[Fsuk-manchester] Moving Things Forward: Name of the Group

[Tim Dobson]

As I mentioned earlier, there is some confusion of the name of the group.

//Referring to an email from Matt to the list[1] and referencing minutes 
taken on 2008-03-18[2] and lastly Matt's announcement about Libre 
planet[3].//

At one point, several months ago, I think the majority of people 
referred to the group as FSUK-Manchester.
In my opinion, this had a rather nice ring to it, and is pretty easier 
to say quickly.

However, despite, the obvious branding on the Mailing List, Matt made it 
clear back in March[1] that the group was called Manchester Free Software

I would suggest that it would be helpful to clear up the name of the 
group after Matt conceeded FSUK was not really anything anymore and 
Livre Planet would succeed it eventually.

At the moment we have:
 # a website at manchester.fsuk.org
 # a mailing list named fsuk-manchester
 # debatably(see other thread) there is also an irc channel called #fsuk
 # a wikipage referring to "manchester".

I would suggest that it would be good to unite all under one name.

The aim of this thread is to:

 # whether this would be advantageous
 # what this name should be

I think it would be advantageous to unite all our services and resources 
under:

One Name.
One Domain.

The advantages of uniting everything under one name are, I hope, easy to 
understand:

# It removes any ambiguity about what we are called.

The advantages of having everything under one domain:

# Promote "The Name"
# Integration, Centralisation:
    # Mailing list + Archives
    # Wiki
    # Website
    # Details of where to find people on IRC.
    # Perhaps a Blog Aggregator

I would suggest that having, a wiki on one domain, a mailing list on 
another, the website on a third, details about IRC on someone's blog, 
isn't a great way for people to find us.

It's not even easy to point people to one place and say go there and 
find all you need.

If, today, I had to give someone some information about Manchester Free 
Software, I would probably point them to manchester.fsuk.org.

Their first question would be "what's fsuk" and I would have to reply 
that the group was actually called "Manchester Free Software".

The second question would obviously be "where's the mailing 
list/wiki/irc details"

But they probably wouldn't ask these questions, they would probably just 
 assume the answers and not bother asking for clarification on anything.

I think we need our own domain to make it easy for people to find 
everything they need in one place.

In regards to Livre Planet, modelled on the Ubuntu Loco Project, it is 
clear that many Ubuntu Loco Groups have their own groups on their own 
Domains:

http://www.meetlinux.com/
http://www.laredolinux.net/

I hope that having own domain would not have any impact on our 
association with Livre Planet.

[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsuk-manchester/2008-03/msg00125.html
[2] http://groups.fsf.org/index.php/Manchester/2008-03-18/Minutes
[3] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsuk-manchester/2008-04/msg00062.html



--

Moving Things Forward

--
www.tdobson.net
----
If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us
still has one object.
If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now
has two ideas.   -  George Bernard Shaw