[ale] ALE-NW dying

[Jerald Sheets]

> On Jan 2, 2015, at 9:33 AM, Brian MacLeod <nym.bnm at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I’m going to be a little harsher, and probably overstep, but…

I’ve been thinking about all this lately, mostly because I also belong to LOPSA, and we talk about these sorts of things on the list and in Ad-Hoc “hallway sessions” at the conference, etc.

> 
> ALE-NW isn’t dying.  ALE is dying.

I’m not going to speak about ALE in particular, but I will speak about enthusiast groups.

I think a targeted OS-related user group is beginning to wane in light of all the tech out there.  For instance, I’m a Puppet guy.  I spend considerably more time (like I did on Linux in ALE and at the BRLug 5-10 years ago) on Puppet lists learning this tech.  Primarily because Linux has become an afterthought to me in a lot of ways...  I’ve been a Sysadmin for almost 22 years now, and while there’s a lot of new things happening in Linux-land, I find a few articles, a pot of coffee and some constructive hacking and I can grok most anything that comes along.  (ok… 2 pots of coffee for SystemD).

MOST of my time is spent on Puppet, Docker, Satellite, and other tech that the tech in and of itself is highly complex and requires big chunks of time for proficiency, or requires dedication to the tech long-term for mastery or even classroom instruction and exams.  Honestly, there just isn’t much time in my schedule to dedicate to OS-level learning, unless it involves work implementing other tech that is every bit as convoluted and then progressive on top of that.  i.e., it keeps developing and changing the way Linux tends to over time, but since these are new tech they move considerably faster.

> 
> I presented in December for Central, and there were 3-4 people other than me.  When I asked Jim Kinney if this was just a holiday thing, he said no — that’s been the attendance for ALE Central for months now, and if that continues, there’s not much point in having a venue anymore and I agreed.
> 
> It is a trend I hear is occurring with many face to face groups — one hiccup here, one miscommunication there, and a whole group dies because people don’t want to bother in a day and age where telecommute applications are becoming a norm.  People in general aren’t looking at face-to-face meetings as being important anymore.
> Someone mentioned at that meeting that the AUUG is suffering from lower numbers every month.

I place great value on face-to face groups more importantly because the pastor side of me loves people and wants to know people and have that face-to-face human interface with people.  The techie/nerd side wants to hang with people of like persuasion and learn new things that just may not ever hit a mailing list or online forum, and have a face to put to a name.  That way, when you’re in the mall, Fry’s, or Microcenter and bump into someone, you have a real connection to leverage for conversation and maybe even catch an impromptu cup of coffee or something.

> 
> There will be some who will put the blame on certain people and certina behaviors on the mailing list.  I doubt that, I think that was mere coincidence.  I know there were people I used to be able to count on being at Central who I’ve not seen in over a year, and some of these were folks who I would also go to an after meeting and have beers with.  A lot of those old-timers have other things to do, and the new kids don’t see much value in travelling to a meeting when there are vast resources available to learn from online.

We do have a wide swath of everything here from ultra conservative to downright communist, straight, gay, religious, atheist, you name it.  I also don’t think this plays a part except for when someone of a certain ilk becomes abusive in some fashion with their own particular “grinding axe” as the basis for that abuse.  Those folks are usually shut down pretty quickly around here, but genuine free discourse takes place in other venues as well anyhow.  

I find ALE remarkably valuable, and would hate to see it go the way of the Dodo.

> 
> And that’s before we even talk about leadership and venue issues. 
> 
> So now that I’ve pooped on the parade, I think we need to open up a conversation of what ALE is, because I don’t think ALE is returning as much value as it once did.  Maybe it’ll still be a good “post an email and get a response” group.  The face to face stuff, I think, may be done unless 1) someone has a really good idea of a good value add for meetings, and 2) is willing to champion it.

That’s the vector at which we disagree.  I find ALE immensely valuable.  I may not take part on many conversations here, but topics covered here have helped both my hobbyist and professional Linux work for more time than I can count, and continues to do so.  I try to contribute where I can, stay out of hot potato topics when they arise, and try and be a voice of reason when people are being non-cordial and unreasonable.  It’s community and it’s how it works.


> 
> And even if someone steps up to help lead ALE-NW, if a venue change is also occurring, I would have my doubts of continuing the level of participation.  Suddenly, there something for people to figure out (where am I going, where do I park now) and that’s when they decide it isn’t worth the little extra effort.  The timing of Central’s drop seems to be roughly correlated to that last move, though JIm and I can attest to the number falling even before that.

I find it interesting that ALE-NW is having some attendance issues… It may be that I led the group last around 5-6 years ago when we met at the Weather Channel and some of the new tech wasn’t even around yet, but it could also be location, amenities, personalities present, private lives being more complex….we had rather good attendance for a year or more. It could be just about anything, and I don’t think leadership should take this as a personal commentary unless the group as a whole says “it was you, o leader.  Go away."

Atlanta continues to get harder to navigate at any hour of the day, much less the time we normally spend between work and the beginning of $enthusiast_group.  I, for one, love the Puppet group because it meets about 40ft from where I sit at my desk right now.  It’s my core competency these days and where I do most of my billing, so it’s quite handy for me and doesn’t require a hellacious commute-time trip.

Same with Docker and some other tech, but that’s outside our scope here.

Point is, I think the face-to-face meeting is being done violence on all sides primarily due to the climate and context we find ourselves in Atlanta, and may continue to see decline more for these reasons than for any of personality or such.  Most people are remaining rather well behaved here lately, and we haven’t seen a good knock-down drag-out in awhile, but be patient… an election year is coming.  :)

> 
> I don’t want to see it die, because frankly, ALE has become less a place for me to get help on technical issues and more a place where I can work on some of my social issues and work on my presenting skills when I have interesting topics for folks, and occasionally help someone else out. 

I don’t think it will… I just think it may take on a bit of a different form.

As I said before, I may be able to help with venue, given the date/time, etc. and the resources we have to perhaps accommodate ALE, but we have to answer the hard questions about who we are and what we’re trying to do before something as simple as a new venue does us any modicum of change.

Peace,

#!/Jerald


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