[dvlug] Fwd: Is there a meeting at Cafe La Scala today?, etc. ...

Sat Apr 11 16:17:56 PDT 2015

Thank you all for your responses. It saved me an unnecessary long drive to
Walnut Creek.

I'm very grateful to have DVLUG available, even if I can't always make it
to the meetings. Walnut Creek is more convenient for me to get to than
Berkeley, and Fridays often work better for me.

In response to Michael's suggestions, here are my 2 cents as a "newbie":

I have gone to Cafe La Scala for DVLUG 3 or 4 times in the last few months.
I have never seen more than two people there besides myself, and from what
I understand, this is the usual number.

Since the number of attendees is so small and unreliable, I think it is
reasonable to ask that anyone who plans on going post on the website or
mailing list that they are planning to attend. If no one posts, the meeting
can be assumed to be cancelled. In this case, the website should have these
instructions posted with a link to the (currently active) mailing list, so
newcomers know where to look.

Alternatively, the "core" (regular) members could coordinate with each
other and cancel the meeting on the website if at least one of them does
not plan on being there.

For my part, I am happy to go even if there is only one other person there.
I just want to avoid being the *only* person :).

- Oleg

On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 7:00 AM, Michael Paoli <
Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Well ...
>
> I'm guestimating a bit more than "just" DNS was "fixed".
> I notice:
> $ 2>&1 whois -H dvlug.org | fgrep -i update | head -n 1
> Updated Date: 2015-04-11T08:12:13Z
> $
> Yesterday, I noted a bit earlier on list:
> ! Hmmm, whois(1) tells me autoRenewPeriod, among other things.
> ! Updated Date: 2015-04-06T01:26:49Z
>
> And, depending upon definition (relative to yesterday) that may or
> may not (quite) count as what was then, "tonight" ... but comes
> pretty close ... within about 12 minutes and 13 seconds, if we go
> by local time and take the more limited conservative definition.  ;-)
>
> And ... why do I think [hey, just my opinion?] that [L]UGs ought have,
> at least in part, a "rule"/practice such as:
> "you have to go, you have to be on time" ...
> [ref: http://bad.debian.net/shotgun_rules.txt]
> ... I mean, well, won't name group(s), but ... I've seen some
> that are like, from the meeting's lead/principal/main (dis)organizer:
> [paraphrasing]: "The meeting may or may not occur, if you RSVP I
> *may* show up.".  I mean (/wonder) - does it even satisfy the
> definition of "meeting", if zero people show up? ... and also
> can be highly disappointing if any newbies (or even others) show up,
> and, well, it turns out they - most notably and specifically, only
> and exactly one of them show up, and no one else to meeting ... can be
> a rather disappointing "first user experience" of a [L]UG ... and rather
> a one that most - especially new attendees - would be relatively
> unlikely to wish to repeat.  Now, ... on the other hand, at least if
> website and/or list suitably "warns"(/cautions) - and sufficiently well
> in advance (at least 24 hours, but preferably more) that there may or
> may not be anyone (or anyone else) coming to the meeting(s) - so as to
> set the expectation level appropriately, ... then that may not be
> quite so bad ... but if it's very short advance notice to none at all,
> that does run risk of rather negative user experience - and especially
> first experience, I'd think, eh?  I've also seen [L]UGs that fade
> out of existence ... or fade in and out of existence notably on
> account of meetings sometimes/often not occurring - or being
> theoretically occurring (schedules 'n all that), but often zero
> attendees.  That may be quite okay *if* that's very much the
> expectation and well/clearly set/communicated ... but probably
> not something most users would consider acceptable if it's not
> stated rather to quite clearly, and reasonably well in advance.
> And, ... I think it *is* okay for some [L]UGs, which often rather
> quite do - to sometimes have meetings, and sometimes not - with
> sufficient and clear advance notification on that.  E.g.
> Bay Area Debian (BAD) http://bad.debian.net/
> is quite good about that - just read its well written info
> about meetings and meeting algorithm/procedure, and apply that
> to recent bit 'o (highly reliable) list archive ... and one quite
> knows if there's a meeting or not.  Likewise,
> Ubuntu Hour San Francisco - sometimes it happens, sometimes not - but
> quite predictable as to when (if it does) and where (or at least quite
> approximately) and communicated well in advance (weeks or more every
> time) - if there's meeting, it's communicated, there's RSVP URL 'n
> location details and all that, and, though not persistent URL location,
> the URL for any given such meeting is relatively easily findable by
> applying suitable algorithm from reasonably well documented persistent
> URLs (debatable if can be called a LUG, per se, but probably "close
> enough" that to fair extent it rather well functions as/like one ... or
