[wellylug] My reasons for leaving

Tony Wills ajwills at paradise.net.nz
Thu Aug 5 14:58:18 NZST 2004


At 09:56 5/08/04 +1200, Jamie Dobbs wrote:
>The LUG has moved away from being 'by geeks and for geeks' into an area
>where a vocal minority is making decisions affecting the silent majority.
>If this was not the case there would be no need for a seperate 'wlug_org'
>mailing list and everything could (and would) be discussed frankly and
>honestly on the one list as it is for most other LUGs I have seen.

I thought the two mailing lists were so that people could discuss linux and 
solve linux problems un-impeded by off topic discussion of the group, 
install fests and administrivia.  ie To maximise its user based 
focus.  Everyone is encouraged to join both lists (in my opinion anyone 
signing up to the LUGs mailing list should automatically be subscribe to 
both - they then have to make an active decision to unsubscribe and not 
take part in the groups organisation etc).

Of course some people insist on posting this off topic stuff to the main 
list, thereby negating the usefulness of the division ... if that's what 
people want then you're right, might as well merge them back together.

Everything is being discussed frankly and honestly (and it's a bit of a 
slur on everybody to suggest people are being dis-honest without being 
specific), some people choose not to participate, but to my knowledge 
nothing is being actively hidden or withheld from the membership (but then 
of course I wouldn't know would I ;-).


>There also appears to be a move toward trying to make the LUG make some
>money, which is something I am dead against - the instant a LUG starts to
>look at how it can make money it moves from being something 'good' to
>being something 'bad' (in my opinion).
>
>Why does a LUG need money? I think the simple answer to this is that it
>doesn't. There are no costs associated with meetings as the venue is free
>and any special events etc. that may incur a cost should be run to recover
>the cost only rather than make a profit. It is just plain wrong for a LUG
>to make a profit then try and dedice how to spend it and have suggestions
>such as 'curry night' and the such which are purely of benefit to
>individual members rather than the group as a whole thus moving the LUG
>from being considered a 'not for profit' into a 'lets make profit so our
>members can spend it'.

I agree with everything you say in those two paragraphs, given the 
non-structure of the group, the group should not attempt to raise funds 
from members nor own assets.  


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