[TriLUG] Do Linux User groups still serve a useful purpose?

[Brandon Van Every]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 8:09 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>wrote:

> On Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:07:25 -0400
> Brandon Van Every <bvanevery at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Wow there are people out there who aren't tired of this sort of drill
> > yet?
>
> The suggestion was made to teach technology. I responded with a possible
> way. You didn't like my way.


Actually, I wasn't even aware of your goal.  I go through these kinds of
configuration drills with Linux all the time.  I've always done so, even as
far back as kernel 0.99something in 1993, about a year after Linus got
started.  Now that I slightly better understand where you're coming from...


> If you have a better way for TriLUG to
> teach technology, please state it.
>
> For everyone else, I still think the idea to teach technology through
> Linux is an excellent one, I'd like the discussion to continue, and I'll
> do all I can to support it.


Why would a LUG want to duplicate all the learning resources all over the
internet already?  When I want to figure something out, my drill is:

1) fire up my currently preferred search engine (DuckDuckGo for a few weeks
now)
2) read forums that are specific to my problem
3) maybe post a question on those specific forums
3) read the README in the sources, belatedly
4) type "man whatever" or fire up dwww and read some info docs, if it
really gets down to it
5) maybe post a question on linuxquestions.org if I've exhasuted all other
resources
6) there's always the option of blowing off the problem and finding
something better to do with my time

So basically it's "search, then ask, then RTFM, then give up."  The middle
2 might flip around, depending on the helpfulness or hostility of the
community involved.

If I felt something was horridly / unusably under-documented in the open
source universe, I wouldn't try to solve that problem within the confines
of a LUG.  I'd go to the project itself, and bang on their wiki.  I just
did a major overhaul of the third party projects listings for the Ogre 3D
rendering engine, for instance.  A solid 2 weeks of full time work, I'd
wager.  Why would I want to put that level of instructional production
values into something that benefits only a LUG?  The whole world needs this
stuff.  Or, it doesn't need it at all, as people can be expected to search,
ask, and RTFM to some extent.

That's how I see it.  It's how I've been getting around in technical grunge
for 20 years now.  It may sound rather negative of me to bring it up.  But
I will ask, what value add does "instruction at the LUG" have, over and
above the usual online open source ecology?

I understand that some people might want to learn from a person.  I don't;
I'm exactly the opposite.  Please, please go away while the steam is coming
out of my ears figuring stuff out.  :-)

I understand that someone with a specific pedagogical goal, might do a
better job of digesting a difficult problem area for others to consume.
 But I question, on an ongoing basis, whether such a person is going to
keep up with the maintenance work needed for such instructional materials.
 The internet is FULL of stale docs that badly need attention from
somebody, so why not put the energy there?

What do I really think a UG is for?  Discussion, show and tell, business
contacts, and personal camaraderie.

Some UGs make study groups, when people want to learn stuff.  The
difference is, the UG doesn't try to cough up the instructional materials
itself.  People just get together to try to motivate each other to learn
the subject matter.  I don't need that myself; I'm one of those
autodidactics ("self-teaching") that the other poster mentioned.


Cheers,
Brandon