Hi Mel,<div><br></div><div>Great Post. +1 here. Just a quick question. I can't seem to get past the login screen when trying to view the archived support gang email from March: <br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
5. Is there a possibility of publishing emails like the ones on<br><a href="http://lists.laptop.org/private/support-gang/2009-March/005198.html" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/private/support-gang/2009-March/005198.html</a> so<br>
that people not on the private support-gang mailing list can see them?</blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm on the support gang, but it's not accepting any of my passwords (teamwiki, rt, etc.) I also don't believe that I've ever been asked to associate my email address with a password via the support gang either. It's always been a username, right?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Any clue on how to view that email?</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div>-Dan</div><div><br></div><div> </div><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:grassroots-request@lists.laptop.org">grassroots-request@lists.laptop.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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Today's Topics:<br>
<br>
1. What's up with OLPCorps? (Mel Chua)<br>
<br>
<br>
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<br>
Message: 1<br>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:23:15 -0400<br>
From: Mel Chua <<a href="mailto:mel@melchua.com">mel@melchua.com</a>><br>
Subject: [Grassroots-l] What's up with OLPCorps?<br>
To: OLPC Grassroots list <<a href="mailto:grassroots@lists.laptop.org">grassroots@lists.laptop.org</a>><br>
Cc: Paul Commons <<a href="mailto:commons@laptop.org">commons@laptop.org</a>><br>
Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:49B5F943.5010302@melchua.com">49B5F943.5010302@melchua.com</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed<br>
<br>
Ok, I'm going to be somewhat presumptious here.<br>
<br>
I've been watching the community reactions to<br>
<a href="http://www.onehereonethere.org" target="_blank">http://www.onehereonethere.org</a> and the OLPCorps program and have been<br>
hearing a lot of frustrations and a lot of questions - the vast majority<br>
of which I share, actually - and decided to ping Paul Commons to see<br>
what I could learn about what they were trying to do. We just had our<br>
first conversation tonight, over the phone; it was a tough but good<br>
conversation, and can be generally summarized by "there's a community of<br>
very smart and awesome people out there and you should talk with them<br>
and ask them things." "how?"<br>
<br>
To go out on a limb here - and I could be wrong - it seems to me that at<br>
least some of this frustration comes from (1) Paul being still in the<br>
middle of learning how to work with the kind of volunteer communities<br>
that OLPC has, and (2) from the impression that after multiple years and<br>
untold thousands of man-hours of volunteering for OLPC without much in<br>
the way of thanks or support, here drops this BLESSED PROJECT! from the<br>
sky with these people you have never heard of with no prior contribution<br>
record that you know of magically getting all these resources from 1cc,<br>
including lots of shiny press, for no apparent reason, and that just<br>
seems... unfair. Regardless of the actual situation, I'm guessing that<br>
it might /seem/ that way to some people. (It did to me, and still kind<br>
of does, though I know that's likely due to me missing huge swaths of<br>
the story.)<br>
<br>
I still don't know the actual situation. It's kind of silly to think<br>
that anybody does. But I think I know a little more now, enough to<br>
conclude that we can't deal with (2) until (1) gets a little further<br>
along - so I was really happy to hear that Paul is trying to make the<br>
workings of OLPCorps more transparent and trying to figure out how to<br>
respond to the feedback - especially the criticism - we've offered on<br>
many different forums. He needs help/advice on how to do it - learning<br>
the unwritten rules of how to participate in a new community is hard.<br>
<br>
In that vein, and with the long prelude finished, instead of asking Paul<br>
all the questions I had over the phone, we agreed that I would send a<br>
first round of my questions about OLPCorps out over a public mailing<br>
list (hi!) so that Paul could respond and we could continue our dialog,<br>
so here it is. (Paul, I know you're incredibly busy right now, so holler<br>
back when you have time.)<br>
<br>
1.It's hard to get a sense of who you are and what you're working on<br>
from the (very professional!) descriptions! at<br>
<a href="http://www.onehereonethere.org/board.asp" target="_blank">http://www.onehereonethere.org/board.asp</a>. When we talked on the phone<br>
tonight. You told me a far more interesting backstory about how your<br>
involvement and the OLPCorps project started, and how you worked alone<br>
for a long time on an unsupported project to make this happen before it<br>
was picked up and supported by 1cc, which is inspiring (and encouraging<br>
and instructional for those of us who've been trying to get support for<br>
our own projects for a while. ;) How can we hear more about this?<br>
<br>
2. What previous deployments (including "unofficial" grassroots<br>
deployments like <a href="http://blog.olenepal.org/" target="_blank">http://blog.olenepal.org/</a>,<br>
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Boston" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Boston</a> pilots, <a href="http://waveplace.com/" target="_blank">http://waveplace.com/</a>, and<br>
<a href="http://www.olpcfriends.org" target="_blank">http://www.olpcfriends.org</a> as well as the many deployment teachers at<br>
<a href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur</a>) have you spoken to? What was<br>
their reaction/feedback? How will what you're doing affect/help their<br>
deployments?<br>
<br>
3. Ditto above for<br>
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/University_chapters#University_Groups" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/University_chapters#University_Groups</a>, noting<br>
that not all students volunteering for OLPC are in university, not all<br>
university students volunteer as part of a group, and not all groups are<br>
listed on that page.<br>
<br>
4. Why are we emailing <a href="mailto:olpccorps@laptop.org">olpccorps@laptop.org</a> for more information or to<br>
offer help? Why not <a href="mailto:olpccorps@lists.laptop.org">olpccorps@lists.laptop.org</a>, where people can view<br>
previous introductions and comment on and welcome new inquirers? (It<br>
won't happen automatically - opening something publicly up to volunteers<br>
will not magically solve all your problems - but this makes it possible<br>
for us to help.)<br>
<br>
5. Is there a possibility of publishing emails like the ones on<br>
<a href="http://lists.laptop.org/private/support-gang/2009-March/005198.html" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/private/support-gang/2009-March/005198.html</a> so<br>
that people not on the private support-gang mailing list can see them?<br>
Can we see the rough planning emails that have been going back and<br>
forth, and otherwise see why you made the decisions you made, what<br>
you're trying to figure out, and what you're having trouble with so that<br>
we can help? (There are a good number of people here who have run or<br>
mentored internship programs before.) I know they're rough and show a<br>
lot of mistakes - this is the equivalent of publishing your source code<br>
so that other people can help you find and fix the bugs. We know from<br>
all the things you've made so far that you can definitely operate very<br>
professionally and produce polished things when you need to, but it's<br>
hard to get invested and involved if we can't see and join the conversation.<br>
<br>
I have a million more questions about training, publicity, follow-up,<br>
sustainability, how you'll gauge your impact, etc. but I'll save them<br>
for a second round. ;)<br>
<br>
--Mel<br>
<br>
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End of Grassroots Digest, Vol 20, Issue 4<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>