[RFC] LEP#2, Local Community Teams vs. Locale Teams

[Michael Hall]

On 07/19/2011 03:56 AM, YoBoY wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm a bit tired of this opposition to Country VS Language (and I'm a bit
> tired in general) where for me this is in majority the same when we are
> not talking about an "English" LoCo team.

Just to be absolutely clear, there is no opposition to language teams.
But the LoCo Directory is not designed to support non-geographic teams,
and entering non-geographic teams into the LoCo Directory causes
confusion and complications. We build the LoCo Directory to serve a very
specific purpose, and that is geographically connected communities.  As
such, this request is based on practicality, not prejudice.  We want to
keep the France-local team in the LoCo Directory, but we can not
properly support the global French-language team.

> Let me just remind you that lot of Local Community Teams are also
> Language Teams (correct me if I'm wrong). The only difference is for
> teams where the language is shared by more than one country.

In the western hemisphere, countries have almost universally adopted
European languages.  As such, a language usually has very little to do
with a geographic location on this side of the planet, and I can't think
of a single instance where a local team would also be a stand-alone
language team.

> It's a natural evolution for a LoCo Team to provide language support.

Yes, but again in the western hemisphere, a LoCo Team isn't going to be
providing support for their language on their own.  The Chilean team
will likely provide support in Spanish, but it's not going to be the
only one doing it.

> Now what do you want. Each team who provide language support split in
> two teams? But where? in Launchpad? everywhere on the network with two
> names (dns, irc, ...)? For the native language support we have to create
> new teams ? Where a new user searching for support have to go to find
> online help?

I don't think we necessarily need to split teams, you can simply treat
your combined language/geographic team as just a geographic team in the
context of the LoCo Directory.  So ubuntu-fr can continue to provide
global French language support, but within the LoCo Directory, only
select "France" as the country. You can continue to use the same
resources (IRC, Forums, etc) both uses.  All we ask is that you don't
list non-local countries as part of your team in the LoCo Directory (and
for the most part, teams will only have one geographically local country
anyway).

> I finish with a last question because nobody seems to want to talk about
> that. What is the place of a language support team in the Ubuntu world?

The Ubuntu community is made up of a number of different teams, loco
teams, language teams, project teams, interest teams, advocacy teams,
etc.  The fact that the LoCo Directory was only designed for one of
those types by no means implies that the others don't have a place.  We
can't support language teams for the same reason we can't support the
Kubuntu team, or the Beginners team, or the Classroom team, but all
those teams are still very important parts of the overall Ubuntu community.

--
Michael Hall
mhall119 at gmail.com