I would be interested in a local TWiki users group -- I have some concerns I'll cover next, but a first step would seem to be to see how many other registered TWiki users are anywhere close to me, and how many of those are interested in participating in a users group.

For me, the reasons are probably selfish -- I don't know TWiki (or Perl) well enough to do many of the things I'd like to do, and although I can get help when I phrase a fairly well thought out question on twiki.org or somewhere similar, it would be nice to get together in person occasionally with people with similar interests but varying levels of expertise.

My Concerns or Misgivings

I do participate in a local LUG -- the LVLUG, in Eastern Pennsylvania, centered on Allentown / Bethlehem / Easton (the "Lehigh (river) Valley"). The LVLUG has monthly meetings, a mailing list, a web server, participates in some ongoing projects (CFK -- Computers For Kids -- with a TWiki at http://thelinuxlink.net/twiki/bin/view/CFK).

I'm not sure there are enough local TWiki users, interest, expertise, and whatever else it takes to support monthly meetings (although I know a few places where I can get a free meeting site for a small group), and probably never get into outside projects (like CFK), but, I would like to attempt to organize something if anyone else within reasonable driving range has a similar interest.

(Aside: Their is another LUG in Philadelphia -- at least for Linux there is enough local interest to support a separate users group in the local area -- I would be willing to drive to Philadelphia for occasional meetings, to a site that was easy to find off, for example, I95.)

Getting Started

Establishing a list of neighbors is a good place to start -- I can see either creating separate pages for each state, or create some sort of table for all users in the US on one page. I'll start a page for TWikiUsersGroupsinUSPennsylvaniaEast.

If anybody else wants to start a page for their local geographic area, maybe we want to list them all here and start them from here so the "bread crumb trail" refers back to this and other previous pages.

-- RandyKramer - 12 Jan 2003

Hi Randy,

The idea in Europe to create national pages translates well to State pages in the US. The pages with Group*s* are to gather multiple local groups. If there aren't any local groups, then a page to collect them is kinda useless IMHO.

User Groups come in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps for a region the geography would prohibit monthly meetings, but bi-annual meetings could be supported for sure in key locations. The difficulty is finding the people willing to organize such events. For the San Francisco Bay Area (California), after the release I'll talk to Peter about getting his backing for organizing an event here. With enough lead time perhaps some folks from other areas can attend.

I was hoping to keep the discussion centralized until there's valid reasons to split off topics, and groups. Right now if we use either this page or the non-Dev page to simply collect names (as is the model for European countries) that will at least start the ball rolling. I also think there's value (even if it does take awhile to render) all the other names. I was looking for a way to get just the statistics and not list out all the names, but I settled for the current setup for now.

-- GrantBow - 12 Jan 2003

Hi Grant,

Sorry I didn't respond any sooner. I sense that there is something you want me to change or do differently, but I'm not really clear on what it is.

Please feel free to rearrange / rename the pages as you see fit. I realize that neither you (IIUC) nor I can actually rename pages, but you can post a request on this page to have one of the developers with administrative privileges make the change.

-- RandyKramer - 16 Jan 2003

See also TWikiUserGroupPlugin

-- MartinCleaver - 12 Jan 2003

List of Geographic Locales

List of potential TWiki UGs by geographical area:

• TWikiUsersGroupsinUSPennsylvaniaEast