Ubuntu-Arabic

[Daniel Holbach]

Salam,

Am Montag, den 12.10.2009, 20:58 +0100 schrieb Rafik Ouerchefani:
> I can say it would be better to wait until we have a good number of
> active groups and individuals from arabic countries before going into
> a "federal" team.
> We tried last year with not much success. I wrote to every Arabic loco
> team leader in a first step then to every Arabic list at
> lists.ubuntu.com with a very few responses and zero action. 
> In addition, the active people from Arabic countries now are either
> English or French speaking with lesser interest in Arabic content.
> For these reasons, we tried also to have ubuntu-arabic as a source of
> support more than a social team. With a dedicated server we offered
> hosting, IRC bots and others services that some literally refused.
> That was pretty discouraging. Money and time were spent for nothing.
>   
> As almost nothing changed since last year, the big team is not for
> today I think. If things changes, there will be a spontaneous need for
> an ubuntu-arabic team.

I don't think it's an "either / or decision". There's cases where it
makes a lot of sense to just think locally:

      * local events: release parties, participation in the Global Jam,
        hosting talks, inviting people to install parties, etc
      * local support: if you meet with your team regularly, there will
        be new people who are interested but will need some help
      * raising awareness of Ubuntu locally (talks at universities,
        bookshops, etc.)
      * etc.


But there's also a lot of cases where collaboration and coordination in
the wider Arabic team will be preferable:

      * Translation efforts
      * Documentation of best-practices of all Arabic teams
      * wider discussion of local initiatives and how they went
      * etc.

If you can convey this to your local team members, make a modest plan
and start with little steps, I could imagine that's one way to do it.

You could also get in touch with the US Team, which has been successful
at coordinating across US State Teams.

Keep up the good work!

Have a great day,
 Daniel