<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace;font-size:small">I have a suspicion the recent william incident and the Z issues (tlug list subscriber with name starting with Z), </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace;font-size:small">
are perhaps "mel gibson" moments. It happens. Maybe they will apologize, work well for Mel (or did it). The mail list , i think overall, hasn't been to bad over the years at all, but what alarms me is the quotes on the meet ups. Sounds like if someone recorded the meetings, it may spawn a new reality TV series! Personally, sounds like a TLUG meeting, to me, would be more entertaining then Pawn Stars, Homes on Homes, or even Man Tracker :) (And by entertaining I mean in a more WTF! did they just say/do way). Oddly enough, if the meetings were recorded (not uncommon in presentations), one may find the misbehaviours miraculously start behaving. But in the emails of late, even sounds like the social meet ups after are very problematic.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace;font-size:small">I don't think people should get to hung up on free-speech, its is of huge importance, but its secondary to democracy. The people in TLUG who share common thoughts on this stuff can do what ever they want as a majority ( note however some groups I am a member of require 2/3 votes to make some changes to things, as if the majority is 51/49, you some times don't want to make decisions on that tight a vote). Even the board serves the member base, and long term have no power, as they are elected. In the end the majority hold all the power, so I hope TLUG doesn't get caught up in a lot of necessary politics and red tape, and complicate something that is in the end very very simple. I am a member of a home owners association that owns land amongst the group where we live, some times things get heated, but in the end, there will be a suggestion in the meeting, owners are present, and the board, there is a show of hands (or secret ballot i.e. if election) on issues, and the will of the majority gets things moving along just nice in the end. A strong minority can always go off and do their own thing if they don't respect the governance of the majority, so no concern has to be given to breaking a few eggs.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace;font-size:small">-tl</div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Matt Seburn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mattseburn-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org" target="_blank">mattseburn-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>This thread is absurd to me. Count me as one of those put off enough by what I see here to consider TLUG utterly useless.<br><br>I
attended one meeting years ago, and felt so unwelcome that I haven't
been back since. Heckling was an issue, but I chose not to come back
because the group felt very unwelcoming. It felt like I had walked into
a clique of people who had known each other for years and had no
interest in letting newcomers into the group. I tried to follow along
to the post-meeting social time (hoping that I'd have better luck
socializing there), but everyone walked ahead of me and occasionally
looked back to glare at me until I gave up and left. I'm sure I'm not
the only one who has had an experience like this.<br><br></div>I stayed
on the list because of the useful and interesting discussion, but now
I'm reconsidering that decision. I see a group of people condoning
sexual harassment, and prioritizing the harasser's "right" to harass
above others' right to not be harassed. This is absurd to me. Free
speech does not mean you have the right to say whatever you want without
consequences. You can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre, and you
can't sexually harass people. Both actions can and often do have
serious consequences, and for good reason.<br><br></div>Moderation is an
important part of any internet community. I agree that the banhammer
should be used sparingly, but at a minimum the moderator's role is to
set the tone and ensure that the space remains useful for its intended
purpose, and in TLUG's case this extends to in-person meetups. Many
people in this thread have shared that they feel the group has become
problematic and is not useful to them. I think this is a real problem
that those in charge of TLUG need to pay attention to.<br><br></div>If
you want to get together with your friends and heckle each other and
make sexist jokes, you are free to do so whenever and wherever you
like. That is not the purpose of TLUG, and it's the responsibility of
those in charge to ensure it remains true to its purpose.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br><br></font></span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">Matt<br><br></font></span></div><div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:19 AM, Colin McGregor <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org" target="_blank">colin.mc151@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 9:37 PM, Stewart C. Russell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:scruss@gmail.com" target="_blank">scruss-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>On 14-01-15 07:53 PM, William Park wrote:<br>
><br>
</div><div>> Come on, guys. This bitching about TLUG meeting is strange to me and<br>
> counter productive as group.<br>
<br>
</div>Actually, no; it's very productive to constructively criticize something<br>
you want to see improve. In the link that Colin posted, it's written up<br>
under “Geek Social Fallacy #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am”:<br>
<a href="http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html" target="_blank">http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html</a><br>
— read it, it's good.<br></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Sorry, my bad, I first heard about the Geek Social Fallacy article via Stewart Russell on Monday, and I didn't credit him. Bottom line though, there are points in that article that should be driven home to a GTALug (and several other geek groups) audience (sad but true).<br>
<br></div><div>I often attend the GTALug board meetings, even though I am not a board member. It is my hope that at the next board meeting GTALug will adopt a formal code of conduct and then be prepared to enforce the code...<br>
</div><div><div>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
So, while I know the TLUG directors have tried their best, I have to say<br>
that the new room at Ryerson is definitely sub-standard. In the days of<br>
pretending to be associated with UofT, at least the rooms were big<br>
enough that the annoying back-channel chatter didn't prevent you from<br>
hearing everything.<br>
<div><br>
> People come to the meeting because they<br>
> want to learning something, and people don't come to the meeting because<br>
> they have nothing to learn.<br>
<br>
</div>While TLUG has a roster of genuine subject matter experts who are a joy<br>
to listen to, there are a number of folks at meetings who - maybe - just<br>
come to give their 2¢ on whatever topic is being presented. I understand<br>
that it's sometimes hard to contain one's natural exuberance about<br>
sharing knowledge, but it's better to be kind than correct, so we should<br>
strive to remember that a presenter is just giving their experience of<br>
their way of running their system. It may be vastly different from the<br>
way we'd do it, but if it works, good!<br>
<br>
Stewart<br>
<br>
(who may have occasionally used “cat file | …”, but is yet to run out of<br>
processes to do so)<br>
<div><div>--<br>
The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: <a href="http://gtalug.org/" target="_blank">http://gtalug.org/</a><br>
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns<br>
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: <a href="http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists" target="_blank">http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div></div><br></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>
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