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1. Domain name ownership should be vested with the active list members.
This has been largely proposed by Vid, and has been given explicit and
implicit acknowledgement and support on the list by Hassath, Kingsly
and myself so far. If have missed out on any names, I welcome
additional names being mentioned here in this particular context.

2. The need for advisory groups and events
The impression that I have is that you have proposed this, and I have
seen at least one other list member talk about this as well. I give my
own +1 to your previous draft where you had mentioned the existence of
two small groups. I have also responded to that other list member on
the list itself, and have voiced my opinion stating that we should all
feel free to propose and start off new activities.

It is indeed important to have advisory groups who can be looked upon
for overall direction. However, forming such groups is separate from
seeking domain name ownership. I feel that we should keep these two
issues separate.

> * LinuxChix-India Advisory group
>    - Members will be women founded and spent many initial efforts for this
> community.
>    - They will be the administrative contact for our domain linuxchix.org.in
<snip/>
>
> * LinuxChix-India Administrative group
>   - Members of this group will be the various administrators and technical
> contacts
>   - They may opt in to be the technical contact for our domain
> linuxchix.org.in
<snip/>

The previous point implies that members of the advisory group will be
the administrative contacts. I would like to go a level further, and
state that they should have complete ownership of the domain. This is
in the interests of continuity.

Also, if the person owning the domain does not wish to hand over
ownership to active members today, it does leave the stability of the
domain name in doubt. This is because the owner is fully within her
rights to want to point the domain name to another IP address. Such a
move cannot be questioned and is perfectly proper. However, it would
leave our community without a domain, and we'd have to then scramble
about to get a new domain. While such a new domain can no doubt be
procured within a day, it's also ideal that we resolve the domain name
ownership issue once and for all.

This may be an issue for a select few and not for others, but as long
as the select few are acting in the interests of the overall
community, I feel that we should let this select small group go ahead
with its pursuit.

As a sysadmin myself, I add my +1 to the need for an Administrative
Group. Sysadmins are necessary for the functioning of an online
community and they have a role to play. However, my +1 is for an a
mail/proposal specific to the list, and not for a mail going to Swati
Sani.

> Apart from these two groups that will serve "advisory" and "administrative"
> roles within our community our large "volunteer" group will continue to
> exist. Volunteers may choose to:
>
> - Volunteer for LinuxChix-India
> (http://linuxchix.org.in/wiki/index.php/Volunteer_for_LinuxChix-India) or,
> - Volunteer for several interest groups
> (http://linuxchix.org.in/wiki/index.php/Main_Page#Volunteering)
>
> It is important to cite that linuxchix.org heavily recommends that chapters
> use a subdomain of linuxchix.org, in our case it would be
> http://india.linuxchix.org.
>

I'm new to this community and did not know that linuxchix.org
recommends that chapters use a subdomain. I looked up at the website,
and found nothing here:
http://www.linuxchix.org/founding-local-linuxchix-chapter.html

So having a link to the above statement would be good to have.

However, even if there is no link to such a recommendation, it does
seem a very sensible thing.

> This means while our sites are hosted per our convenience we will maintain
> affiliation with our parent organization and the central LinuxChix group can
> help us support us if necessary. All requests made to
> http://india.linuxchix.org will get redirected to http://linuxchix.org.in
>

If we do go ahead and have india.linuxchix.org (which seems a good
idea from the way you have presented it here), I would say that
linuxchix.org.in issue redirects to india.linuxchix.org. This would
help us stay compliant with the upstream recommendation that you have
mentioned (and to which we should ideally have a link to as well).

> After being here slightly over a year and observing activities of this
> community, it appears the following members actively engage in several
> LinuxChix-India's activities:
>
> - Aneesha
> - Ankita
> - Archana
> - Barkha
> - Hassath
> - Runa
> - Swati

No offense to Swat Sani, but I have seen at plain statements from at
Vid at a number of levels that Swati has moved away from the Indian
community. In fact, the entire discussion over the past few days has
been on asking Swati Sani to the domain name to the active list
members.

I have also not seen any responses from her to this list at all
despite explicit questions asking whether we know of other contact
information for her. It is evident that she does not wish to be
contacted.

Dragging her back into our activities would then be a violation of her
privacy, and I think we should abstain from that.

Once we have a draft ready and approved by active list members, that
would be a  more appropriate time to approach her, I feel.

> - Vidya
>

My vote would be for Hassath to send a mail, but that mail would be
very clearly and explicity about the transfer of domain name control.

> If it seems agreeable to these individuals, after having their individual
> consent think we should elect each member either as an advisor (or)
> administrator.
>
> I sincerely hope our involved leaders guide us through this procedure so we
> can further our community's goals and activities.
>
> If you are a member of this list and this request seems agreeable , please
> sign your name to this email.
>

As a list member, I'm -1 to this particular mail being a formal mail
to Swati Sani for the following reasons:
1. This mail incorporates two different elements as pointed out by me above.

2. It's better to draft a clear and explicit mail stating the one
issue that we wish to interact on with Swat Sani, have that on the
list for approval, and to then send it to Swati Sani. All other
issues, while important, ought to be taken up on a separate thread.

It is good that you have located a different email address that
swatisani may be using - hopefully she reads the mails there and
responds to the various mail exchanges that have occured on this list
during the pazts few days.

> Thanks,
> --
> Gayathri
>
>
> List of individuals attesting this email request:
> ------------------------------------------
> Gayathri Swaminathan
>

I'm not adding my name to this particular mail given my -1 and the
reasons given above.

-- Sriram