Here is the raw transcript of the May 2006 LOPSA Live IRC Session; we'll be following up with a cleaned up version shortly.

[4:00p] palmer: Howdy folks. Welcome the 2nd some-number-of-months LOPSA
Live session. Hopefully we'll have them a bit more frequently going
forward, but here we are.
[4:01p] palmer: So you've had memos and mailings and website and stuff to
hear us tell you what's going on. The point of this is to talk back and
forth with the members about what you want to hear.
[4:01p] palmer: or stir up some discussion amongst members
[4:01p] tep: i see that at least 10 people read this month's memo :-)
[4:01p] palmer: So, questions, comments, criticisms, confusions?
[4:02p] palmer: Heh. don't all shout out at once.
[4:02p] paw joined the chat room.
[4:03p] tep: let me start by asking - is a monthly email a good way for us
to communicate with members? Or should we count on the web site more?
[4:03p] LuftHans: yes
[4:03p] cat-xeger: Yes, both.
[4:03p] freiheit: both is good
[4:03p] jgsmith: I like both
[4:03p] LuftHans: • LuftHans will more likely read the email, but the web
site posting often triggers the reminder to read it.
[4:03p] felicity: I'm more partial to email, since I don't usually visit
the website.
[4:04p] fuat: i get email when the site is updated. mostly just sysadmin
of the week and a random blog or two. Ive also subscribed to it as an RSS
syndication on LiveJournal, but I dont see a whole lot going on
[4:04p] tep: so, email is "in yer face", but the web site has more
long-lasting content?
[4:04p] LuftHans: May is membership month. We're trying to double
membership, right? How many members do we have now?
[4:04p] fuat: plus the occasional discussion on the mailing lists
[4:04p] cwilson joined the chat room.
[4:05p] arr joined the chat room.
[4:05p] chrisd joined the chat room.
[4:05p] LuftHans: the web site will get indexed by search engines. the
email seems to be mail merge, so it might not get indexed
[4:05p] palmer: we current have 449 paid members
[4:06p] cmmiller joined the chat room.
[4:06p] LuftHans: maybe create a memo mailing list with no subscribers and
set it up to get the memos
[4:06p] palmer: if we can get to 1,000 or so we (the board) can stop
worrying about membership numbers and start worrying about the other
million things we need to handle
[4:06p] palmer: The memos are all posted to the website, under
http://lopsa.org/MemosToMembers
[4:06p] fuat: what are the other million things? perhaps doing a few of
them will drive up the membership numbers?
[4:07p] chrisd: • chrisd agrees with fuat
[4:07p] palmer: Well there's a chicken and egg problem with some of them.
We'd like to hold a conference and training event, but that takes seed
money. We're working on one anyway, but we could do more with more staff
time and the like.
[4:08p] palmer: We'd love to have more activity on the website, also, but
unpaid authors are proving difficult to inspire
[4:08p] chrisd: What about volunteers for some of the tasks?
[4:08p] palmer: Actually, that's a question we wanted to ask you guys, more
than anything else.
[4:08p] palmer: Volunteers and volunteering is difficult; we're not doing
as well as we could at directing volunteer efforts towards productive ends
[4:08p] jrc joined the chat room.
[4:09p] palmer: How do folks think we could do better? What would you need
individually as a volunteer to get more involved in doing something?
[4:09p] roman: • roman volunteers
[4:09p] cat-xeger: palmer - as one of the laggy authors, I'd have to say
it's a time crunch - the guilt is doing very well.
[4:09p] roman: or should I say, spp has volunteered me =]
[4:09p] palmer: you're far from alone, cat :)
[4:09p] cwilson: where's the list of things to do ?
[4:09p] cat-xeger: palmer - no consolation ;>
[4:09p] chrisd left the chat room. (Remote host closed the connection)
[4:10p] LuftHans: fuat, chrisd: https://lopsa.org/projects
[4:10p] chrisd joined the chat room.
[4:10p] freiheit: LH: as a list of things to do, that's lacking...
[4:10p] chrisd: Don't know if this comment made it in...
[4:10p] benp joined the chat room.
[4:10p] palmer: What would you like to see, freiheit?
[4:10p] chrisd: Perhaps a volunteer coordinator would help.
[4:10p] freiheit: it's more like a list of projects that need help...
[4:11p] LuftHans: feel free to volunteer. some of the projects are already
going, but some haven't yet been started
[4:11p] chrisd: Where can we see the list?
[4:11p] palmer: There's a question there of level of detail, freiheit
[4:11p] palmer: If we (the board) break it down into infinitesimal chunks,
we're micromanaging and we'll quickly burn out to boot.
[4:12p] palmer: chrisd: https://lopsa.org/projects
[4:12p] chrisd: Thanks. Got it.
[4:12p] roman: is there anyone coordinating the volunteer effort? Not that
I want to see micromanagement, but, someone coordinating and promoting may
be good
[4:13p] palmer: Yes, LuftHans is our volunteer coordinator
[4:13p] roman: k
[4:13p] roman: thx
[4:13p] palmer: so if you want to get involved in a as yet indeterminate
way, then just let him know
[4:13p] palmer: Many of these projects have evolving tasks and they're kept
in a separate place; the tech team for instance has an RT queue that they
use to manage their projects
[4:14p] freiheit: palmer: maybe link the projects page to some of those
lists?
[4:14p] palmer: we're looking for people who want to get involved in
specific areas, since the tasks involved in working those areas is highly
changeable
[4:14p] benp left the chat room.
[4:14p] reshippie joined the chat room.
[4:15p] palmer: The other problem is we've found if we divulge too many
details as to future plans and projects too early, it invites other
organizations to try to implement them before we do.
[4:15p] chrisd: Some of the more complex projects could use an RT queue to
break them down into more bite sized pieces.
[4:15p] LuftHans: we also have several regional LOPSA groups: Pittsburg,
Seattle, Sonoma County, .az.us and Austin, .tx.us
[4:15p] fuat: eh? what other organizations are yo expecting to poach on
lopsa projects?
