[IndiChix] An Open request to LinuxChix-India

[Sriram Narayanan]

I'm heavily overquoting here, but I fear that with branches and forks
in threads, several points may be missed out on at a later date.
Hence, I wish to keep all the points together in one place.

Read on.

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Sriram Narayanan <sriramnrn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> * 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.

To clarify, I feel it very, very important that the owners be
recognized active list members. With no offense or insult intended to
Swati Sani, there have been statements made that she is not even a
list member for at least a year (if not more). As such, I would not
know how to recognize her as an active list member. For reasons given
below, I'd propose that the domain ownsers be active list members.

>
> 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
>