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As with every community, our LoCo has ways of doing things that have become ingrained into our culture. This document aims to give you an introduction to the customs of our community, so you can feel comfortable sooner and participate more easily.

Code of Conduct

We are an Ubuntu community and, as such, we follow the Code of Conduct in all of our activities, regardless of venue. You are encouraged to sign the Code of Conduct, to show that you understand and agree to follow it to the best of your ability.

Signing the Code of Conduct is required if you want to volunteer to staff one of our events.

IRC

Internet Relay Chat is used by our LoCo as a means of real-time communication; often things can be discussed in much greater depth and much faster than through email. IRC is a fairly standard medium in many FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) communities, and as such, there's a wealth of customs associated with it.

Don't worry if you stumble about with your first few forays into IRC. It can take some getting used to.

• People may not respond immediately, they could be away from their computers, or busy in another window.
• #ubuntu-california is often quiet for hours at a time, even when people are in the channel. People often leave their IRC client connected when away from the keyboard or busy with other things. You can see whether someone is away by typing "/whois theirName" (it'll show their away message if they are).

• Ubuntu channels follow the Ubuntu IRC Guidelines

• Ubuntu's IRC page

• Read the channel /topic when you enter a room. Your client should show it automatically, or type "/topic" to see it.

Channel Logging

With the exception of scheduled meetings, our channel is not publicly logged. This is to keep it a safe environment where people can discuss matters freely without worry of it ending up on the internet for everyone to see. If you privately log the channel for your own purposes, please do not post those logs publicly.

Nick Highlight

You can direct your statement at someone by including their nickname in your line. In many clients, this highlights them and may also set off an audible bell. Do not be shy about highlighting when addressing someone. Many clients allow you to type the first few characters of someone's nickname and push the tab button to tab complete their nick (much like in a shell), this simplifies this process.

Nicknames

If you use IRC frequently, please register your nick. This will stop other people from (accidentally or otherwise) using it, and has various other benefits. For more information, see freenode's nick setup instructions.

Mailing Lists

Our mailing list is another primary form of communication for our team. Mailing lists offer other advantages when communicating, mainly the fact that communication can happen asynchronously. Keep this in mind when communicating over the mailing list; if you don't get a reply for a few hours (or a day), don't worry.

The mailing list is archived publicly, and your email address will be obfuscated but not hidden if you post to it.

Mailing list etiquette is fairly standard throughout the FOSS community. The Ubuntu community has a set of guidelines for posting to Ubuntu lists. There's another good list in RFC 1855.

Forwards

When forwarding interesting tidbits from other lists, please don't just forward an email (or a thread). It's better to summarize the relevant ideas into one or two paragraphs (or sentences) and then link to the original. People can read your summary, and follow the link to get more information. You already know what the discussion is about, whereas someone else may have to back up five or six emails to read a full thread. The summarization requires a little bit of your time, but saves a significant amount of time for each person who reads it (which on a mailing list, is a lot!).

Meetings

Meetings are where we conduct most of our planning and decision making. Meetings are held every two weeks in our IRC channel. Our meetings page has the dates of upcoming meetings and logs and summaries of older meetings. If you're unable to attend a meeting, and want to be sure your viewpoint is represented, feel free to discuss it on the mailing list or send it to Neal.

Agendas

Agendas for the meetings are hosted on the wiki. The upcoming meeting and the one after it are generally available. If you would like to propose a topic for discussion at a meeting, please add it to the appropriate agenda. Include an explanation on the agenda page or, if it's a complicated topic, consider sending one to the mailing list. We try and keep meetings to under 90 minutes, and may reorder or postpone topics to accommodate.

During Meetings

Meetings are structured and move from one agenda topic to the next. Try to stay on-topic, but don't be afraid to speak up if you have something relevant to say. Remember, you can always bring up non-meeting topics right after the meeting.

Wiki

Our LoCo has a wiki page at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam (and its subpages) that can be edited by anyone with a Launchpad account. This makes it a great place to collaborate.

We use our wiki page to coordinate and plan our projects and store information about past meetings and events. The purpose of this wiki space is to hold information about the LoCo itself, not about Ubuntu, Linux, or Free Culture in general (since those topics are better covered elsewhere).

• Don't be scared to jump in and start editing! The wiki keeps a full history of what changes are made, so if you make mistakes (we all do!), it's easy to fix them!
• Be sure to comment on your edits when appropriate. Comments are a place for a summary of your edit, not discussion. There are better venues for discussion: IRC and email.
• Be sure to check the past edits and comments of a page before making edits (you can view them by clicking "info" at the top of the page once you're logged in).
• The wiki will warn you if the page you're attempting to edit is currently being edited by another person. If this happens, see if the person is active on IRC and coordinate with them, or wait for the edit lock to time out (generally after 15 minutes).

• If you find a problem or something that needs improving on our wiki, but don't want to do it yourself, you can add it to our to-do list.

• The wiki syntax isn’t always the nicest to deal with. See HelpOnEditing for some examples, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

• If you're not sure of something while editing the wiki, ask! There's often someone in our IRC channel that will know the answer and can help you out.

General Conduct as a LoCo

Remember that at events and other LoCo activities, you're representing the LoCo and the entire Ubuntu (and in some cases FOSS) community. Be respectful of other peoples' beliefs, other Linux distributions, and other operating systems. It’s more important to help a person find a solution to their problem than to push Ubuntu, even if that means another distribution, Mac OS X, or even Windows.

Attacking the software that people use is a good way to alienate them. We prefer to promote Ubuntu based on its merits, rather than the flaws of other systems. We aren't competing 'against' other OSes; rather, we're promoting a product which stands on its own technical merits.

If you behave like a zealot, pushing Ubuntu when inappropriate, the LoCo (and the Ubuntu community) loses credibility. People are much more inclined to try something when they truly believe it can help them, rather than just because a biased person told them to.

Appearing professional is important as well. Other operating systems spend lots of money to advertise and we have to compete. It’s much better to have people surprised when they hear we’re a grassroots/volunteer organization than to never hear anything because we appear amateur.