[4:15p] tep: we're missing volunteers to do "real" work, and we're missing
project managers
[4:15p] palmer: So chrisd, freiheit, if we had projects adopt something
more along the lines of an open source projects' roadmap with step
listings, that might encourage you to volunteer more?
[4:16p] chrisd: palmer: I think that having measurable milestones for
larger projects tends to invite more volunteers. I don't want to volunteer
for something that has a nebulous ending.
[4:17p] freiheit: palmer: that would at least make it *easier* to volunteer
usefully...
[4:17p] roman: • roman concurs
[4:17p] fuat: most successful projects start with a visionary or two
championing it, building a small core of developers, project management,
etc. someone needs to set the spark
[4:17p] chrisd: palmer: I'm afraid that I'd get in to something without
end, then feel bad/guilty about having to drop out without concolusion.
[4:17p] palmer: right. That all makes sense.
[4:18p] LuftHans: fuat: we're missing the visionaries for the projects
[4:18p] chrisd: So, I, for one, am very interested in the Book Review task.
[4:18p] palmer: However, we don't just want indians, we do need a few
chiefs. If the 9 board members try to lead and manage every project on our
own, we'll quickly go crazy.
[4:18p] chrisd: But I think it's too big a job for one person.
[4:18p] tep: I thnk that we might have erred on the side of wanting to let
the volunteers on a project have full freedom to plan the project, but it
looks like we're hearing that you'd like more structure and more up-front
planning before we solicit volunteers
[4:18p] fuat: how did the projects get on the list?
[4:18p] freiheit: tep: yes.
[4:18p] chrisd: So, I'd volunteer to coordinate book reviews and do the
first few to get the ball rolling.
[4:18p] palmer: So while we can certainly take a more active role, do you
think there's a way to encourage people to bring projects to us who aren't
on the board?
[4:18p] fuat: if no one is championing it, it is doomed to failure
[4:18p] roman: I'm interested in the Book Reviews too
[4:18p] mbarr joined the chat room.
[4:19p] cat-xeger: > I'm willing to contribute to book reviews, but can't
manage them.
[4:19p] tep: most of the projects were from our big brainstorming session
at LISA, where we put big sheets of paper all over a ballroom
[4:19p] palmer: I'll be in touch with the two of you over that. The site
is my bailiwick
[4:19p] tep: in other words, they came from members (who were at LISA)
[4:20p] dgregor joined the chat room.
[4:20p] fuat: the problem with large group brainstorming is that it is
easier to throw out ideas than it is to do the work
[4:20p] palmer: Book reviews are a good example of the kind of thing we're
looking for more of. They're not exactly discrete; each individual ones
[4:20p] palmer: one is, that is
[4:20p] palmer: but it's also something you can do relatively easily and in
a time bounded period for each shot.
[4:20p] nonrandom: and people to fill out tools and standards (soonish)
[4:21p] chrisd: Palmer: yes, but, despite the fact that individuals can
happily turn out book reviews, somebody needs to coordinate to maintain
standards.
[4:21p] LuftHans: even if there were listed goals for the projects we still
need people to lead the projects
[4:21p] palmer: Yes absolutely
[4:21p] palmer: and I'm wondering how we can encourage people who might
want to take on those tasks as well
[4:21p] palmer: Because any organization that depends on the Board for both
upper level strategy and mid level management is in trouble
[4:22p] chrisd: • chrisd agrees.
[4:22p] palmer: we'd love to have project heads, people making their own
projects happen, and so on.
[4:22p] LuftHans: palmer: agreed
[4:22p] palmer: But we're having a devil of a time getting such people on
board
[4:22p] palmer: LuftHans has been one of the few who has been effective in
such a role
[4:22p] jgsmith: • jgsmith would love to help, but has enough on his plate
that doing so would probably be a let down
[4:22p] palmer: So yay to him, but we can't clone him
[4:23p] roman: I've got cycles I can put into a project, and I could lead
one if you havethe need.
[4:23p] roman: ::looking at project list now::
[4:23p] chrisd: jgsmith: Actually, that's what always stops me, too. At the
end of the day, though, even a *little* help goes a long way.
[4:23p] palmer: Right. jgsmith, one of the challenges is building an
organization that is resistant to individual flake-outs, both justified and
not
[4:23p] LuftHans: rowan: that would be awesome
[4:23p] fuat: i think that's the problem. if this profession demands so
much time from your life, do you have any time leftover for volunteer work?
[4:23p] LuftHans: rowan: let me know if any of the projects seem
interesting to you
[4:24p] palmer: I could coyly suggest you read Limoncelli's book :)
[4:24p] roman: welp, I dunno about you, but this career does demand alot,
but I find I use alot of time to learn by testing things, I can split off
some time from tat
[4:24p] chrisd: fuat: But supporting groups like this is supposed to help
with the time issues.
[4:24p] roman: things like this are just as important to the profession
[4:24p] palmer: And really, fuat, the demands on a sysadmin's time and
stress levels are nothing new to us. One of my pet issues for the
profession is quality of life for sysadmins
[4:25p] LuftHans: I would like the volunteers to only be putting in an hour
or two per week ( per project for those who want to do multiple projects )
[4:25p] roman: thats easily doable
[4:25p] roman: but then I'm single and have no social life =]
[4:25p] freiheit: LH: that seems ideal. a project leader probably needs to
put in a bit more than that, though...
[4:25p] palmer: 1-2 hours should be more than enough time to contribute
heavily to LOPSA both as a project member and even as a project leader.
[4:26p] tep: QoL is important: the IGDA (http://www.igda.org/) has QoL as
one of the hottest topics for their members (game developers)
[4:26p] palmer: Not at all, actually. 1-2 hours is all I've been telling
prospective web editors in chief we'd need
[4:26p] LuftHans: freiheit: hopefully the project leader only needs to put
in a little more at the beginning and I'm here to help reduce that
[4:27p] LuftHans: what? playing video games all day isn't good enough?
