[H-GEN] Summary of the LCA 2009 did talk

[Russell Stuart]

This is a quick summary of the talk I gave on Saturday 
regarding the Humbug bid LCA 2009.  This is mainly for 
the benefit of those who had nicer things to do over
Easter than attend boring talks.

1.  Organisation for the bid is being done on a Wiki:

      http://www.stuart.id.au/lcawiki       [a]

    You have create an account on the Wiki and log into 
    it before you can participate [b].  The StartHere page 
    on the wiki [c] explains how to do this.

    The wiki [d] has lots useful features [e], so go 
    exploring.  For example, MoinMoin can do slide shows, 
    and did do the slides for my talk [f].

2.  On the first page of the wiki you will see a heading
    Sub-Projects.  These as tasks that need to be done.  With
    the exception of "Venue" they _all_ need volunteers to
    step in and pick them up NOW.  Each sub-project contains 
    a short description that I won't repeat here.  There are
    more tasks than first appears because Events has one
    heading, but there are many events each needing work.

    How did you pick up a task?  Just make a note on the
    wiki that you are looking at it.  That's it.

3.  Regarding the Venue.  The details of what has happened
    so far are on the wiki, of course.

      http://www.stuart.id.au/lcawiki/Venue

    This is probably worth looking at, if only because it
    serves as an example of how I would like to see the wiki 
    updated as things happen.

    Briefly:
      - I am talking with into QUT.
      - QUT is eager to host LCA 2009, but
      - there are outstanding "show stopper" issues that must 
        be resolved, and
      - I am hoping to get a firm ya or nay by the end of the 
        week (10/04/2007), but in any case
      - without a firm ya by then will have to start looking
        for other venues quickly.

4.  There is competition for hosting LCA.  Bids must be
    handed in sometime in June.  Bidding is a competitive 
    process.  Previous bids are up on the wiki [g].  Look 
    at them - they are a good source of ideas.  It is possible 
    we won't win 2009, but if we miss out we intend to win 
    2010!

5.  You can get help out now.  Think of something you would
    like to see at LCA, anything - old or new.  Make a note
    on the wiki that you thought of it.  Done!

    The wiki is a tool for your use - use it.  Make notes 
    on the wiki of when and what you did, who you spoke to, 
    what they said, what you plan to do next, if you
    scratched your nose, and upload any correspondence to 
    the wiki.

6.  The other venues for discussion are the Humbug's
    General email list, and the fortnightly meetings.  Use 
    these venues in preference discussing things privately.
    The Talks Maintainer has agreed to let me have a
    mini-talk discussing progress at 6PM each meeting [h].
    I will be using the wiki's RecentChanges [i] and 
    anything posted to general as an agenda.
    


Notes
-----

[a]   Hopefully this URL will appear on Humbug's web page at
      some stage.  

[b]   I wrote the email authorisation code (ie it is brand 
      spanking new alpha code), and I had a bug which caused some
      early users grief.  Hopefully its OK now.  If you can't get 
      past the account create procedure send me an email with the 
      error message the wiki gave you.

[c]   URL for the StartPage: 
        http://www.stuart.id.au/lcawiki/StartHere

[d]  The wiki is based on MoinMoin.  MoinMoin is a popular wiki 
      in the open source world.  LCA 2007's web site is based 
      on it, as is Ubuntu's.  Doing nifty things with MoinMoin 
      would make a great Humbug talk (hint hint).

[e]   Click on the 'i' button at the top right for help.
      Each account has a Home Page which you can dump any stuff 
      you want into.  You can subscribe to any page which means 
      you get emailed whenever it changes, which provides a 
      great way of monitoring a particular task.

[f]   The slides for my talk are here: 
        http://www.stuart.id.au/lcawiki/RussellStuart/20070407-Humbug-LCA-Talk-Slides

[g]   You can find other bids here:
        http://www.stuart.id.au/lcawiki/BidDocument

[h]   I won't be at the 5/May meeting due to prior commitments.

[i]   The RecentChanges page is here:
        http://www.stuart.id.au/lcawiki/RecentChanges


--
Regards,
Russell Stuart