[niederrhein.pm] Treffen am 21.10.2014 (was: longer)

[Winfried Trümper]

Hi Jens,

I appreciate your efforts in house keeping. Though I disagree in an important detail. What has been dead for long is the brand name niederrhein.pm. It makes no sense to ride dead horses, dead camels or dead brand names. It's not a matter of finding a better platform for them. Niederrhein at Meetup amplifies all problems associated with Niederrhein.pm. Two competing Niederrhein.pms are the worst you can head for, because you're in a weaker official position.

The current administrator of niederrhein.pm.org has been unresponsive for years. The information he offers on the website is misleading. It's a snapshot from a more glory past which is irrelevant for its present or future. He didn't respond to a personal message. It was explained to me that and why communication over the issues of niederrhein.pm has been broken down generally. IMHO there is no point in taking niederrhein.pm any further, because nobody exercises control over it. Drop it.

On the bright side, it offers the chance to solve an old branding dilemma: Cologne belonged to Niederrhein only 200 years ago. But not in today's perception. Or only according to hardly known criteria like the Sieg river mouth. Niederrhein at Meetup? Not relevant to me. Too far to drive from Cologne.

The current situation: an active core of Perl programmers maintains a monthly meeting in Cologne. This mailinglist was one of the technical platforms for distributing announcements. But it's no longer required and there are many alternatives. The town is located in the beautiful state of Nordrhein Westfalen. It would be consequent and intuitive to brand the activities of the group as Nordrhein Perl Programmers ("Nordrhein PP") and an entry "Nordrhein" at www.pm.org. (The shorter nordrhein.pm would require  the effort of registering a .pm domain name like Hannover.pm or Frankfurt.pm.)

Make it a sharp brand. I prefer "programmers" over "user group". Down to the most specific designation. "Mongers" acts like a filter for people who know a lot about Perl already.
A map of what Nordrhein is considered geographically: http://www.aekno.de/images/aekno/verbund_02-00.png Even covers Roland.

Meetup looks like Google Groups plus Google Sites. That makes sense, though it doesn't convince me. It appears to be too much already. Maybe I change my mind.
In the meantime I created https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nordrhein-perl-programmers and asked the pm.org maintainers to create a redirect.
However, both will be deleted after the November meeting unless (1) Jens and Peter are convinced and (2) the active majority of the group is convinced about this move.
["Convinced" = Jens and Peter take the administrative roles, I step down]

Google groups allows subscription and submission by e-mail even without a Google account. Feel free to subscribe, but remember that it is a test bed only.

The high redundancy of information has been a problem for me. One can read a lot; in the end it boils down to little. Tiring and reducing the attractiveness of this group. You noticed I shortened the subject line as an example. The target audience is used to consume condensed information (in form of programs). The text for the announcement could be: "The Nordrhein Perl Programmers meet every third Tuesday of the month. Meetings are open to anybody interested in Perl programming. You'll encounter a mix of presentations, current affairs, and open discussion. You're welcome whether you plan to participate actively or passively (just listenting). Although German is the preferred language for communication, English, Dutch, or Russian are spoken as well. For details about upcoming meetings see below."

Confirmed next meeting:
Date: 21.10.2014
Time: 18:30 h
Location: Railslove, Cologne

Anticipated schedule of future meetings:
18.11.2014
16.12.2014
20.01.2015


I agree with Aristotle that the Meetup automatism with unreadable attachments isn't helpful. Enforcing a Meetup account is a higher barrier than having an e-mail address. On the other hand, if Meetup brings more new activists than a traditional mailinglist, that is a strong argument for accepting the higher barrier. With Meetup the "count me in" messages are separate from the discussion. Again, it makes a lot of sense, though it might not be perfect. But not as Niederrhein at Meetup, as explained above.

I hope this message will help Jens in his efforts of taking the user group further.


Regards
-W.