I've been involved with many computer user groups affiliated with the San Diego Computer Society (SDCS), including the Internet SIG (no longer exists), KPLUG, Photoshop, SDCS itself, SDMUG, SDPCUG, UCHUG, etc., as well as some not affiliated with the SDCS.
In reading the discussions that have been ongoing, the main thing I've concluded is that each user group only cares about itself. This is not a bad thing, just the way things are. As a result, most people are not exposed to what goes on in other user groups, and they have an ethnocentric perspective. That is, they think the other groups operate the same way as their own group. This is generally not the case. I'm guilty of this perspective myself. At the April SDCS Board meeting, someone (I think from KPLUG) asked "How do we get contact information for the other SIG leaders?" I responded "Go to the SDCS.org Web site, open the SIGs link in the left menu, where there are links to the various SIGs' Web sites. Once on a SIG's Web site, go to their Contact page." Well silly me, I thought that since I knew SDCS' Web site has a contact page (Officers), SDMUG's Web site has a contact page, SDPCUG's Web site has a contact page, that KPLUG's Web site would surely have a contact page, and so the above means of getting contact info for the other SIGs leaders would be obvious. Then I went to KPLUG's greatly updated Web site, and found only an email link to the Webmaster. So I was wrong. I'm not criticizing KPLUG here, just pointing out that we're all human, and see things as we think they ought to be, and are often surprised when they turn out to be different than we expected. I'll provide some factual (per my perspective) information on the recent relevant history of SDCS. The former SDCS Boards, lead by Ed Van Meter, and Tim Everingham, did much to diminish the membership in the SDCS, by driving away many good people who wanted to help. Both of those individuals did more to harm the SDCS SIGs than they did to help them, in my opinion. Sound familiar? The SDPCUG no longer gets to use rooms at the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) via the SDCS, because Ed refuses to reserve any rooms for them, even though he continues to do so for KPLUG. That has a serious detrimental impact on the attendance of the SDPCUG meetings, as their new meeting location only has room for about 13 people (a bit cramped). I've encouraged the SDPCUG President to become a SDCS Board member, as leverage for the SDPCUG to regain use of the SDCOE room 401 (or some alternate), and he is willing to do so, provided the SDCS Board agrees to meet at a time when he can attend. SDMUG asked the SDCS Board for many years to clean up the SIG Guidelines, and the former SDCS Board didn't do so, year after year. If you put KPLUG in SDMUG's place, KPLUG may have done the same thing that SDMUG did in taking over the SDCS, to effect positive change for their SIGs, though perhaps in a different way (which I feel is moot at this point). I agree with Karen's comment at the April SDCS Board meeting that SDMUG did a good thing in helping the SIGs by improving the SDCS SIG Guidelines. Many in the KPLUG contributed lots of hours to that effort, and I applaud them. I also agree with Lan's and Josh's comments, among others, who are interested in making this transition as smooth as possible. My history with the SDCS goes back longer than most of those on this list, and so I see things differently. I don't plan to debate any of what I have said here. I offer it in the interest of asking those with conspiracy theories to step back, and try to see things from a broader perspective. Amazing at how much of the forest you can see, when you stop staring at one tree. - Sol Schumer, Former SDCS Board member -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-steer
