[conspire] I'm thinking of doing a LUG near Coos Bay, OR

[Ron / BCLUG]

Rev Anon wrote on 2024-11-11 09:46:

> I'm thinking of doing a LUG near Coos Bay, OR, any advice?

There are probably people nearby that use and are *enthusiastic* about 
Linux, so go for it.


Some thoughts:

Register a domain and put some info on it about what the LUG is about 
and where it's located (mention Oregon - cast a wide net).

This will help people find you and be a landing page URL that you can 
share to garner interest. This can usually be small and self-hosted: 
WordPress is okay for this, for example.


It's *hard* finding people interested.  I'd estimate 50% of LUG members 
are 50 years old or older. Heck, probably 50% retired. How does one 
reach such a demographic? They're not on social media much.

However, local Reddit for r/yourRegion can be notified occasionally, 
maybe Facebook too.

Local educational institutions from HS to post-secondary. Maybe some CS 
classes nearby? High schools probably have computer clubs.


Consider a mailing list or other communication channel for your LUG. 
There's a demographic split on whether email or instant messaging is 
best, but everyone has access to email and older folks hate installing 
apps / signing up for proprietary platforms.


Consider virtual vs in-person vs hybrid. If in-person, where? Usually 
libraries and community centres have rooms that can be booked.



Consider the culture you want / want to avoid.  This is a bit 
forward-looking, but each LUG has a different "vibe" to it.

Things I've seen recently:

"Winblows blah blah Winblows blah blah Crapple"

That crap will turn people off, yet in the yearofourlord 2024 actual 
adults still talk like that.


There's a certain amount of curmudgeon appeal to LUGs. I call it the 
"oldster hipsters" aka Digital Amish.

Everything post Y2K sucks, is too complicated, is just for bringing in 
Windows users; the pain of configuring WiFi from the CLI is a good 
thing; "Linux is now just a poor implementation of Windows" (yep, 
systemd haters are often nuts).


Any new CS grads, young-uns looking to get knowledgeable about Linux 
since it's a great dev environment - they don't want to be subjected to 
religious battles from the early 2000s, they want to know how can they 
better use this platform for developing and deploying their projects.

They want to become more employable in today's job market, not 
re-litigate old battles from the past.




Whew, that was kinda long & ranty.


Anyway, I'd say go for it and wish you success!