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  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
  
  Cartoon artwork created with Stripgenerator; dialogue copy/pasted from #ubuntu-offtopic on Freenode.
  

  ---

The IRC Council meetings have public meeting minutes of course, but some of our practical work is never discussed in these public meetings and tends to go unnoticed. Some of this boring behind-the-scenes mundane work has implications to users and operators on our channels, and I decided to write about it here.

So, what has been going on outside the spotlight?

Wiki reorganization

One of the janitorial jobs we’ve done is the reorganization of our IRC related wiki pages. Wikis by nature evolve organically, pages being created by many people over time, and they end up being largely unorganized. So we moved all pages to an old fashioned, boring hierarchy under a common IRC/ name space, and the result is something like this:

IRC/Bots
IRC/Cloaks
IRC/Guidelines
…
IRC/IrcTeam/
IRC/IrcTeam/Scope
…
IRC/IrcCouncil
IRC/IRCCouncil/MeetingAgenda
…

You get the idea. All old pages redirect to the new pages, so we can hope we did not break any of your old links and bookmarks. If something is broken, you can report it, or even better, fix it! It is a wiki after all :)

We have updated several core documents, most notably the operator guidelines and the description of the IRC Council itself. We also created a calendar that will nag us periodically to review all wiki pages, one at a time, to make sure they don’t become too out of date.

Operator teams on Launchpad

Ubuntu’s IRC universe has become very, very large and keeps growing, and so has the need for operators. We can’t possibly know all the potentially awesome individuals who would make great operators, so there’s a need to define a better process to nominate operators than simply giving access to friends that we know will do a good job.

Terence did a terrific job at converting the access lists on our channels into Launchpad team memberships. This makes managing them much easier for everyone. It also makes it possible for people to offer help easier: they will be able to apply for team memberships as a way to announce their willingness to serve as an operator. We will soon have this new process in effect, and it is documented on the wiki already.

IRC Council access in channels

The Council should now have access to all core channels for easy maintenance. Additionally, we strongly recommend adding the UbuntuIrcCouncil and the freenode staff cloaks into your LoCo channel’s access list, so that they may intervene in case of serious disruptions on your channel while your operators are asleep or attending a release party. This is documented in the wiki page for channel creation. When creating channels, make extra sure to have a good read of the document, to ensure your channels fit nicely in the #ubuntu-* name space.

How you can help

Is IRC not working well for you? Do you have a great improvement on your mind that will make it work even better? The IRC Team is easy to contact on #ubuntu-irc, and via e-mail. Most importantly, have fun and help to keep our IRC channels friendly and useful! :)

Yesterday, I announced my official approval of the “inverted” Clearlooks theme to be included in the list of usable things. Everyone was happy, no doubt. I hope the theme creators are recovering from the resulting party nicely. Always concerned with the quality of Ubuntu’s IRC services, elky inquired about the certification status of #ubuntu-offtopic. I hope this installation of tales from the offtopic clears everything out, and everyone can continue enjoying their time on the channel!

Edit: I guess you’re probably thinking, “pffft there’s no such thing as a topyli starburst sticker of approval!” Guess again! Of course there is one, kindly (and 100% officially) created by mc44.

In yesterday’s EMEA regional membership approval board meeting, my application for Ubuntu membership was accepted, and tonight I’m in the process of activating my membership perks, such as syndication on Planet Ubuntu. Thanks to all who cheered for me in the meeting, and who added testimonials on my wiki page!

For those who don’t know me, I’m a Finnish academic guy and a big freedom fan. I have used, advocated, and supported Ubuntu as long as it has existed, and more in fact – I downloaded my first pre-Warty copy of Ubuntu from nonameyet.com. :)

I hope I can continue to be useful for the Ubuntu community for a long time still. I foresee a glorious future for Free Software and our favorite distribution, and I only wish I can recognize as many opportunities as possible for making Ubuntu a little bit more awesome as they come by. Because they always do.

Big cheers also to our other amazing new EMEA region Ubuntu members. Full speed ahead!

In a group effort of humanist logic, I’m pretty sure our team made everyone on #ubuntu-offtopic feel a bit less insecure and much more comfortable about ourselves. Bugs in our logic are not welcome, but we accept donations. Beer, cookies and hugs would be nice.

This intellectual achievement brought to you by magnetron, pantsman, netyire, aprilhare and topyli.

Traditionally, people in Finland (and elsewhere too, I would imagine) are pretty stupid about handling of fireworks on New Year’s Eve. It’s not ignorance – we all know how that blowing up stuff in your face can be hazardous to your health. We simply have enormous amounts of faith in nothing bad ever possibly happening to our own person. We set a new record of sadness this year by having two (documented) accidents even the day before :-(

We on #ubuntu-offtopic naturally care a lot about the welfare of our youth. After all, they are the future of #ubuntu-offtopic! Our discussion started off on a rather pessimistic tone, but perhaps there is something to learn here.

Then again, perhaps not. Who knows! Featuring topyli and zaapiel:

Have fun but keep your head, kids. Happy New Year!

Sometimes it’s good to give your friends some time to work on their ideas. mc44 totally appreciates wobblywu’s hard work. This is how communities work at best.

Today, the Finnish Linux User Group[1] announced their yearly Linux Contributor Award. The Winner: Ubuntu Suomi! Translating from the press release (Finnish PDF).

The volunteer community has taken care of translations, arranged events around the country, promoted Linux and Free Software to legislators and, above all, provided user support through its web forum.

Mirv accepting the prize.
(Photo from the ubuntu-fi blog)

Congratulations to our most excellent LoCo Team!

Two honorable mentions were awarded as well. One was given to the Linux.fi wiki. The choice further emphasizes the great importance that peer-provided support and documentation has for the success of Free Software. The other one went to Monty Widenius, the founder of MySQL. Yes, in case you didn’t know, he is yet another Finn helping build the tools for our road to software freedom. :) Altough MySQL is not directly related to LInux, as one of the pillars of the near-ubiqutuous LAMP stack, its success is very much tied to that of Linux.

Cheers to these Honored Ones too!

[1] Yes, there is only one. It is a small country :)

This morning, I found an email from Karol in my inbox, telling me about a promotional Ubuntu website he designed. It is slick!

The site is a place for Ubuntu users to share their story. Why do you use Ubuntu? Tell your story about security, stability, desktop sexiness and all the other reasons to choose our favorite Linux distribution for your daily business and pleasure use!

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