[IndiChix] The state of things at LinuxChix India

[VaibhaV Sharma]

At the risk of breaking my own resolution, I type this email.

I see pointless arguments flying around this mailing list, personal  
accusations (both direct and indirect), attitudes (here and in the BOF  
at FOSS.IN), assumptions about the existence of different "friend"  
camps (and whose "side" people are on), quoting private email on the  
public list and what not.

One of the reasons why I had not been replying on the list was exactly  
this. I never wanted to be and still do not wish to be associated with  
*any* cat fights. The other reason, I hope, would be evident from this  
email. I know that this email will be dissected and parts of it will  
be removed and other parts replied to. I would request you to read and  
understand the events in their entirety and inter-relation from my  
point of view. The picking of individual items and comments on those  
are what is causing the heated discussions.

I will list out fingers pointed towards me and if you keep an open and  
non-biased mind, I hope you will see what has been going on.

What did I do?
* Was asked to do so and registered the domain, and maintained it  
since 2005. To be honest, there was not much to be done as there was  
absolutely no activity around the mailing list. Other than occasional  
emails from people here and there, this list was dead. Even the  
wordpress install on the website was dead because there was absolutely  
no activity on the group.

* At some point of time (I don't have the time and energy to pull out  
email references), Runa, Vidya, Barkha, Aneesha and a few others  
started popping up on the list with an idea of reviving the group with  
a "core group" of active people. I was asked (mixture of on this list  
and on IRC) if a wiki could be setup so that minimal administration  
would be needed for the website (no one had the time) and  
simultaneously, content could be put up. So I put up mediawiki,  
configured it but suggested to kept the account creation process "by  
request" for a while as FOSS.IN was approaching and there were  
temporary technical issues related to that (which I will highlight  
soon). [1] They agreed.

This (as I know now) was seen as if I was controlling the domain and  
how it was hosted. Well, I did what I could at that time and suggested  
the best way out. The temporary restrictions on wiki account creation  
were removed sometime after FOSS.IN was done with.

* During / after FOSS.IN, it was discussed that yahoogroups is not  
suitable for hosting the mailing list. I initially suggested that it  
could continue to be used if configured correctly but before I could  
look back and co-ordinate, a decision was taken (by the group. Note:  
no men involved IIRC) to do away with yahoogroups and move to mailman.

Barkha, Runa and Vidya asked me about mailman during FOSS.IN and I  
said I would not be able to get that working on the same box as there  
were technical issues. [2]. It seems that was not taken very well and  
was (again) viewed as if I was controlling the situation. If someone  
had come up with a suggestion to host the lists on a different box  
with the same domain "linuxchix.org.in", adding proper DNS entries was  
a matter of minutes. But even better, LC.org is now hosting the lists  
which I think worked out. I thought the issue was closed there but  
apparently not.

Personally, I do not see any difference between posting on this list  
vs. posting on yahoogroups based lists. Technically, it does not  
really matter what domain you host the list on as long as people are  
able to register and use it to go on to more important tasks.

* As for the domain WHOIS information, it took me 5 minutes to  
register the domain two years ago and I did not even remember what  
WHOIS information was stuck in there. The issue of WHOIS information  
has been popping up for the past few months. But at the same time,  
there were multiple voices proposing different things in general for  
the group (list admin appointment, website maintenance, planet setup,  
appointment of officers in-charge of the group?). There was this talk  
of the core group and then "voting" for everything that the group does  
and then the "appointment" of the list admins. I decided to wait till  
there was a consensus.

But then why did I change it to Swati's info? Well, if I left it to my  
name, a "man" was controlling things. Swati was one of the people who  
was part of the initial linuxchix India meetings and for me, that was  
the starting point. Not as if changing WHOIS information changes  
anything. It was a a failed attempt to satisfy the WHOIS related  
"control issues" so that we could go on with more important tasks. So  
how does the website look now with Swati's name in the WHOIS  
information? Any more usable than before? Do you see what my point is  
here?

If you know how domains work, it just does not make sense to put the  
item "assign WHOIS information to 3 individuals" on the task list of  
this group at this stage. That particular change has absolutely no  
effect whatsoever on how domains function. The key here should have  
been a "functional aspect" of the group's resources and *not* "who is  
what" in the hierarchy in terms of who "admins" what and who holds  
what. Responsibility sharing should be for "functional" (read moving)  
items that one can contribute to. Having your name listed in a  
domain's WHOIS information is of Zero value and Zero effort.

* For ssh access to the website, again multiple voices. There were  
talks of the need of a planet.linuxchix.org.in on the list. There were  
no concrete plans of who is supposed to do what. All that was  
happening on the list was assignment of admin access to this and plans  
to appoint titles to members.

I (was asked and) gave ssh access to Barkha so that she could setup  
and maintain the planet. Setting up a planet is not a big task so as  
to "announce" that someone is working on it and will be ready in a  
while. She mentioned that she will make an announcement of the planet  
once she is satisfied with the config. That took about a day and a  
half I suppose and right then, this mess of emails started and thats  
why, I believe, it was never formally announced.

Seriously, all I did was sit quietly and "facilitate" so that the  
women members could pick up and run with what is available. I do not  
have the energy, nor the time or inclination to meddle around with  
useless power struggles and personal preferences of people.

It hurts to see this happening to the group even before there has been  
a single productive outcome out of the activities.

Seriously -

* If you really want a female only list, create one or clearly specify  
it in this list's charter.

* If you want girls only meetings, announce them to be so. Do not  
assume (or hope) that men will not turn up.

* I just can't believe that we are talking of a formal organization  
with spokespersons and officers at this stage. Organize a few good  
LinuxChix India meetings (with good attendance), have lots of fun  
socializing and growing the bonds and then think about what else can  
be done.

There are productive ways of solving restrictions rather than trying  
to prove a point.

I tried to take the accusations of "controling" things around here  
lightly. But it seems to be turning ugly on me.

This is not what I thought linuxchix.org.in would be. With the current  
situation, I am not very enthusiastic about staying on this list  
anymore. However, I am still committed to helping with whatever I can  
do. But only if you can sort out your cat fights yourself and keep me  
out of it please.

Disappointed.

--
VaibhaV Sharma
http://vsharma.net

PS:
[1] and [2]
Server related Technical issues
I could choose to not share the following information but if this  
helps, why not. I am not the 100% owner of the box running  
linuxchix.org.in. I do handle a major portion of responsibility of  
root on the box and of several sites running on it. Basically, if the  
box drops a packet, I get kicked.

linuxchix.org.in is hosted on the same server as http://foss.in and  
several other high volume websites. Typically around FOSS.IN every  
year, the activity level on the server increases dramatically. With  
that, external attempts to poke around the box increases 10 folds too.  
For this reason, we clamp up on all additional activity (account  
creation, open ports, running daemons, cron jobs, etc.) till we are  
done with FOSS.IN. One does not need ssh access to "create" a website.  
You need that to "upload" the website into production. So what makes  
more sense here if you really want to get things done?

As for new software and services, partners sharing the box have a pre- 
defined set of services that we can run to keep things sane. Mailman  
is not one of them.