[4:27p] palmer: One of the biggest issues with nascent projects is finding
new people, and just as LuftHans says, he's here to stem that tide.
[4:28p] tep: lufthans: game developers on a marketing deadline are like
sysadmins with a dead e-commerce site: motivated, focused and stressed
[4:30p] palmer: So, for most of the folks in this room, if they had a
professional nag, aka project manager, and tasks that were doled out into
1-2 hour doable time segments, that'd be a good way to get started?
[4:30p] tep: so, a meta-question: are we on the right track with the
projects that we've identified?
[4:30p] LuftHans: tep: I've read game developers are in high-stress
situations. I think sysadms get the "you've got a cake job" response from
many people because they don't realize all that sysadms do
[4:30p] palmer: Gee, LuftHans, it's almost like we need a professional
society advocating for us, or something.... :)
[4:30p] fuat: speaking of books. I see there is a "May Book of the Month
(Open Sources) and a "Book of the Month" (Agile Web...) but I don't see a
separate page (with link on the left) to a "Book of the Month" collection
[4:31p] nonrandom: fuat, good idea.. I can make that happen relatively
easily
[4:31p] tep: lufthans: yes, on both accounts - that's why I had meetings
with IGDA exec dir last week
[4:31p] nonrandom: we've really only got a couple right now, but that
classification is easy to do.
[4:32p] freiheit: tep: I think it's a decent list. seems like most of them
boil down to "make website more useful", "expand membership" and "create
relationships"
[4:32p] palmer: yes. that's the big three right now
[4:32p] LuftHans: tep: I would like to see documentation on what LOPSA has
done, why, etc. from a sysadm perspective as it could serve as a great
"good practices" document for small and medium sized organizations
[4:32p] nonrandom: the trifecta
[4:32p] tep: "make website more useful" == "more services for members" &
increase value to members
[4:32p] palmer: LuftHans: a lot of that is in our meeting minutes
[4:32p] fuat: a separate page would be good. i recall Tom L's book was the
first one? I thought it had become a regular feature. a page dedicated to
it, explaining how to nominate books, how they are selected, etc. would be
nice
[4:32p] LuftHans: who better to write the sysadm perspective than LOPSA?
[4:33p] nonrandom: fuat: *nod*
[4:33p] palmer: You can track the progress of a lot of our decisions and
projects and the like through the minutes
[4:33p] palmer: we meet very frequently and keep good records of our
progress.
[4:33p] freiheit: tep: and increasing value to members (and creating
relationships) helps build membership, etc...
[4:33p] jgsmith: could put together a `basic sys admin library' (thinking
of NPR's basic record library) - something more useful than `anything
published by O'Reilly'
[4:33p] chrisd: palmer: But it would be a good idea to condense that.
Wading through minutes can get tedious...
[4:33p] chrisd: :)
[4:33p] tep: but I think that what was meant that "how did LOPSA solve its
IT problems", e.g. LOPSA should know how to do this, since that's what we
all do
[4:33p] nonrandom: our minutes are really condensed, but it's a fair point
[4:34p] palmer: Wading through minutes is very tedious. Would us spending
time on a corporate history of LOPSA be useful to potential members or
sysadmins?
[4:34p] fuat: and while you're creating that, if you set up a "book
reviews" page, a submission address, and find a volunteer editor to weed
out anything totally unacceptable, you might start getting entries. blog
style threads so that others can post comments
[4:34p] chrisd: palmer: Yes, absolutely.
[4:34p] chrisd: palmer: Including the 'elevator' version.
[4:34p] fuat: to the review would be nice and might kickstart a community
or some discussion and visibility
[4:34p] dp-work: chrisd: how much detail do you want?
[4:34p] roman: palmer: I think a historical coverage would be beneficial
[4:35p] nonrandom: fuat: great stuff, can you drop me an email with all of
this?
[4:35p] fuat: sure. what's your address?
[4:35p] chrisd: dp-work: I, for one, think that a good elevator pitch would
go a long way to keeping potential members looking.
[4:35p] nonrandom: doug@lopsa.org
[4:35p] nonrandom: (one of many)
[4:36p] palmer: http://lopsa.org/AboutUs contains a brief summary of what
we're trying to do
[4:36p] dp-work: chrisd: for the elevator pitch, is there too much in
https://lopsa.org/MayMembership?
[4:36p] fuat: My permanent one is fuat@columbia.edu regardless of who my
current employer is
[4:36p] nonrandom: :)
[4:36p] palmer: Particularly on the MayMembership page, the "What can I
say?" section was aiming at that.
[4:36p] chrisd: dp-work: Not if you're in the Empire State Building
elevator... :)
[4:37p] dp-work: can you find some nuggets there?
[4:37p] chrisd: dp-work: Of course.
[4:37p] palmer: Good :)
[4:37p] chrisd: My overall point is this:
[4:38p] chrisd: If I have to wade through 3-4 web pages and read a lot of
verbiage just to figure out the highlights of what the group hopes to
achieve, my interest is going to flag.
[4:38p] dp-work: i'm not trying to pick on chrisd, but.. the mission
statement is the short answer
[4:38p] roman: I've gotten the questions acouple of times regarding the dif
between SAGE and LOPSA. I didn't see anywhere on the site that addressed
that, maybe I missed it
[4:38p] chrisd: The first two blocks on the home page are great.
[4:39p] palmer: That's true, chrisd, but do the two pages, About US and May
Membership, not stand on their own?
[4:39p] chrisd: Yes, of course.
[4:39p] chrisd: But, I want to be *grabbed* and dragged in!
[4:39p] chrisd: I want to *want* to join!
[4:40p] chrisd: And I want to *clearly* understand the differences between
LOPSA and SAGE, for example.
