Meeting updates...

[Jamon Camisso]

Christopher Browne wrote:

>Not everyone will care about every topic.  The Installfest is a highly
>useful thing for helping out people who are novices to Linux.  It may
>be of "negative interest level" to programmers.  It won't be of much
>interest to "computing theoreticians," either.
>
I've lost bits of this thread, but don't think I've seen mention of 
support for new users after the installfest. Though I know most of us 
are probably in the business of telling people to search out their 
answers on the web, or are paid to do just such a thing so others don't 
have to, to simply install a distro onto someone's computer will not be 
enough.

Speaking only from personal experience, I remember my first few attempts 
at installing Corel and Redhat went perfectly. It was the frustration 
with poor documentation and breakage that kept me going back to MS until 
I broke that of course.

With this in mind, then, would it be worth anyone's time to compile a 
list of forums, mailing-lists, links etc. to distribute to attendees? 
Morover, might a basic written manual about accessing man and info 
pages, as well as basic internet configuration guide be helpful? I think 
that to have these support mechanisms (if I may call them such) in place 
will go a long way to keeping any box clean of other more distasteful 
operating systems and will provide enough information to keep new users 
from becoming discouraged when they inevitably end up breaking something.

Last note, how about a temporary forum for people to access after an 
installfest? If nothing else it would promote a sense of community 
amongst those just getting started and would allow for a common starting 
point and sharing of knowledge amongst new users. I should think that as 
ambassadors of the Linux community we owe it to ourseleves any everyone 
in the community to properly introduce new users into the 
community(ies). We all had to begin from scratch at some point -- 
starting new users off with a critical mass of information cannot but 
benefit everyone involved in the long run.

Would it be easier to post forums, links, lists, etc. on a forum with a 
simple connectivity guide to get people started? Rather like a carrot 
dangled tantalizingly close but just far enough to get people walking on 
their own.

My $0.02*5
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