[TriLUG] Trilug -- Current Status

[William Sutton via TriLUG]

Looking back at this from a quarter century perspective ... I think we're 
seeing here in accelerated form what happened with auto clubs in the last 
century.  When Linux was still very much new and hobbyist oriented, there 
was a great demand for users groups.  As it has become mainstream, and as 
people have moved from RTP to other areas, or from Linux to other job 
profiles, our active membership has declined.  I've seen the same thing 
with the Northern Virginia Linux users group over the same timeframe.

It's sad, and the further sadness of it is that people are constantly 
exposed to Windows and MacOS.  LUGs were your chance to be exosed to 
Linux.

William Sutton

On Thu, 9 May 2024, Bill Weinel via TriLUG wrote:

> I would agree. Doing whatever is necessary to save the local group would 
> indeed be a worthwhile endeavor. Just having a local Linux users group 
> available as a resource here is something which is unavailable in many 
> parts of the country. If there is a way to keep it active, all efforts 
> should be made to do so.
>
> With the availability of online meeting software for just about any 
> platform these days, there's really no barrier now to keep people with 
> an interest from participating in an organization on a regular basis. 
> (In fact, one of the local clubs in which I am a member, has used this 
> format for their monthly meetings since the beginning of the pandemic.) 
> The added benefit is that those members who are physically challenged, 
> without transportation, or not currently available in the local area can 
> now easily participate in club meetings whenever they occur. It also 
> broadens the variety of programs available for club meetings, since it 
> makes it easier to bring in guest presenters from different areas of the 
> country or the world.
>
> I also wonder if part of the problem is a lack of knowledge, on the part 
> of prospective members, that this resource is available. Perhaps more 
> needs to be done to promote it to interested parties. I suspect that 
> with the broader usage of the Linux operating system these days, that 
> there is likely a greater interest in having a local resource for 
> related topics available.
>
> All the best,
> Bill
>
>
> On 5/9/24 12:35, Cristóbal Palmer via TriLUG wrote:
>> On Thu, May 9, 2024, at 12:09, William Sutton via TriLUG wrote:
>>> There's been a bit of discusion about this on libera IRC #trilug.  The
>>> general consensus, unfortunately, appears to be that TriLUG is dying.
>>> Cristobal could probably provide more info on that.
>> I'm disappointed that things have continued to decay. I wrote about this 
> last November:
>>
>> https://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/Week-of-Mon-20231030/080875.html
>>
>> More recently, what I noticed was a high volume of spam making it to my 
> inbox (I'm still on the -steering list), and what I did to help address that 
> was to log into the system handling mail (pilot) and re-enable greylisting, 
> which at some point in the past had been disabled. I then posted about my 
> change both on the host through a wall message and on IRC.
>>
>> The correct path forward would be, as I mentioned in the post I linked 
> above, to migrate to a currently-supported platform (OS, MTA, Mailing List 
> Manager, etc. etc.) and not simply shut off the ability of the public to 
> reach the SC.
>>
>> I'll go further: on the 12th of June of 2023 I sent a message to the 
> Steering list in which I shared a PDF version of this document:
>>
>> 
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTaDFN0iAdfZVyiySbi4Rfaxjr89XJur8iK5Oit5M6wPGhoILpZQFWbH_dUbXNM42ffdWjq29Gvvpfj/pub>
>>
>> I shared it privately because ibiblio does not typically solicit 
> collections. My longstanding personal connection to TriLUG lead me to draft 
> that proposal in the first place, and the fact that 11 months have passed and 
> TriLUG is in the same situation now compels me to share with the wider group 
> and on a publicly-archived list. I will be very sad if TriLUG falls apart, 
> and I'd like to help prevent that from happening.
>>
>> -CMP
>
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