Structuring of KCLUG

[Jared Smith]

>While I enjoyed "eavesdropping" on several very interesting conversations, I did not
>come away with a lot of new Linux knowledge.  This mailing list has been a wonderful
>boon, and I appreciate all the help and advice I have received.

You're right, this mailing list is where the most newbie help occurs.

An occasional "newbie night" is a good idea, but let me be frank about 
KCLUG's seeming lack of structure and its actual high-velocity of knowledge
transfer. To the newbie, who wants to learn from "Linux for Dummies"
books, structure is imperative. It is also a serious handicap, keeping
a person at a very low level of information, dependent on someone
else's idea of how to teach people...

Linux is very hands-on.

I distinctly remember my very first meeting. It sucked. I sat there
and not a person spoke to me for two hours, except the friend I
had come with. But I was perseverant, and I came back. This time, 
a few people made eye contact, and I began to realize that this 
meeting was _very different_ from any other I'd been to. I began 
listening very closely, and was amazed at the end of the evening--
I had learned a lot about Linux.

But I would have learned nothing if I hadn't already had a Linux
box at home that I could experiment with. Why? Because the
knowledge transfer was NOT about "here is where the keyboard
is, and this is what a mouse is." Instead, it was some deep
discussion about the philosophical implications of KDE versus
GNOME in a relatively flame-less environment. Then it was a
brief foray into "helo" backdoors via port 25, then some serious 
information about how to run SAMBA, and so on and so forth. 
None of it was for newbies. And all of it was woven into a high-velocity
conversation that was split into five topic areas (threads)
concurrently running. It was great!

Hierarchically-trained newbies want structure. Let's give'm 
structure, but wean them away from that as the only way to 
learn, please?

>I have worked in the legal field as an IT professional for close to ten years now.  I
>would have a very hard time explaining my experience at the KCLUG meeting to the lawyers
>I work for.  :)

And that is the way it should be. Lawyers can stand being 
mystified occasionally. And they are a good example of
what happens when too much structure becomes standard.

-Jared