[IndiChix] Chix wars

Sriram Narayanan sriramnrn at gmail.com
Sat Jan 3 17:43:21 UTC 2009


Hey there Pavithran, I see that Hassath has already responded, but as
a list member like yourself, I thought I'll chip in with my own
thoughts.

On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, pavithran <pavithran.s at gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess I will be banned from the group , but still I ask why these endless
> mails and discussions on a domain name , a admin , a group and  who controls
> what !
>

This is a good question, and something that I was asked yesterday by
someone I know. I see that Pavithran has attempted to summarize this
in his own words, but I wanted to explain this in some detail.

As a list member who is around simply to meet more like minded people,
I'd not really care about who actually manages the domain, and about
other administrative trivia. After all, we don't really care about the
administrative internals of other opensource/community groups such as
those at apache.org, or at java.net, or at eclipse.org. We as list
members have to simply sign up, participate, ask questions and respond
to them, and go on with our life.

Such activity is possible on LinuxChix as well, as we all know, and
from what I've seen, there's no threat of anyone getting kicked out
for simply asking questions.

Just as everyone has a variety of interests, some list members are
also interested in ensuring that the administration of the community
is paid attention to. From what I have gathered from the mail threads,
the lady (Swati Sani) who has continued to renew the domain name has
dissociated herself from the mailing list, and is also somehow not
accessible over the email address that everyone knows.

In such a situation, in other communities, active list members who are
interested in this specific matter, propose that the domain name
owners be requested to transfer the various administrative and other
DNS contacts to active members on the list. This is in the interests
of continuity and maintainability.


In case, anyone feel that DNS ownership is not really something to
worry about, then do let me know. All said and done, some people on
the list feel the need to handle  administrative tasks, and we should
understand why they want to do this, and then let them do this as long
as it's in the interests of the community.

> And someone points that this will scare newbies . I bet they would have
> already ran away :(
>

I'm a newbie to this list, and I've not run away yet :) I know that
some of my female friends are watching this list, and they have
confirmed to me that they are not going to run away either :)

What has happened is that the discussion did occassionally move off
track, but we have thankfully taken cognizance of this. Our life goes
off-tack sometimes, so what's a particular discussion on a list ?
Nobody's perfect, after all!

> But neverthless the points made by the people are needed .
> The situation arose when domain .org.in domain was renewed by someone who is
> a non member of the group .
> Hence a discussion on getting the in. domain and the feasiblities .

Unfortunately, the discussion has got occassionally side tracked, but
by now, the overall understanding is present on the list I believe.

> Someone telling / some one blaming others about a possiblity of fork really
> took the whole issue to a different direction with personal attacks which
> could have been avoided .
>

It's great that you too have noticed this. Name calling, and games of
one-upmanship are indeed best avoided.

> I have seen some good activity by linuxchix such as getting linuxchix
> stickers printed and a posters of  all linuxchix. Even the linux chix planet
> was some what active .

I'm a member of some lists where the word "was" could be applied. What
we've learned is that one can always resume activities without
worrying about maintaining a regular rythm.

> I suggest :
> *Instead of just continuous mails why not go to domain control panel of
> .org.in and make it point in. and making in. the permanent domain maintained
> by the existing mailing list admin group .

Doing things clearly and explicity by email is ideal from a long term
perspective. Placing matters for discussion on a list and discussing
matters helps create archived records for all.

As it is, raising this topic on the list itself has shown us lots of
misleading information. Just imagine, even though you knew all the
facts, you yourself irrationally (and unjustifiable) feared getting
kicked off :P

> *The most important thing is to go to colleges and industries and get more
> girls involved in the FOSS movement and encourage them to contribute .
> *Why not organise a competition for linux chix india poster design , logo
> design .. the traditional Indian look for a penguin .
> *Why not like in fci.wikia.com show a featured contributor in linuxchix
> website with some lines of the women who contributed for the FOSS project .
>

Why not, indeed! Go for it :) And if people are artistically minded,
please contact me - there's another community that would like
artistically minded people to help with artwork and themes !

Actually, it's best if those interested simply start of activities. I
say this because waiting for any recognized name from the list to
start off an activity is similar to going on some pre-arranged tourism
tour. A community can always function happily if various people
propose various things and simply start doing stuff and discussing
about it :) We do just this on the Bangalore Java and Opensolaris user
groups, and it has worked for us there.

> There is lot of scope for linuxchix india . It's better if this domain and
> moderator issue be solved soon and get to real tasks.
>

Yes indeed. An early resolution is advisable, and hence all these
emails on this topic. Discussing things in public is so much nicer
than sending offline emails and plotting and conniving. Hence all
these emails. Long emails threads are not necesarily a bad thing. On
the opensolaris lists, there are discussions I watch where there are
sometimes over a 100+ messages on a give thread !

> Regards,
> pavithran

-- Sriram


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