GNOME 3 User Days Planning Page

This is the planning and organisation page for the GNOME 3 User Days. If you are interested in attending one of these days, please see the user days information page.

Organisational Notes

The following are notes on the procedure followed for the first user day, incorporating lessons learnt and plans for the future. It isn't set in stone - it should be a discussion document that we develop over time.

Sessions and timing

Each user day consists of three hour long sessions run over the course of a 24 hour period.

The timings that were used for the first user day were designed to allow people from across the globe to participate. The second session, held between 15:00 and 16:00 UTC proved to be dramatically more popular than the others.

Session organisation

Each session is held in the #gnome IRC channel.

Two methods of session organisation have been utilised so far:

1. Chair person model: an individual or individuals hosts the session, taking questions in an ad hoc manner.
   • A shared Etherpad document was used at times to make a list of questions and questioners to be returned to later in the session.
   • This had the advantage of making the events personal, engaging and interactive. It could become difficult to track the conversation at times, however.
2. Dual channel model: a separate channel is used to ask questions (such as #gnome3questions) and the main session channel used to give answers.
   • This is an efficient approach, but it had a negative impact on the atmosphere of the event and the reactions of the participants. Those attending the session appeared a little alienated by the separation of the channels and subsequent domination of the hosts.

Another possible approach might be to employ a IRC bot with meeting capabilities, such as Mootbot.

It is important that how the session will be organised is included in the user day information page. This way attendees will be briefed when they arrive, and can be pointed to the instructions if they are not aware of how the session is going to be run.

Staffing

An effort should be made to ensure that there are at least two people scheduled to host each session. Ideally, these individuals should have a broad range of knowledge of GNOME. Someone from design and a developer would be a particularly good split.

It is important to be clear about the specialist knowledge of the session hosts prior to the sessions, since this will ensure that users participating in the sessions have appropriate expectations of what questions will be answered. Advertising each session as a 'Q&A with Jane Hacker and Joe Designer' could be appropriate in this light.

Promotion

User days can be promoted using the usual GNOME channels, including blogging and microblogging. GUG lists have proven to be an excellent way to advertise them. Desktop-list could also be utilised in future.

Notes for session hosts and chairs

It is totally acceptable to advice users to consult other channels or individuals. It is also fine to admit that you are unable to answer a particular question.

Day 1

The first day was held on 15 Febuarary 2011. Guidance on time-zones can be found on the user days information page.

Day 2

The first day will be held on 31 March 2011. Guidance on time-zones can be found on the user days information page.

Please ensure that a log of each session is sent to AllanDay.

Contact

Please contact AllanDay if you have any questions or issues relating to the user days.