Ubuntu-Women IRC Meeting January 11th-12th 2007
This first meeting was a bit of a meet-and-greet with other women using Ubuntu. We are excited to report several women new to the channel dropped by!
As such, much of the conversation was getting to know each other and discussing ways in which we use Ubuntu
Session 1: 15:00 UTC, January 11th
This session was quite an international one! We had people from: Philippines, Portugal, United States, France, Canada, India
Topics discussed:
Using Ubuntu with Parallels
Why we chose Ubuntu:
bapoumba commented saying "the philosophy, the stability, no viruses"
Nightrose explained that she chose kubuntu "because of its community and the idea behind it all"
ambimom said "I chose ubuntu because I tried a couple of other distros and nothing else booted on my laptop" (Seems like all that hard work on the installer paid off!)
Sexism on UbuntuForums. As with many forums in the F/OSS world, many of us have encountered sexism. Bapoumba mentioned that moderators on the forums look out for sexism and deal with it when it is discovered.
General excitement about connecting with other women using Ubuntu
dinda (who spearheaded the organization of these meetings) joined the discussion around 16:00 and began working to direct conversation. She began with a quick statement detailing the point of this meeting (and others to come):
"Basically we're trying to get this group a few projects so we can start to help with the greater community"
Loco Teams - Should Ubuntu-Women be considered a Loco team?
Two types of Loco teams: Localized based on country/city/area & Project based teams - Obviously Ubuntu-Women would the one of the latter
Becoming a Loco team gives us access to certain resources
Since there is overlap between -women and other groups, there is fear of duplicate effort
Susana piped up to say she is involved with the Loco team in her area
dinda explained that the Ubuntu-Women project currently has "lots of helpers and few chiefs - a good problem to have" she outlined a major goal of the group right now is to get organized and start tackling small projects within the Ubuntu community
LinuxChix.org was mentioned as a fantastic resource for women globally and locally - indeed, many of the organizers of Ubuntu-Women and early members are part of LinuxChix
cyberix brought up discussion at Debconf about the low participation rate of women in Debian/Ubuntu but had to unfortunately report that no conclusion as to how to solve it was arrived at. Many people still believe that it's because "women just aren't interested in these things"
After hitting himself for playing to stereotypes, cyberix added: "I feel Ubuntu is probably more atractive to women thatn many other operating systems" and that it's more attractive to him as well, "Mainly because it concentrates on user experience and not bits" - to which ulinskie eventually replied "what I like most about ubuntu is the humanness itself that it promote"
meatballhat joined the conversation with a comment about how important the development of the group is to him as, in his words "most of my peers that I've converted to Ubuntu are women, including my wife and sisters"
Session 2: 3:00 UTC, January 11th
Many of the attendees at this meeting were from the United State (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Texas, Colorado) but also included a woman from the Philippines and another from Australia
dinda and pleia2 discussed the IRC channel
IRC channel was previously owned by a forum member who is no longer involved with the project
pleia2 tracked down owner and became contact for channel due to her willingness to take responsibility for it and extensive experience with IRC
Susana and LadyFrost became the two other Ops (mods) for the channel due to their involvement with the channel and the project
Currently we have no "process" for adding new Ops to the channel
We would like more help with moderating the channel, due to "real life" obligations the 3 ops cannot always be around to handle problems in channel
pleia2 will be putting together a course to train existing and potential channel ops
We need to work toward more women taking leadership positions in the group becoming Ubuntu Members, pleia2 mentioned that she has an Ubuntu wiki page and is considering applying within the next year as her experience with the project grows
dinda's suggestion for getting the Ubuntu-Women project moving forward more was choosing a small project and gathering women in the group together to work on it in a "safe" environment with encouragement and help from each other
dinda discussed her thoughts on making an Ubuntu-Women HCI team
A quick rundown of HCI (Human Computer Interaction) was discussed
dinda explained that the art team currently needs people testing their themes
dinda has worked on an HCI Page on the Ubuntu Wiki
dinda said her reasons for moving Ubuntu-Women into tackling this project was: "it really won't take alot of technical skills and it's an area that really need some dedicated help" additionally, "we're not necessarily looking for folks to have an HCI background, just be willing to do some testing for us"
It is thought we can develop this project now and do a little work on feisty and then have a more well-structured base for tackling this in future releases
It was decided we'd like to organize a core team to work with the Artwork and Desktop teams
dinda suggested we should have some specs proposed for the next Conference
dinda quickly explained the specs process, and what they are
pleia2 offered up a link to current Ubuntu specs
dinda encouraged others to develop and submit specs
The importance of developer summits was discussed, as were sponsorships to attend the summits - elkbuntu is a woman who was in channel who benefited from a sponsorship because of her Loco work!
There was casual discussion about the important women already working within the Ubuntu project
In order not to lose momentum, it was decided that the first few meetings should be every two weeks, with meetings after that going to monthly
Our next meeting will be January 25th at 13:00 and 1:00 UTC
dinda mentioned that she's going to the pilot for the Ubuntu Sys Admin course Jan. 28th
mchua mentioned that she doesn't currently have a lot of time, but "if there are any low-key short-term tasks that pop up I'll try to jump on them"
dinda confirmed that she will be developing such a list: "the hope is to develop a type of "job jar" list so folks can go to one webpage, sign up for a task and get it done"
Nursegirl agreed it was a good idea "Particularly if there's both coding and non-coding job lists"
dinda said "task one will be: "Develop a web page that has all these tasks listed"!"
It was brought up that we might also want to have a suggestion wiki for things people need mentoring on, as dinda said "Like 'Mentor Dinda on how to be an IRC Op/Moderator'"
The Ubuntu-Women.org website was discussed - we need to contact the admins to get edits made and things with the wiki done.