Barriers and ideas (was: Re: [ubuntu-women] introduction

[Clytie Siddall]

On 07/03/2006, at 9:58 PM, Catherine Devlin wrote:

> Hi, everybody!

Welcome Catherine! :)

> Wow, what a group!  I'll take a turn...
>
> I'm a database administrator/programmer near Dayton, Ohio, with a
> background in chemical engineering.  I used Unix on Project Athena in
> college and Solaris at my first DBA job, but have been several years
> now at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where all non-Windows OS's are
> literally banned from the network.

Ouch. :(

> (All our strategic IT decisions
> are based on the necktie quality of the sales reps, I'm afraid.)

I always think "keep tightening them" is the best fashion advice in  
that situation. ;)

Sales Rep: <strangled voice> How's that now? <choke>
Innocent worker: Hmm... still a bit loose. Keep tightening it!
>
> Anyway, I'd been trying for years to get into Linux, but I was never
> blessed with heavy-duty sysadmin skills; I was always tripped up by
> problems with configuration or drivers...

That is such a common barrier. :(

> until Ubuntu, that is.  Now
> I'm a very happy, but anonymous, Ubuntu user.

Yay! :D

> I love it enough to
> want to help its growth, but I really don't know yet how; that's one
> of the things I'm hoping to learn here.

I think by bouncing ideas off each other, supporting each other and  
sharing experience, we can improve our own experience and find ways  
to share it with more people. Courses/tutorials are one option,  
speaking at LUGs and conferences, certainly helping with software  
quality by reporting bugs, proofing or writing docs and giving  
specific feedback. We have a lot to offer, most likely much more than  
that,.
>
> We have a Linux users' group not too far from here, but it's been just
> too hard for me to get to many of their meetings; that's probably
> inhibited my growth as a Linux user.  They meet in the evening on
> school nights, and we're trying to tame a 9-year-old who was raised by
> wolves...

There are far too few wolves trained in childcare. :(

I wonder if your LUG would get into Jabber conferences or  
videoconferences, or some other way of sharing the meeting with  
people who can't necessarily be there geographically. I've had to try  
and find alternative methods of participation, myself, because I'm  
bedridden. I find that until people have been faced with the  
difficulties of being somewhere, they often haven't thought about it,  
or about possible alternatives. Mostly, they're keen to help. It's  
not the same as being there, but it's a lot better than not  
participating at all. :)
>
> I did finally make my first open-source contribution just yesterday; I
> crashed bazaar gracelessly, tracked it to its origin in the source
> code of Python's locale module, and submitted a bug report and a
> suggested fix on Sourceforge.  I felt so grown-up.  :)

It's a big moment when we first take on what we see as an equal or  
independent part in a project. Really, there have been lots of steps  
in between. But often the final step has been a grit-my-teeth-and- 
keep-going rush, and you feel so great when you finally get through  
it! Congratulations! :)

>   But it was an
> intimidating process, both because it's not very well explained and
> because of the fear of being told I'm an idiot.  I don't see much of
> that in the Python community, but it's a part of life in the geek
> world online; the "I rock and you suck" smackdown.

Another common barrier. :(

It beats me why some people think a level of skill online gives them  
permission to flash-freeze their emotional age in single figures.

(if that: I've met some very well-behaved four-year-olds.)
>
> (Hmm, python.org rolled out the site revamp just today, and now the
> bug process is a little better explained...)

Terrific. Also, your experience is valuable: tell them what's  
improved, and what perhaps still needs to improve. They need to hear  
from participants, and not just from the ones who are going to  
lecture them on their code syntax. ;)
>
> On 3/7/06, Clytie Siddall <clytie at riverland.net.au> wrote:
>> One of the great things about the online community, is that I really
>> think there is a much higher proportion of multilingual people, and
>> especially of people who value being multilingual.
>
> I think the reason I stumbled across the locale bug was because I
> chose Esperanto for my Ubuntu installation.

Hey, cool! :)

I have forgotten all the Esperanto I ever knew. It seems to have  
leaked out somewhere. Gotta get some more duct tape...

> But other than that, I
> only really speak German, and then only well enough for Germans to nod
> condescendingly and reply in perfect English.

:D

It makes a big difference, though, that you try to speak someone's  
language. They usually really appreciate that.

That's what I meant about the multlingual attitude: that we respect  
people's differences, and try to learn what we can. I believe it's  
not measured in how many languages you know, or how well you know  
them, but simply in the willingness to try and understand.
>
> Oh, a final thought - how many of us have blogs?  Would people be
> interested in an Ubuntu-women RSS feed?  Or - maybe this would be
> simpler - how about an agreed-upon tag (or set of tags) to tag our
> blogs with at del.icio.us?  "ubuntu women blog" would be the obvious
> set, I guess...
>
It sounds good: there would be quite a few people with blogs. I  
haven't got into it yet, for some reason, but I use RSS from the  
reader point of view. Having Ubuntu-women blogs would be another way  
to share our experience. :)

from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm  
Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN