[ale] A little ALE history ...

[DJ-Pfulio]

A little history about ALE ... lest we forget and make the same mistakes again.

Nobody likes meetup.com and the $16/month fee (Thank Brian for paying that BTW),
but ... ALE was dying.  There was an email war a few years ago which turned off
hundreds of our silent members.  They left or at least they dropped the email
subscription.

A few other Linux groups were started because they wanted to help others with
Linux.  For whatever reason, they choose meetup.com and started growing.

**People Won't Google for "Atlanta Linux"**

At first I was a little disappointed that people would show up to these
"meetups" because they'd been looking for a LUG, but couldn't find one in
Atlanta.  Like google isn't a thing - but it wasn't working. I started attending
the GA-400 Linux meetup near I-285 in Smyrna, which only had 2 meetings anywhere
near GA-400. ;)  That group grew to have more members than ale.org (based on
email subscriptions) in about 18 months.  Meetup helps people find us that
otherwise wouldn't.

I'm a little fuzzy on the ALE email counts, but I think we'd lost over 900
members before someone had a crazy idea to merge GA-400, ALE-NW, ALE-Central
into a single meetup group. Any Linux group anywhere near Atlanta that wants to
share our infrastructure (and meetup costs!) are welcome.  There have been a few
attempts to start ALE-NE and ALE-North.  ALE-SW has been going at least 3 yrs
thanks for Phil.

Thanks to meetup, we have over 1,200 members now - more than ever in the last
decade (I wasn't around before then).  The growth from 500-1000 was fairly
quick, though most never actually show up to any meeting.

Yes, meetup.com sucks, but it saved ALE from being a 55+ group.  At ALE-NW, we
have 30 and younger people almost every week.  Maybe that generation is better
with apps and meetup.com has an app?

To get ALE-NE going, someone simply needs to step up, find a place to meet and
start showing up there on a consistent basis.  Monthly, weekly, just showing up
and sitting there is probably enough to get some core members who will share the
load (i.e. show up). Let me or one of the other "organizers" know and we'll get
you access to ALE stuff so you can announce on meetup.  There isn't any special
access on this email listsrv or on IRC #ALE which is mostly dead, BTW.

There's something about sitting next to someone trying to learn a little Linux
and getting them started.

And life gets in the way for everyone.  People burn out and need to step back.
Some partnerships naturally fail after a few years, like ALE @ KSU has 3 times
now.  70 students show up, then 20, then 5.  They have great facilities, which
is why we like to be there, but that isn't as important as having a core group
who is interested and shows up to meetings.

We are always looking for volunteers in ALE to help. Complaining is your right,
and we allow free speech here beyond where it makes sense for the group, IMHO.
But actions matter more.  Give a presentation at ALE-Centra, show up weekly and
help out the organizers for a little bit at the other locations.  See if there
is something you can do that works for you and others?

An ALE T-shirt design would be cool, right?  These days making custom t-shirts
can easily be outsourced online, but a design with unlimited rights is necessary.

This group has tremendous expertise, but many of our members seem to locked
under non-disclosure agreements. I've never understood how sharing general Linux
knowledge falls into that camp.  Push back with your employers. Help out ALE
with some basic knowledge.  Lightning talks, 15-90 minute talks - all are needed
for ALE-Central.

Phil has the reigns at ALE-Central, so just send him an email if you'd like to
present or help.  You can find all the organizers either on this list or on
meetup (Organizers) to start a conversation.

If you see Brian, please buy him a beer or a sandwich/pizza or put a $5-er
(cash!) in his bag for all he does. He never asks, but the meetup costs are
$130+/yr.

Jim is hosting the ale.org and email list on a system he owns and maintains.
Robert does the wordpress and listsrv stuff as needed.

It is about time for our quarterly ALE "how-we meet" reminder email.  I'll push
that out in the next week or two.  It would be great to include an ALE-NE
announcement, if possible!

Sorry, I didn't mean to go on so much here, but I can't help it (as you all
know). ;)

-jd


On 08/20/2018 07:35 PM, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Aug 2018 15:18:27 -0400
> Simba via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
> 
>> I hate meetup.com (and most other social media sites), 
> 
> Me too. Meetup.com has simply inserted itself as a middleman in a
> function performed by LUGs themselves from the 1990's. Notice their
> indemnification clauses and other odious legalspeak. Notice that they
> advertise other meetings to your audience, so they're really using your
> group as an advertisement, perhaps pulling people away.
> 
>> is that
>> actually required to attend meetings? I hope not.
> 
> I hope not too, and I'm glad ALE has a mailing list independent of
> meetup.com.