On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Benjamin Scott wrote:
> I think this Slashdot comment would be more indicative of a general problem
> with the way we run the meetings.
>
> Of course, the first question should be, do we have a problem? Or is this
> just one person having a bad day?
My answer to this is "kinda..." There are I think a number of factors. I
agree to SOME degree with the point about people not being very friendly.
By the time I had attended my first meeting, I already knew at least a few
people personally through interactions on the list etc.
There weren't a lot of people who approached me and asked me who I was.
Actually, there were none. I got to know more people a) by hanging around
with Paul (who of course knows everyone) and b) at my second and
successive meetings by being a bit more outgoing myself (which is
definitely not in my nature, despite what you might think by the amount I
post).
I agree it would have been nice if at least some of the memebers took it
upon themselves to introduce themselves to me. So why doesn't this
happen?
Well, I think for maybe two major reasons. One is that the "membership"
is fairly large, and though there are a few people that you see at pretty
much every meeting, there are still quite a few faces that I don't
recognize at every meeting I've been to.
The weird thing is I probably know a lot of them through the list. We
just don't know what eathother look like. Point being that a lot of
people just wander in to various meetings, and I think often there are a
lot of people that don't know each other, so they are all in the same
boat, perhaps waiting for others to introduce themselves. The author of
that slashdot comment overlooks that possibility. Then again, maybe I'm
just projecting, since I still don't know probably most of the membership
by sight.
The second is that our demographic has a reputation for being somewhat
socially challenged. While there are obvious exceptions to that, like
Jerry and maddog for example, we didn't earn that reputation without
some merit...
> So, I would like to kick-off a general discussion: To those of you who
> attend or have attended a GNHLUG meeting, what did you think?
>
> Too short? Too long? Too technical? Not technical enough?
> Interesting? Boring? Is the food+drink aspect we often incorporate
> wrong or right? [etc.]
Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with the time, length, or
content of the meetings... that's not the point. The author's point is I
think more along the lines of what better way to meet new people, when
you're all gathered due to some known common interest? And yet (perhaps),
so little social interaction is initiated at each meeting between people
who don't already know eachother.
In theory, it's a simple matter to walk up to someone you don't recognize,
and say "Hi, I'm [your name here], nice to meet you." I try to make it a
point to do that at least once at every meeting. I think I have about 200
people to go...
=8^)
--
Derek Martin
Senior System Administrator
Mission Critical Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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