Meeting 2nd half of August! (was: GOP2: 0 - why are we losing developers? (discuss responses))

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> Mailing list arguments are a trickier issue. It’s clearly a big
> problem, but this isn’t something we can fix by waving a change of
> policy. I’ll schedule a time to discuss it. We need to do
> something about this, although at the moment I have no immediate
> suggestions.

I have one.  It may sound absurd, but then I have learnt "once you ruled
out the impossible whatever remains however improbable might be
effective", and there are a few things that somehow or other appear to
be hard, particularly for me.  Decent communication in electronic media
is one of the things I am spectacularly bad at.  One thing that has
turned out to be effective at times is meeting people in person.

While I won't be as audacious to state that this is a cure-all, it lends
more depth to your communication partners than the rather anonymous
style of communicating through electronic letters does, and has a
lasting effect.  It has been more effective in deflating tensions
permanently than other measures I can think of.  It is, in a way,
pitiful that this should work, but then it still would be more of a pity
not to make use of that.

I am living in a sort-of commune in a rural region, in a house next to
the stables of a riding school (my girl friend makes a somewhat
unimpressive living from that).  I seem to remember that Werner was away
until the middle of August, and the school holidays last until August
21st.  There is no real need to synchronize to the school holidays since
our activities are more or less independent from that of the school.  We
could, however, target Friday August 17th to Tuesday August 21st (or, if
it is more convenient for people, one week later) for a meeting for
programming, composing and talking.  It is not like there is a shortage
of programming projects one could tackle together.  Guilev2 migration
anybody?

We could do a few workshops, like "working on the parser", "fiddling
with the backend", "introduction to GOOPS", "becoming friends with the
garbage collector", "scything stinging nettles", "shoveling heaps of
crap" (this can be even practiced without a computer).  Accommodation
can be arranged for a number of people.

If the basic mailing list relations of at least some core of developers
have become more relaxed, it helps for cooperating in creating a more
welcoming atmosphere.  One can better compensate for other people's
fault.  I am, of course, a natural contender for organizing such a
meeting since few people would likely deny that my own ways of
interacting with others on our lists could benefit a lot from
improvement.

So the core data would be "Dortmund Germany" (about 10 miles from there)
and the proposal for a date would Friday August 17th to Tuesday August
21st, or one week later.

Yes, it sounds silly as a means to address the GOP question.  But once I
have ruled out all mature and sane ways of addressing a problem, I have
not rarely have had some success trying the silly ones.

Are you with me?

-- 
David Kastrup