[4:40p] palmer: Heh. Well that level of writing is a difficult thing.
[4:40p] chrisd: I want to know, quickly, what you're going to do for me.
[4:40p] palmer: Well, the differences between LOPSA and SAGE are difficult
for us to write
[4:40p] roman: and I'd like to be able to explain the distinction clearly
[4:40p] chrisd: palmer: Yes, of course, especially for SA's. :)
[4:40p] palmer: since we honestly have no idea what SAGE is
[4:40p] palmer: they said one thing at LISA, but they seem to be doing
something completely different from what was agreed to"
[4:40p] palmer: and it changes every other month
[4:41p] palmer: so we'd prefer to stand on our own and talk about what
LOPSA is
[4:41p] palmer: and leave SAGE to its own devices.
[4:41p] chrisd: palmer: I think that it's time to put the bickering with
SAGE aside and discuss the differences between LOPSA and what SAGE purports
to be.
[4:41p] roman: welp, pointing out their lack of direction maybe a
differentiation
[4:41p] palmer: Exactly. But I was saying why it is we do not have any
mention of the differences between SAGE and LOPSA on the site.
[4:41p] roman: well, I understand you want LOPSA to stand on it's own, but
the question is going to come up
[4:41p] chrisd: One thing you learn in sales is to never, ever knock the
competition.
[4:41p] roman: we might as well address it
[4:41p] nonrandom: they think they have a direction, but we don't know what
that is, and getting into a public argument about their lack of direction
would be moot
[4:41p] palmer: Again, roman, we've found ourselves incapable of addressing
that question.
[4:41p] chrisd: I think it has to be addressed.
[4:42p] chrisd: For example, there's an awful lot of content available to
SAGE members by dint of their long existence.
[4:42p] roman: ok, welp, I certainly don't want to knock anyone, or get
into a mud fight
[4:42p] chrisd: Generating a similar library here will take time.
[4:42p] palmer: I can't speak for another organization, and their mission
hasn't settled. So we're concentrating on simply promoting our own
[4:42p] chrisd: SAGE, regardless of what it's doing today, has a long
history behind it.
[4:42p] roman: k, understood
[4:42p] chrisd: LOPSA does not.
[4:42p] palmer: And the other factor is we're not happy with simply getting
all former SAGE members to join LOPSA
[4:43p] palmer: there are by some estimates 500,000 sysadmins out there
[4:43p] chrisd: So, one difference is "youthful exuberance".
[4:43p] palmer: SAGE at most had 3,000 members.
[4:43p] LuftHans: the standards and tools projects will help LOPSA build
references of content
[4:43p] palmer: We'd be happy if we had the other 497,000 :)
[4:43p] chrisd: palmer: Why did SAGE fail to attract more?
[4:43p] chrisd: I don't expect anyone to know the answer to that question,
of course, but it's a good one to think about.
[4:44p] palmer: If you look at the historical activities of SAGE, what was
typically most highly funded and given attention was attendance at the LISA
conference. Most else did not receive priority or resources, membership
development included.
[4:44p] chrisd: I'm not trying to be critical. I'm trying to drive
discussion.
[4:44p] palmer: SAGE acted largely around and because of LISA
[4:44p] LuftHans: chrisd: yup, just as it's good to think about why the
other 497,000 aren't clamoring to join LOPSA
[4:44p] palmer: and that may have been healthy for LISA but it was not
going to grow SAGE to potential
[4:44p] palmer: one of the differences between us on face is that LOPSA is
run by an independent board focused solely on our community as syadmins
[4:45p] palmer: sysadmins, that is
[4:45p] palmer: and our *primary* goal is increased membership
[4:45p] jgsmith: part of it might be the attitude of `I know what I'm
doing... why do I need someone else to tell me?' that I sometimes see --
but I'm not sure off the top of my head how to resolve that :/
[4:45p] palmer: So different groups, different priorities, and different
methods
[4:45p] palmer: It also means we're starting largely without a historical
understanding of how exactly to do that
[4:45p] palmer: since no group, SAGE included, has gained traction in this
ground.
[4:45p] chrisd: So, there's the answer to the question. Now go put it on
the web site so people stop wondering!
[4:45p] palmer: so we're inventing it as we go
[4:46p] fuat: that 500K number included windows/network admins too, no? we
need to be careful not to alienate them with extreme unix-centricism. i've
seen such discussions occasionally on the mailing lists
[4:46p] palmer: Yes, fuat, the Board navel-gazes obsessively about that
very question
[4:46p] palmer: We'd very much like to establish a start in that field of
sysadmin
[4:46p] nonrandom: if we could get more of the 10s of thousands of Unix
admins, that would even be a great start
[4:47p] palmer: yes. If we had every root shell pusher on even just
Solaris or AIX or whatever you want, we'd be doing well.
[4:47p] freiheit: In my experience, a lot of windows admins don't consider
themselves "System Administrators"...
[4:47p] bethlynn joined the chat room.
[4:47p] bethlynn: hi there
[4:47p] chrisd: • chrisd agrees with freiheit
[4:47p] palmer: And a lot of that challenge is getting such people to *self
identify* as sysadmins
[4:47p] nonrandom: self-identification is a hard nut to crack, but we're
trying
[4:47p] palmer: heh
[4:47p] nonrandom: :)
[4:47p] palmer: great minds think alike, and so do ours.
[4:48p] fuat: well, if they don't, then we should drop them from the 500K
number, since it makes the number a meaningless goal anyway then
[4:48p] palmer: And a lot of that is going to be getting the word out
there, and trying to figure out what forums and magazines these folks read
and get out message into them.
[4:48p] dp-work: one of the things we've struggled with is if there is
another title that better captures "sysadmin", and everything we've come up
with is made-up and has even less traction with everyone
[4:48p] palmer: No, I don't think it's a meaningless goal. Simply because
they don't self identify as sysadmins, doesn't mean they don't admin
systems, and don't do the kinds of things we do
[4:48p] chrisd: How about a (mildly tongue-in-cheek) page: Am I a Sys
Admin?
