[WFS-India] Key Conflicts in formulating Mail List Guidelines

[Satabdi Das]

>
> Rules are great for specifications.
> Specifications are a form of knowledge and should also be free.
>
> Only those who specify well can survive in the FOSS world.
>
>  This is a sweeping statement! :)
And our group should precisely avoid using such intimidating statements. I
consider myself fairly a beginner as a FOSS contributor although I have
been using a FOSS OS and various FOSS tools for more than 8 years now. And
I would definitely be scared to see such a statement from a long time FOSS
enthusiast/contributor/user. This would make me think twice whether I am
fit to join FOSS.

There are women like me out there who need a little friendly push, guidance
and advice to start using FOSS and may be, even contributing to it. Lets
not frighten them away with high standards even before they begin. And
lets, by all mean, try to demystify such ideas. The world is not full of
awesome, talented people. There are people who might not be good at the
things which longtime FOSS-contributors might consider as very valuable or
important. If we harbor such thoughts, FOSS will always be
a marginalized community.

So specs should be part of our culture.
>
>  I think friendliness should be the main part of our culture in this
group. There are many FOSS groups, but still we have so few women in it.
All the existing FOSS groups with all their high standards have not been
able to increase the number of women.

Since we are aiming particularly at that problem,lets try to think a bit
differently from other FOSS groups. If we can make them interested in FOSS,
they will pick up the mailing list etiquette, rules, guidelines and
standards from other FOSS groups eventually if they continue contributing
to FOSS. Let us focus on making it interesting to them.

I personally got hooked into FOSS, because I saw how my FOSS OS is much
better than a resource hogging, unstable and virus-prone windows, because I
came to know about some cool, interesting people who were contributing to
FOSS, because, I like programming and I love to write something which
people will use. I was vaguely aware of the ideals behind FOSS - but
gradually I started appreciating the FOSS philosophy much later.

The resolution is
> "Experienced members may continue to follow the strict version of
> mailing list rules, but are advised to maintain a cheerful and helpful
> atmosphere. "
>
>
I will see if I can improve it further.
>
> I like the second part of the resolution more than the first part! :)  So
+1 for the second part. Would love to see if you can bring something even
better.

Thanks,
Satabdi


-- 
Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important
that you do it <http://bangalore.aidindia.org/>.
Find me on the internet <http://about.me/satabdi>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openhatch.org/pipermail/wfs-india/attachments/20130620/44989a17/attachment.html>