[Leaplist] Fwd: Can kids volunteer for install fest

[John Simpson]

On 2008-03-04, at 1343, Gavin Baker wrote:
>
> These discussions are really interesting to me, since so much of  
> what I
> do is organizing people. Can we shift the discussion toward making a
> decision? I'm not sure how things in LEAP are typically "done", but
> preferably something can be decided prior to the next board meeting
> (apparently a month from now).

if it involves LEAP's money, the board has to decide.

for things like the announce list... phil owns the server and manages  
the mailing lists for free, so it's kind of like a "benevolent  
dictatorship", with the board getting involved in a few cases (like  
when they decided to turn off archiving for the LeapBS list.)

there are a few other people (like myself) who have root access to  
phil's server, but these are people who phil knows and trusts, and who  
use that access very sparingly. i'm sure that i *could* change the  
announcements or their timing if i were to "cd" to the right directory  
and edit the right file on the server, but (1) i don't know where that  
is, and (2) i'd rather let phil do that through his web interface, so  
he knows what's going on (and so i don't accidentally break anything  
else in the process.) i tend to be "hands-off" when it comes to phil's  
server, except in emergencies. (my own server is in the same rack with  
his server, and phil is one of the few people in the world i would  
actually trust with root on my own server, if there were ever a need  
for it.)


> I wonder if we can't develop an app that offers flexible, user-defined
> notifications -- or if such an app already exists. By that, I mean the
> user indicates the desired number and frequency of notifications, and
> the desired delivery method (email or SMS). For instance:
>
> - - only email me when something changes
> - - email me a notice 1 day in advance
> - - email me daily reminders 4 days in advance
> - - email me 2 days prior, and text me a reminder the morning of
>
> (For our purposes, I'm assuming SMS subscribers have an email address
> form -- e.g. subscriber at wireless.att.net -- which receives SMS.)

all we need is somebody to write or find it... and i think, where this  
is a linux group, they should be okay with releasing the source code  
under the GPL (or some other OSI-approved license.) phil has been  
pretty good about giving server access to people who need it- if, for  
example, they're installing a new feature on the LEAP web site.


> This might seem like overkill for LEAP, and it probably is. I'm just
> throwing it out in case someone feels ambitious, or someone finds a
> program already developed. This would be a really useful tool for many
> community organizations. (It seems like an improvement over the  
> mailing
> list announcement, which is basically the electronic equivalent of a
> paper newsletter.)

i'll be honest, i *could* write such a thing, but i don't have the  
time- especially if it's not something that i know people would use.  
ever since mid-january i've been a lot busier than i'm used to (which  
is a good thing.)


> Absent a user-defined notification system, I think there just ought to
> be an announcement list (one informative email per event), and an RSS
> feed with the same content.

the RSS feed is a good idea- it involves a patch to the script within  
mailman that generates the index.html page for each month when a new  
message arrives (i.e. in addition to writing an index.html, it also  
writes an RSS file.)


> I think these will be a help in getting the
> word about LEAP events to people who haven't been involved before.  
> And I
> know there a number of Linux users (plus untold numbers of Li-curious)
> in the area who've never been involved with a LUG here, so there's  
> lots
> of growth potential, if we organize useful events and promote them.

did i just hear you volunteer as a publicist for LEAP? if you're  
serious, and if the board decides they WANT to start publicizing the  
group, then this becomes a totally different conversation, and should  
probably be moved to the "leap business" list (which last saw traffic  
when we started talking about the hamcation.)

just keep in mind that LEAP is entirely a volunteer organization...  
they don't have "employees" who can be "assigned" to specific tasks,  
the only thing the board can do is identify needs, tell the members  
about them, and hope that enough people (themselves included)  
volunteer to satisfy those needs.

for example, i'm willing to write a custom notifier system, where  
people could register an email address and then tell the system when  
they want that email address to be notified about meetings, but it  
would have to be with the understanding that it's a back-burner  
project for me, and that paid work for my clients comes first, which  
means i couldn't promise that it would be ready by any specific date,  
other than "probably within two or three weeks.


--------------------------------------------------------
| John M. Simpson  --  KG4ZOW  --  Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                 <jms1 at jms1.net> |
--------------------------------------------------------
|   Hope for America  --  http://www.ronpaul2008.com/  |
--------------------------------------------------------





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