[4:48p] palmer: So the challenge is promoting the idea of sysadmin as a
profession
[4:48p] freiheit: I did the SAGE salary survey yesterday. no clue how to
answer how many sysadmins at my site; depending on your definition maybe
it's most of the IT department.
[4:48p] palmer: Actually chrisd, we had that very idea already.
[4:48p] palmer: we should bring it back
[4:49p] InUse: "You might be a sysadmin and not even know it"
[4:49p] nonrandom: indeed!
[4:49p] fuat: if you make the content and activities compelling, you'll
attact them. it isn't the title necessarily that will bring them here
[4:49p] InUse: "Are you at risk?"
[4:49p] roman: nice idea
[4:49p] nonrandom: we made a list at our first board meeting
[4:49p] palmer: Right. it's not the title. but it helps increase
awareness.
[4:49p] fuat: at least until such time as LOPSA establishes itself in the
industry
[4:49p] palmer: part of our challenge of growing our own membership is
increasing the consciousness of system administration as a whole.
[4:50p] palmer: That'll be a major focus of my own in the coming next few
months.
[4:50p] bethlynn: there's no requirement that a local lopsa chapter has
"lopsa" in their name, right?
[4:50p] palmer: None, bethlynn
[4:50p] chrisd: Right. My official title is "Senior IT Engineer", but I'm a
Sys Admin.
[4:50p] palmer: When I worked at Lucent I was a "Hardware Engineer"
[4:50p] fuat: no, flopsa, and cottontail are acceptable alternatives :-)
[4:50p] palmer: It was done mostly to hide me from Corporate IT, if I
remember correctly.
[4:51p] chrisd: How about we all introduce ourselves with "My name is
Chris, and I'm a Sys Admin!"
[4:51p] chrisd: Then everybody can say "Hello Chris!"
[4:51p] fuat: even if we're not named Chris?
[4:51p] roman: heh
[4:51p] palmer: That sounds like a Macintosh ad gone horribly wrong.
[4:51p] cmmiller: fuat: Don't be foolish. We're all Chris.
[4:51p] freiheit: chris: first meeting of my local sysadmin group was kinda
like that...
[4:51p] chrisd: :)
[4:51p] palmer: So here's a question
[4:52p] palmer: There's a new extension to the DMCA coming up, and it looks
to be sufficiently horrible as to make the old one appear libertarian.
[4:52p] bethlynn: to be honest, I often say i'm invovled in IT support to
non-tech people. No matter how clearly I say "System Administrator" they
hear "Administrative Assistant"
[4:52p] palmer: Do you all think LOPSA should try to make a coherent and
wide effort against this legislation?
[4:52p] roman: hmm
[4:52p] chrisd: Do you think LOPSA is at the stage where they want to get
political?
[4:52p] jgsmith: can lopsa lobby as a 501(c)3?
[4:53p] palmer: Our tax status is irrelevant; we're not yet a 501c(3) and
even if we get that status we can set up a separate arm to do this.
[4:53p] dp-work: how about a rephrase: should we publicize the information
and the groups that are getting strongly involved?
[4:53p] nonrandom: lopsa can 'educate' as a 501(c)3
[4:53p] jgsmith: -nod- -- I would like to see something coherent from the
sys admin world
[4:53p] nonrandom: lobbying and educating are different under irs rules
[4:53p] fuat: sysadmins like to play lawyer, but perhaps that effort is
best undertaken by people with more legal and political savvy?
[4:54p] LuftHans: I'd like lopsa to be a 501(c)3 and not risk that, but if
it can do that and take stands against bad legislation that would be good
[4:54p] palmer: Well, fuat, what we worry about is if we don't say anything
ourselves, who will?
[4:54p] chrisd: dp-work: Yes. But I think it would be a mistake, at this
point, to say that LOPSA members are united against the legislation.
[4:54p] roman: should something like that be decided in this forum? Not
sure how you'd want to go about doing it otherwise...
[4:54p] palmer: Again, LuftHans, dont' worry about the tax status, we'll
cover that.
[4:54p] LuftHans: certainly eff needs sysadms...
[4:54p] palmer: I'm just asking, roman.
[4:54p] roman: k
[4:54p] chrisd: While that may be, and likely is, true, partisanship turns
people off.
[4:54p] roman: I guess I'd be concerned about stepping into the political
arena at this young stage
[4:55p] palmer: We would do our best to engage the issue in a responsible,
non-partisan and fact based manner.
[4:55p] roman: not that I don't heartily agree with opposing that
legislative abomination
[4:55p] dp-work: (and let others rant)
[4:55p] fuat: the discussions that take place on places like /. are what
worry me about giving LOPSA a bad image from the get go
[4:55p] freiheit: Seems like a bit of getting the word out might be good,
but not much beyond that at this stage... EFF and CPSR seem like they're
better situated to handle the more partisan actively-against evil
legislation kind of thing...
[4:56p] palmer: We would probably want to lend our voices to existing
efforts rather than create our own.
[4:56p] cmmiller left the chat room.
[4:56p] chrisd: (As a complete aside, can whoever does the web site
*please* put some white space around the pages? The text keeps running
right into my window border....)
[4:56p] felicity left the chat room. (Quit: work, etc)
[4:56p] chrisd: palmer: Great idea.
[4:56p] paw: how did folks feel about the NJ legislative piece we ran a
month or so ago?
[4:56p] dp-work: chrisd: can you send us a screen shot?
[4:56p] roman: Maybe we could approach it from: What DMCA means to you as a
Sysadmin, by LOPSA
[4:56p] nonrandom: chrisd: what browser?
[4:56p] chrisd: Camino.
[4:56p] nonrandom: yes, screen shot
[4:56p] chrisd: Let me try Safari.
[4:57p] palmer: roman, that's a decent idea.