> ... as/like an outreach arm of larger organization, and at least kind'a
> approximating something LUG-like).  Anyway, ... just my (not-quite-so?)
> humble opinion on all that ;-) ... "yours" (and/or damn near everyone
> else's) may vary, and quite possibly even very significantly (and that's
> good too - would be kind'a boring if we all thought exactly the same
> thing).
>
> And ... list(s).  Uhm, DVLUG has "new" list?  Hmmm, and that "new" list,
> it has an archive ... public ... which ... shows me all of two whole
> messages back in September of this last year.  Uhm, I suspect that list
> has at least a (semi-)broken/missing archive - or most contents
> thereof.  Now, it may not have much stuff that's been sent on that
> list, ... but I think in recent month(s) I've sent at least some
> messages also to that "new" list, and I certainly don't see 'em in that
> list's archive.  So, ... I'm thinking that "new" list, if that archive
> content is (already!) missing ... is, quite possibly (or at least its
> archive portion thereof) less reliable (thinking uptime & availability
> & such) than those lists on linuxmafia.com.  Heck, given how abhorrent
> DreamHost has been in the last couple of years with their repeated and
> ongoing list problems - and impacting many sites/customers, I'd say
> linuxmafia.com hosted lists have much higher overall uptime - well, at
> least of the archive portion - and much smaller scale of negative
> impact on customers (using the term "customers" highly loosely) notably
> in terms of numbers of "customers" impacted, compared to DreamHost.
>
> Ah, yes, ... registrars & renewals and such ...
> Very true - some allow *anyone* to renew an expiring/expired
> domain (e.g. despite all its issues, especially more recently,
> Network Solutions would, at least in past, allow anyone to renew an
> expiring domain before it expired - I'd renewed balug.org slightly in
> advance of its expiration on multiple occasions in past before I was
> registrant) - so that is a nice/handy "feature" to have.  As to
> particular timings on lifecycle of a domain's renewal/expiration -
> notably if the renewal doesn't happen before the start of expiration -
> the precise details seem to vary - at least a bit, both by registrar,
> and also some TLDs.  I recently had occasion to familiarize myself with
> the process and research it and such (and there are some very good web
> pages out there that well document and cover the lifecycle process -
> some of which even give information on some specific differences among
> registrars and some TLDs).  In any case, seems to the extent feasible,
> most registrars, unsurprisingly, optimize to the extent they're allowed
> to, their revenue, for the various TLDs.  Notably they hang onto
> domains as long as they can without actually reaching into their pocket
> and paying anything more than they have to, and ... may vary somewhat
> among registrars, but they generally like to milk the customers out of
> as much money as feasible - but this is also optimized for overall
> profits in relatively competitive market space.  Yes, ... not too long
> ago, wee cool project I thought of ... thought it ought have a domain
> name, thought of perfect domain name for it ... but alas, it was
> already registered.  However, it was quite close to expiring, and
> seemed rather to highly inactive, so ... I patiently waited and
> watched, ... did become familiar with the cycle and ... snatched it up
> - at no extra costs - quite shortly after it became available (I wanted
> it, yes, but I wasn't willing/interested to pay more to get it and I
> certainly didn't want to get into any bidding war to try and get it).
>
>  From: "I L" <droid1836 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [dvlug] Is there a meeting at Cafe La Scala today?
>> Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 20:04:35 -0700
>>
>
>  We've determined that the website issue is due to a problem with the DNS.
>> Grant will be fixing it tonight.
>>
>> Ian
>> On Apr 10, 2015 6:31 PM, "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>>
>>  Quoting I L (droid1836 at gmail.com):
>>>
>>> > Thank you for reaching out and informing us about the website. We'll
>>> > take a look at what's going on as soon as we can.
>>>
>>> It's _not_ the Web site.
>>>
>>> Pay the domain renewal, and you'll be fine.
>>>
>>> Registrars differ about whether they permit someone other than the
>>> Registrant to pay for renewal.  Some do; some don't.  One of the many
>>> reasons I like Joker.com as a registrar is that they're fine with
>>> getting paid for renewals by anyone.  If this registrar differs, then
>>> Grant as Registrant may be the only person with access to fix the
>>> problem.
>>>
>>> Maybe y'all should switch to a better registrar?  $35 is also _not_ a
>>> very good price for annual charge on .org domains.
>>>
>>> You should consider running domain-check (the Perl version) in the
>>> future to alert yourselves to pending domain expirations.
>>> http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/
>>>
>>
>
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