User talk:SvenAERTS/olpc community

olpc community starting page

1. I worked at the OLPC Europe headquarters together with people like Giulia D'AMICO-OLPC.
2. I understand that OLPC is a community driven project, it wants to be an Open Community Project, using Open Software, etc.
3. I understand the OLPC - as an acronym in CAPITALS - is used to refer to the official OLPC not for profit and "olpc" - in small caps - to the community of supporters who are not employed by the OLPC not for profit.
4. I understand this wiki was originally started by the hardware and software engineer teams of OLPC to facilitate and further their collaborations and exchanges that ultimately lead to the final first version of the XO-laptops and it is still used to document and expand all this, the next XO models, etc.
5. I believe that during this process, also non-hardware and software engineers started using the wiki to further other aspects: specialised subgroups, preparing deployments, building support to the project, etc.
6. I think it would be logical to add a welcome page for this olpc community. And I'd like to make this page the starting page for this olpc community. I'd like to see what you think about this, so please write your comments below.
7. Immediately I stumble into an issue: the wiki software turns the name I'd like to give the page "olpc community" into "Olpc community". Is there a way around this? Thy.

--SvenAERTS 09:34, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion your proposal is a waste of effort and disruptive to the Wiki. Too few members of the community still use this Wiki as a focus of their community. Instead they use e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and many other services. There is already a welcome page at The OLPC Wiki, along with a side bar of links for Contact us, Communicate, and Participate. If there are problems with those pages, provide feedback on the corresponding talk page. You are a lone voice in the wilderness, proposing unilateral action without consultation. I seem to disagree with almost every edit you make, and have nobody to agree or disagree with my opinion. Please, get involved in the active community groups; such as Unleash Kids, Sugar Labs, XSCE, and Support Gang. I've not seen you in those groups yet! --Quozl 02:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

Dear Quozl, I take your comments extremely serious; I follow the advise "to be bold", click the edit-button wherever I think it is useful and if you or other experts indicate differently, I take action asap. Let me reply to your insert:

cf. your "In my opinion your proposal is a waste of effort and disruptive to the Wiki. Too few members of the community still use this Wiki as a focus of their community. Instead they use e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and many other services."

I've been working with Giulia D'AMICO. I think you'll agree she also knows a thing or two about olpc and open community projects. So do I. Both Giulia and me discussed OLPC and olpc a lot and she agrees that splintering the places where the olpc community let alone OLPC would and are developing their stuff is not good. In the early years of this wiki, enthusiasm was unbridled and discussion groups, mailing lists, etc. were made in every possible sense resulting in a lot of them imploding because members left. Involving the olpc community has been very poorly managed. Both Giulia and me agree that this wiki is the starting place for every olpc community activity; if tools that the wiki provide would be insufficient: ok continue on another place, but ALWAYS leave a starting page/link here on the wiki so people from the olpc community can always find out. Both Giulia and me would have liked to see the olpc community grown exponentially.

cf. your "There is already a welcome page at The OLPC Wiki, along with a side bar of links for Contact us, Communicate, and Participate. If there are problems with those pages, provide feedback on the corresponding talk page."

Imho, the wiki has been created by the OLPC management and it welcomes both OLPC management and employees and the olpc community. I'm from the olpc community, I think it is a good thing to have a welcome page per country/language group and a central welcome page for this olpc community where they can read how things are organized, with the wording I use.

cf. your "You are a lone voice in the wilderness, proposing unilateral action without consultation."

Looking around in various places, I have the impression the olpc community has imploded. Many first generation supporters were offended/feel offended. I've let people who found themselves much smarter, experience and everything you want take management positions, etc. Where are they now? And what conclusions do you take from that? Me, I derive from that that the olpc community has been poorly managed and there need to be some serious strategic management evaluation at OLPC. I follow what's going on here using the "Recent Changes" feature. I agree, we're very very few who are still here and then I derive from that - supporting the cause. I'd love to be get more "consultation", only I don't see how/know how. Which I find very bizarre taken that OLPC is/should be/was set-up as an open community project. The only instructions I live by are: be bold, click the edit button, start collaborating, if you need to find out something: consult the wiki and then the archives in the mailinglists, use the email lists, and the irc channels. Only the email lists don't work anymore and the irc channels - well, only 3 are in use/populated. If the OLPC management has any other way to interact with, let me know.

cf. your "I seem to disagree with almost every edit you make, and have nobody to agree or disagree with my opinion. Please, get involved in the active community groups; such as Unleash Kids, Sugar Labs, XSCE, and Support Gang. I've not seen you in those groups yet! --Quozl 02:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)."

I think there's a typo in the first part. I am looking at these groups too and try to be involved if they allow me and to the point they align of course with where I can add something valuable. Still, I think - together with Giulia D'AMICO, here this wiki is THE place for the olpc community to develop olpc community stuff. Apart from evangelising on OLPC here in Brussels - at the conferences that are going on here, I don't do much more. I always refer people back to the website and the wiki. I have some groups that come back to me for some more info because they can't get anybody from OLPC on the phone. I don't know if this is true or not. I advise people to start-up an olpc community dpt/cell in their organization, set-up an olpc lab, prepare them to order 100 XO's = the minimum order and stuff like that. So far I havent' seen any of the many contacts from the conferences who stood by their intentions and moved beyond that. In the spare time that I have, I prepare things to get to a lab deployment and not to disturb the undoubtedly understaffed OLPC employees and management. Looking forward to other feedback and instructions. --SvenAERTS 15:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)