[4:57p] roman: that presents it in a technical light, and keeps us out of
the political stage
[4:57p] palmer: We would hope to do it in such a way that both highlights
the issue, and also draws attention to ourselves.
[4:57p] bethlynn: I'd like there to be committees in LOPSA who are
responsbile for legal/policital information. I don't want it to be a thing
that is to be debated in general membership forums. If you'd like an
example of how tech people dislike politics, I give you this flame thread >
http://www.wplug.org/pipermail/wplug/2006-May/028106.html
[4:57p] roman: and we can discuss the pro's (uhmph!) and cons(!!)
[4:58p] palmer: In some ways, if you want to be big, you just start acting
big and the growth follows.
[4:58p] roman: yep
[4:58p] roman: welp, we prsent it well enough,a nd technical enough, it'll
promote itself
[4:59p] roman: and LOPSA along with it
[4:59p] palmer: Yes, bethlynn, like any communications we'd want to be
careful and precise about what we say.
[4:59p] palmer: But I'm a strangely political and articulate sysadmin
myself.
[5:00p] palmer: Next topic
[5:00p] chrisd: There's an agenda?!?
[5:00p] palmer: Professional societies and the like typically have
discussions and roundtable workshops and the like about specific issues;
not necessarily live ones
[5:01p] palmer: Not an agenda, per se
[5:01p] palmer: I'm just going with the flow here.
[5:01p] palmer: and have a few things I wanted to ask
[5:01p] palmer: so anyway. these kinds of establishing discussions and
methods are important to professions.
[5:01p] palmer: If we could run one and only one such thing in the next 2-3
months, what would you all like to see, and would you want to participate?
[5:02p] palmer: Boy, that killed the room in a hurry.
[5:03p] jgsmith: hehe -- *thinking*
[5:03p] palmer: ah. As long as there are gears turning, I'm happy
[5:03p] jgsmith: based on recent things at work, it would be nice if I had
a document I could point to talking about good ways to divide labor between
engineers, admins, and developers
[5:04p] palmer: Oh, my, jgsmith. I would kill for such a thing myself.
[5:04p] jgsmith: lol
[5:04p] bethlynn: palmer: I don't know exactly what you might have in mind.
a little more detail on the workshop idea?
[5:04p] chrisd: One of the things we can all relate to is the fact that,
when everything goes right, nobody knows your name.
[5:04p] chrisd: But when something breaks, everybody hounds you.
[5:05p] chrisd: It's a thankless job.
[5:05p] bethlynn: a sysadmin BOF would be welcome at the Ohio LinuxFest if
that's what you mean
[5:05p] chrisd: I'd like to see a discussion on how to deal with that.
[5:05p] palmer: Well, bethlynn, it would be something along the line of a
virtual workshop ala the university workshop we were both in at LISA.
However -- I'd want to focus it a little more and set a goal of solving a
particular problem or addressing a particular issue with a recommendation
statement or the like.
[5:05p] chrisd: How to be self-promoting, either as an individual or
department.
[5:06p] LuftHans: bethlynn: LOPSA wants to work with external events
[5:06p] palmer: Good topic, chrisd
[5:06p] roman: I dunno, I'd like to see some focus on more standardization,
and utilization of standards in the infrastructure
[5:06p] palmer: And yes, we are most likely going to be at the Ohio
LinuxFest
[5:06p] roman: I see more and more bad Sysadmin disapline
[5:06p] palmer: And any time someone wants to host a LOPSA speaker at a
local group, please talk to us.
[5:06p] palmer: David Parter is going to UNC to speak
[5:06p] palmer: and I'm available to talk as well, as are other members of
the Board.
[5:06p] LuftHans: roman: standards is one the projects we've got started
[5:07p] roman: excellent, sign me up
[5:07p] palmer: Done and done, roman :)
[5:07p] roman: wait, I think I already did =]
[5:07p] LuftHans: roman: join the mailing list and ping me or nonrandom
later
[5:07p] roman: k, will do
[5:07p] roman: thx
[5:07p] LuftHans: danke
[5:09p] palmer: So next up -- has anyone taken a look at the jobs board
yet?
[5:09p] roman: • roman has
[5:09p] palmer: Do you like what you see so far?
[5:09p] roman: well, I applied for something from there =]
[5:09p] nonrandom: cool. :)
[5:10p] LuftHans: • LuftHans will be pointing someone at it later today
[5:10p] nonrandom: I sent in an application to one on it too. :)
[5:10p] palmer: Well there you go.
[5:10p] palmer: I'm actually pleasantly surprised by it; a jobs board
usually takes a bit of time to develop some critical momentum, but this one
has taken off out of the gate pretty quickly.
[5:10p] nonrandom: I'm thinking about making the main page of the jobs
board point to /jobs/all
[5:10p] nonrandom: (if anybody has feedback on it, we can talk offline)
[5:11p] fuat: i took a quick peek. not looking for a job at the moment.
[5:11p] palmer: that would make it less useful, yes :)
[5:11p] roman: actually pretty happy with the calibre (buthered spelling
I'm sure) of the jobs posted so far
[5:12p] palmer: caliber. close enough. You just did it with a British
flair.
[5:12p] roman: must be talking to my teammates in London rubbing off =]
[5:13p] palmer: OK, since that seems to have gotten a response "Yes!
Great!" I guess there's not much to talk about there. Next topic then.
[5:13p] palmer: David Parter posted a discussion strawman recently about
LOPSA Student Mentorships
[5:14p] palmer: Has anyone perused it and have any thoughts?
[5:14p] palmer: http://lopsa.org/student_mentorships_strawman
[5:15p] roman: ::reading::
[5:15p] palmer: I figured :)
[5:16p] roman: ok, I guess my question is, if I'm a student to be mentored,
what do I get outta this?
[5:16p] dp-work: roman: I'll answer, sine it was my idea.
