US Teams Mentoring Project IRC Metting

[Matthew East]

Hi,

On 12/09/2007, Aaron Toponce <aaron.toponce at gmail.com> wrote:
> The topic for the next IRC meeting for the US Teams Mentoring Project is
> tentatively scheduled for Sept 29th, 16:00 UTC.  Keep an eye on this
> list, and #ubuntu-us for possible changes.  This meeting will be held in
> a fashion similar to Education week, and the CC meetings.
>
> #ubuntu-us will be moderated during the meeting, giving voice only to
> the mentors of the project, a few key LoCo leaders and the person who
> has a concern.

Are you sure this is strictly necessary? I'm slightly concerned that
this sort of approach is likely to give the wrong impression about how
discussion in the Ubuntu community works. Mentors shouldn't have more
rights than anyone else, they are around to help, rather than to
govern. I'm pretty sure that you can trust people to behave properly:
we've had plenty of difficult meetings in other groups, for example
the Community Council, where it hasn't been necessary to impose formal
restrictions of this kind.

> Now is the time to weigh in your voice concerning tax exemption,
> financial funding and legal liability concerns.  This is a hot topic at
> the moment, and I would like to see anyone and everyone's input on this
> matter.  Of course, this discussion extends past just US Teams, to LoCos
> in general, as we have seen it on both mailing lists.

I'd suggest discussing issues which are common to all local teams on
the loco-contacts list and at local team meetings, rather than US team
meetings and on US-specific mailing lists. This avoids any risk of
isolating US teams from the rest of the local team community.

In terms of this specific issue, it sounds to me like it's getting out
of control and would probably benefit from some guidance from the
Community Council. Perhaps a good way to proceed would be to present a
summary of the concerns arising out of the meeting (if concerns still
persist) to the Community Council at their next meeting or by email.

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF