Re: replace training blurb with upcoming pug meetings?

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
> Selena Deckelmann wrote:
>> The primary goal in presenting PUGs on the front page is to show to
>> outsiders how much growth there has been in user group activity. It's
>> an indicator that "people like me" use PostgreSQL. Listing these on
>> the front page is also a not-so-subtle encouragement to PUGs that we'd
>> like more regular meetings.
>
> I'm always a fan of the concept that information is put on a web page with the
> intent of giving people useable information. As opposed to the concept that
> information is put up with the intent of encouraging people to produce more
> information of the same kind.

I'm encouraging behavior rather than information production, but fair
enough ;)

And if by usable you mean 'actionable' - regardless of *where* an
event is, most of the topics being discussed are decidedly *not*
local. We're going to have someone give a Materialized Views talk in
Portland this August that many people will be interested in, for
example. Slides (and maybe by then audio) will be available!

PUGs provide insight into our community and people in a way that the
mostly static Training blurb does not. And I think other folks in this
thread have agreed that replacing the static blurb, but keeping a link
to training would be ok. Peter, are you opposed to that?

> Note that we are talking about the front page here. "Kuala Lumpur PG user
> group meets tonight" is never of interest to sizeable portion of the people.
> A link "Find a local user group" might be.

Perhaps it is not interesting because you can't attend that particular
a meeting, but it is certainly interesting that there would be enough
people in Kuala Lumpur for a meeting. The meeting in Morocco was a
great example of this.

Also, a person might assume that because of their location (Oklahoma)
that there would never be a user group, but in fact, Emilie is
starting a group there. Along the same line of thinking, if you *do*
see Kuala Lumpur in there, you may think, "Wow, I live in Peru. If
there's a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, then there might be a meeting in
Peru!" and go looking for it. Generally speaking, uncommon things are
*very* interesting to people - so interesting that they are a basic
element of news!

We encourage serendipity in having the user group events scrolling by
on the front page. It indicates action and people, rather than
reference and machines. And while there are a few of us that prefer
the machines, people still tend to like other people :)

-selena

--
Selena Deckelmann
United States PostgreSQL Association - http://www.postgresql.us
PDXPUG - http://pugs.postgresql.org/pdx
Me - http://www.chesnok.com/daily