[5:16p] fuat: seems ambitious. the example of "set up email for the
department" isn't really a project that can be undertaken by an apprentice
remotely
[5:17p] palmer: Depends on the department, fuat :)
[5:17p] dp-work: as a student, you get to make the relationship with your
mentor and the goal of the learning process slightly more formal
[5:17p] dp-work: it gives you a hook on your mentor that you should be
working together towards the goal
[5:17p] dp-work: and you get a reward -- a free membership, a shirt.
[5:17p] fuat: Yeah. Would probably turn into a "how to set up an open
relay" if not done carefully
[5:18p] roman: hehe
[5:18p] dp-work: the example project i put up is one that we would gave a
student do over the summer, and we'd give help, but often in a disjointed
manner. this puts some structure on it, without really saying how it has to
be done
[5:18p] dp-work: the project could be "learn ruby on rails and make an
order form to buy new PCs"
[5:19p] dp-work: there are no hard and fast rules on what kind of a project
is too small or too big -- the mentor has to have some sense of that
[5:19p] bethlynn: when I was in college, I had quite a time finding an
instructor who would sign off on my work to count for internship credit...
no one knew enough about Unix/Linux or systems.
[5:19p] fuat: that sounds more like an internship. so you're thinking
LOPSA would be a clearinghouse for internship placements?
[5:19p] dp-work: not a clearing house -- we are just providing some
incentive and recognition for the mentoring that already happens, and
encouraging more of it
[5:20p] dp-work: the student and the mentor have to hook up on their own,
although of course we'd let people place "want ads"
[5:20p] roman: what level of student are we speaking of here, HS, or
Univercity?
[5:20p] LuftHans: maybe we can figure out how to use mentors and students
in a couple of our projects
[5:21p] mbarr left the chat room. (Quit: mbarr)
[5:21p] bethlynn: dp-work: maybe there should be more incentive for the
company of the apprentice
[5:21p] dp-work: my assumption was university, but it can work at any
level. i said student specifically, avoiding the larger mentoring issue,
because it is something we can get a handle on
[5:21p] fuat: i think if LOPSA took on the project of "how to manage a
successful internship/apprenticeship" it might work
[5:21p] fuat: i.e. have some established suggestions for how to make it
work successfully for both intern and mentor
[5:21p] dp-work: fuat: that depends so much on the culture of the site. we
can certainly be a forum to collect success stories and advice
[5:22p] fuat: i.e less focus on the t-shirt (nice touch), more upfront
guidance to help make the project work
[5:22p] fuat: kind of like management classes
[5:22p] mbarr joined the chat room.
[5:22p] fuat: technical issues, managerial issues, HR factors,
interpersonal relationships
[5:23p] dp-work: fuat: those are all valid issues and concerns for
sysadmins who end up even just a little bit in management...
[5:23p] palmer: even managing students, too
[5:23p] palmer: I'm a manager now, frightening as that may sound.
[5:24p] fuat: poor management, mismatched expectations, mismatched skills,
lack of time devoted to mentoring are some of the things that make student
summer projects fail
[5:24p] moosework joined the chat room.
[5:24p] dp-work: speaking of management... if we had some kind of event for
managers of sysadmins, would your manager go?
[5:24p] palmer: yes. and this is an area I enjoy working in. we have an
active and pretty healthy summer student program in my department
[5:26p] palmer: no thoughts on the manager's workshop?
[5:26p] palmer: how about an area on the site targeted at managers of
sysadmins?
[5:26p] fuat: palmer: sounds like you should make a stab at writing up a
"quick guide to student system admin internships". and base the LOPSA
program around it. i.e. set up the things needed to make it a success
before setting up the blog, t-shirt, job board infrastr
[5:26p] bethlynn: how does one become a sysadmin manager anyhow? Our site
is looking for one.
[5:26p] fuat: yes, manager workshop would be nice
[5:26p] chrisd: dp-work: My manager *thinks* he's a sys admin.
[5:27p] palmer: that can be just as dangerous chrisd :)
[5:27p] fuat: differentiate between managers who are technical leads, and
managers who wear "CIO" type titles
[5:27p] palmer: my boss has phases like that too. And while maybe I can
make a case for being a sysadmin still, he certainly cannot.
[5:27p] chrisd: palmer: Exactly. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
[5:27p] chrisd: "The intranet was a little slow this morning, so I rebooted
the web server..."
[5:27p] LuftHans: palmer: sorry, I either have no managers or 6 depending
on how you count... none of the 6 would go
[5:27p] chrisd: What a way to start the day.
[5:28p] palmer: Indeed. Well there's a related question, lufthans -- I
think that situation happens a bit to sysadmins
[5:29p] palmer: and it may be because no one really knows how to best
manage a sysadmin department especially within a smaller company or
department
[5:29p] nonrandom: my manager might want to, but the corp wouldn't pay
[5:29p] bethlynn: from someone who is managed, I would like it if there was
some way to train managers to be able to measure customer service in good
times and bad
[5:30p] palmer: so if we had content that went to the manager, rather than
trying to bring the manager to the content, that'd be better as a first
pass.
[5:30p] chrisd: palmer: Yes. But, you can lead a horse to water...
[5:30p] fuat: Maybe start with a "The Care and Feeding of System Admins"
booklet?
[5:30p] palmer: always true. But better that you be able to point to it
than not have it all :)
[5:32p] palmer: Has anyone recruited a new member yet this month?
[5:32p] palmer: Or tried? Did it go well? Poorly?
[5:32p] chrisd: Adele did (me!).
[5:32p] palmer: Well that works!
[5:32p] dp-work: welcome chrisd!
[5:33p] palmer: What pulled you in?
[5:33p] bethlynn: palmer: I've been nagging duncanh since lisa and he just
got around to joining. does that count?
[5:33p] palmer: Close enough :)
[5:34p] chrisd: Adele, mostly.
[5:34p] chrisd: She threatened to beat me...
[5:34p] chrisd: (She's not here, is she?)
