[Techtalk] New to the list...new to linux

[Mary Gardiner]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 12:31:18AM -0400, Natural Justice Is Blind wrote:
> I would agree that many people don't realize or know that these 
> groups are out there, but I think another problem is approachability. 
>  While the people at my local LUG weren't mean or unfriendly, I'm 
> not all that anxious to go to another meeting, based solely on my 
> previous experience.  I'm not sure if that experience is common.

I go to the Sydney Linux Users Group regularly, but I wonder if you have seen
some of the same problems I have:

* People who assume that being right is more importantly, socially, than being
  polite, or welcoming, or nice (I have several friends who have no idea why
  they polarise SLUG opinion so much, even though they proclaim it is 'so
  important to be really clear about what is right, and you have to be blunt
  about it or people won't get it').

* People who are really peculiar about women. There are people like that
  everywhere, but in some male-dominated social circles in particular, the
  only reason a women could possibly have joined their circle is to seek a
  partner, and is to be treated as such.

I find the first a much more noticeable problem than the second, but several
women of my acquaintance find it to be much the reverse.

As an aside, as the FAQ-maintainer, who will maintain shortly, can people
reply to me privately with the web address and other details of their LUG, and
add comments as to attitude to newbies, general technical level of discussion,
frequency of newbie events like installfests, and any other comments that
might be useful to a new Linux user, or someone who hasn't been to a LUG
before. Post them to linuxchix-lug at puzzling.org, so I can filter them.

As for the rest of my post, please post followups to issues at linuxchix.org, NOT
techtalk.

-Mary.

-- 
Mary Gardiner
<mary at puzzling.org>