[Foss4g2009] mailing lists for FOSS4G 2009

[Dave Patton]

In the "FOSS4G 2009 Website" thread Janelle
raised the issue of 'how are our mailing lists
going to be used and what mailing lists do we
want to make use of'(my wording).

First, for the benefit of our PCO, Tour Hosts, as
you can already tell, we perhaps do things
'a bit differently' than what you may be used to :-)

The approach regarding mailing lists is to do as
much as possible 'out in the open'. As Tim pointed
out, the benefits outweigh the downsides. More than
that, it's part of the general philosophy that you
will find 'in this crowd'. As the mailing lists are
public, and archived, that archive can also be of
use to people (e.g. for people preparing their
responses to RFPs for future FOSS4G conferences).

As for the website's "expression of interest form",
yes, that is one tool, but only one tool. We would
tend to use multiple approaches to enable people
to 'gain information' about FOSS4G 2009. It's not
"just about the delegates" - there will be people
who are interested in the planning of FOSS4G 2009,
and/or the actual conference itself, who, for
whatever reasons, will not be "delegates". To try
and accommodate a wide variety of needs, you'll
see us use public mailing lists, targeted mailings
(e.g. derived from the "expression of interest form"
data and/or other sources), RSS feeds, Blogs, perhaps
Twitter, perhaps traditional snail mail, Wiki, etc.

When you see us doing things that you aren't used to,
just think of "us" as 'The Borg', and remember that
"you will be assimilated, resistance is futile" ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)


Secondly, I think that we will likely add at least two
more "FOSS4G 2009 mailing lists", when appropriate:
1)
An 'announce only' mailing list to which people can
subscribe to keep up with 'useful and important
news about FOSS4G 2009'. Emails on that list will
either have the content of, or links to, such things
as press releases, announcements of important dates,
status updates, etc.
2)
A list for the organization of Workshops/Labs. This
would be a public list, initially populated by the
Workshop Committee. Once Instructors have had their
Workshop/Lab selected to be part of FOSS4G 2009,
they will be asked to join this list, as it is a
key tool for communications with Instructors leading
up to the conference.

-- 
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference:
Workshop Committee Chair
Conference Committee member
http://www.foss4g2007.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/