[5:34p] chrisd: Seriously, what pulled me in was the idea of getting in on
the ground floor and being able to guide the direction of a valuable
organization.
[5:35p] chrisd: SAGE (an alternative) is, IMNSHO, too hide-bound.
[5:36p] palmer: Well we're happy to get you into whatever efforts you want
[5:37p] palmer: there's a lot of opportunity to pick up a ball and run with
it.
[5:37p] roman: I've hit up a few people at work, between spp and I, I think
we're about to get a beating
[5:37p] roman: I also posted it to groklaw.net, with PJ's ok
[5:37p] palmer: We can also take people who might want to give it a spin,
maybe start working on a project on a provisional basis before officially
joining if they want to see what we're about before joining.
[5:37p] palmer: Oh, thank you Roman.
[5:39p] roman: btw, thanks for the membership draft email, that will help
[5:40p] palmer: Most welcome. If you need any other material like that,
please let us know.
[5:40p] nonrandom: Peter Jakobi has been hitting me up with lots of
requests for enhancement to the news aggregator feed. Would love to pass
that on to an eager volunteer. :)
[5:41p] tep: chrisd: you're in San Diego?
[5:41p] chrisd: tep: Yes.
[5:41p] roman: btw, is there somewhere on the site to track new members,
and maybe who they were referred by? Would that be a good idea if not
already there?
[5:41p] nonrandom: we've got it
[5:42p] nonrandom: when you sign up there is a field that asks who you were
referred by
[5:42p] tep: hopefully new members this month are putting in the referral
info!
[5:42p] roman: got a link handy, I seem to be missing it
[5:42p] roman: yeah, I mean somehwere that displays it?
[5:42p] nonrandom: have you setup your account yet?
[5:42p] roman: yep
[5:42p] nonrandom: you mean a public page of who was referred by whom?
[5:42p] palmer: we do track new members internally; we can't really release
referral data and the like to due to privacy concerns
[5:42p] roman: k
[5:42p] nonrandom: yeah, what he said
[5:43p] roman: understood
[5:44p] roman: ok, I'm out, thanks palmer, LuftHans, et al
[5:44p] palmer: Thank you Roman. Be in touch!
[5:44p] roman: definately
[5:44p] roman left the chat room.
[5:45p] palmer: Anyone else have questions, comments, criticisms,
confusions?
[5:45p] palmer: we've got 15 minutes left and my fingers haven't fallen off
yet
[5:46p] fuat: Along the lines of the news aggregator...
[5:47p] fuat: any thought to having volunteers (or encouraging those who
start threads on the mailing lists) to create summaries?
[5:47p] fuat: not concatenations/digests, but a more thoughtful summary of
a topic
[5:47p] fuat: and then post it on the web site
[5:48p] fuat: most of the technical discussions on the list tend to wander
off topic and degenerate into arguments or other off-topic things
[5:49p] nonrandom: yes, we've had many thoughts along those lines.
[5:49p] fuat: after the second or third day of messages with the same
subject, I start deleting them without reading them usually
[5:49p] LuftHans: fuat: some of that might work with the "pretty good
practices" project that isn't started
[5:50p] palmer: yes fuat. That is work I've wanted to take up for a little
while. I should get cracking :)
[5:50p] nonrandom: the main sorts of details revolve around where to put
it, what/how to organize it, how to promote it, and what sorts of things.
If anybody has inspirations and solid ideas, we can probably make it so
without too much effort
[5:50p] palmer: My other volunteer hobby is highly tied to the school year
and so my own projects tend to suffer around this time of year. C'est la
vie.
[5:50p] fuat: dunno what pretty good practices is. the advantage of
culling mailing lists is that the content has already been produced. it
just needs all the garbage and repetition removed.
[5:50p] chrisd: palmer: What's your other hobby?
[5:51p] nonrandom: we even have trackback capability
[5:51p] palmer: I'm a high school speech and debate coach.
[5:51p] chrisd: palmer: Cool!
[5:51p] palmer: http://www.southspeech.org/
[5:51p] palmer: that's me in the upper right corner
[5:51p] chrisd: I think "pretty good practices" sounds a lot better than
"best practices".
[5:51p] palmer: • palmer never misses a chance to brag about my kids :)
[5:52p] palmer: OK, 8 minutes left, so last question for the room
[5:52p] palmer: Would you like to have more frequent lopsa-lives?
[5:52p] fuat: yes
[5:52p] palmer: And is this format a good one?
[5:52p] LuftHans: fuat: my idea for "pretty good practices" is to document
good ways to handle different technical projects. I think many of the
distilled threads like your talking about would fit there
[5:52p] fuat: yes, especially when you clean up the log and post it online
later
[5:53p] fuat: ;-)
[5:53p] palmer: yah. that's always a pain but I do it anyway :)
[5:53p] chrisd: Define "more frequent" relative to the current frequency. I
thought these were somewhat informal.
[5:53p] LuftHans: chrisd: yeah, "best" is for the particular situation, so
we can't really have a generic "best" practice
[5:53p] fuat: when was the last one?
[5:53p] palmer: We've only had 2 so far
[5:53p] palmer: the last was in December after LISA
[5:53p] fuat: yeah, 5 months is too long
[5:53p] palmer: I was thinking monthly or bi-monthly
[5:53p] fuat: once a month, at most once every 2 months
[5:53p] palmer: Going forward
[5:54p] nonrandom: one of the interesting things about new forums, topics,
ideas is how to converge them all into a useful umbrella that links
categorically.. That's one of the things I try to do when thinking about
all of these things.
[5:54p] palmer: Is that all everyone? Anyone have anything else to add?
[5:54p] chrisd: Thanks, Chris, for organizing this chat and keeping it
flowing!
[5:54p] palmer: There's free seafood waiting for me at Legal's and I don't
want to miss it :)
[5:55p] palmer: Thank you all for participating
[5:56p] palmer: Good night, and good luck :)

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