LibrePlanet:Teams/New

If you would like to organize and lead a LibrePlanet team, this page should have everything you need to get started.

Getting Started

Before you create the team

• If you are starting a local team, first navigate to your LibrePlanet Local Teams List to see if there is already a chapter in the area.
• If you would like to join a local team that does not exist, but are unable to dedicate the time to be the lead organizer, please create a temporary page using the instructions below and link to it prominently from the regional page. Instead of the normal content, however, simply include a disclaimer that the page is a temporary placeholder, a link back to this page, and a link of people interested in joining (starting with yourself) plus how to contact them once the group is established.

Please join global communication channels to keep all local efforts in contact.

Microblog: Identi.ca

IRC: #libreplanet on FreeNode

Discussion list: LibrePlanet-discuss

Development list: LibrePlanet-dev - discussing code that helps LibrePlanet teams flourish.

Local Team Naming Standards

Teams can cover a fairly large area. For example, the UK Team may have a single group for the entire country since it's a fairly small, but smaller meetings around the country can happen. For larger countries such as the United States, teams exist at a state level - the country is too big to have one single team. All LibrePlanet Teams should be use the name of their location in their own language.

Local teams should create a mailing list and IRC channel with their ISO country code) appended to the end.

United States teams should append the two-letter US Postal Code abbreviation for the relevant state (e.g. LibrePlanet-US-MA).

Canadian teams should append the Canadian Province or Territory abbreviation for the relevant province (e.g. LibrePlanet-CA-ON, LibrePlanet-CA-PEI).

• USA Teams
  • Coverage: State-level
  • Wiki: LibrePlanet Massachusetts
  • Mailing list: LibrePlanet-US-MA
  • IRC: #lp-us-ma
• Europe
  • Coverage: Country-level
  • Wiki: LibrePlanet UK
  • Mailing list: LibrePlanet-UK
  • IRC: #lp-uk
• Canadian Teams
  • Coverage: Provincial-level
  • Wiki: LibrePlanet Ontario
  • Mailing list: LibrePlanet-CA-ON
  • IRC: #lp-ca-on
• Africa
  • Coverage: Country-level
  • Wiki: LibrePlanet South Africa
  • Mailing list: LibrePlanet-ZA
  • IRC: #lp-za
• Russia
  • Coverage: Federal subject level
  • Wiki: LibrePlanet Saint Petersburg
  • Mailing list: LibrePlanet-RU-SPB
  • IRC: #lp-ru-spb
• Brazil Teams
  • Coverage: State-level
  • Wiki: LibrePlanet São Paulo
  • Mailing list: libreplanet-br-sp
  • IRC: #lp-br-sp

Setting up your team resources

Every team should have the following resources set up:

Wiki

When starting your team, we recommend you create a page on the wiki which can act as your homepage. See the Massachusetts Team page for an example.

Create a team wiki page here.

Ask the LibrePlanet Wiki Helpers if you need help.

Your wiki should have the following details:

• Introduction - an introduction to the group, what you want to do, what you want to achieve and other things.
• Declaration - a sentence stating that the group operates in accordance with LP's mission statement, code of conduct, and rules and guidelines.
• Join - how to join the team
• Online Meetings - you should have a page that gives details of the next online IRC meeting. This page should be used to say when the next meeting is, where it is held (which IRC channel) and what the agenda is.
• Collaboration - a list of other local GNU/Linux and free software groups, plus a designated coordinator for each
• Categories - Be sure to add the LibrePlanet Teams category, as well as the categories for Regional Teams and your specific regional category or Focus Teams or Project Teams.

IRC Channel

IRC is a great way for the team to have real-time discussions about the group. You should register a channel on the freenode IRC network:

1. Register your nickname on freenode
2. Create the channel

Mailing List

Mailing lists are hosted by LibrePlanet at http://lists.libreplanet.org/ and each team should have one as the main communication channel for discussion and group coordination.

Email sysadmin@gnu.org to request the creation of a mailing list with the the following information and the list should be created within 2 weeks.

• List name
• Wiki page
• IRC Channel
• Admin (your) email

Add it to the list

Go to the Local Teams List and add your group there! Also navigate to the which your team covers, and add a main section at the top directing people to the team. See Massachusetts, USA as an example.

Optional: Create a namespace for your team on the wiki

This step is optional, but can help in the organization of stuff for your team. It is entirely based on LibrePlanet São Paulo's experience, so feel free to change the procedure to suit your needs.

In our (LibrePlanet São Paulo) case, what we did was to create a namespace beginning with our initials in uppercase, i.e., LP-BR-SP. So, if you go to LP-BR-SP (the page is in pt_BR) you will see that everything we do is documented there, or under this namespace. In our opinion, it makes things easier to track and share when promoting things (we could have used the already existing Group:LibrePlanet_São_Paulo namespace, but in our opinion there are two problems with it: (a) the URL is too confuse, and (b) in our specific case, the accent in the "São" word could also cause confusions).

Create a local calendar for the team, and link it to the official LibrePlanet calendar

In order to be able to promote the events that your LibrePlanet will attend or organize, it is highly recommended that you have a calendar. Fortunately, MediaWiki already provides such facility for us.

Before creating your team's calendar, it is recommended that you come up with a name for the link. Again, using LibrePlanet São Paulo's example, we decided again to use our initials in uppercase, i.e., LP-BR-SP. So, having decided that, all you need to do is:

• Go to http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Event:YOURGROUPNAMEHERE , obviously replacing YOURGROUPNAMEHERE by the name you have decided earlier (e.g., in our case, it is http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Event:LP-BR-SP ).
• Create the page, adding the following line to it: <calendar name="Events of YOURGROUPNAMEHERE" /> , again replacing YOURGROUPNAMEHERE by what you have chosen earlier. Note that the calendar name can be actually any text, and the LibrePlanet São Paulo group has even written it in pt_BR. Also please don't forget to include [[category:Events]] at the bottom of the page, so that your calendar will be listed in the appropriate category.
• Save the page. After that, if everything went OK, you should be able to see your calendar.
• Now, make the official LibrePlanet calendar track yours. Go to the Event:LibrePlanet page, clink in the "Edit" link, and:
  • Inside the <calendar>, edit the subscribe parameter to include your team's calendar. This can be done by adding a comma at the end of the parameter, and then adding Event:YOURGROUPNAMEHERE/Events of YOURGROUPNAMEHERE to the list. So, if the <calendar> looked liked this: <calendar name="LibrePlanet" subscribe="Event:FSF/Free Software Foundation Events,Event:Richard_Stallman/Richard Stallman (RMS) Speeches,Event:LP-BR-SP/Eventos do LibrePlanet São Paulo" />, it should now look like this: <calendar name="LibrePlanet" subscribe="Event:FSF/Free Software Foundation Events,Event:Richard_Stallman/Richard Stallman (RMS) Speeches,Event:LP-BR-SP/Eventos do LibrePlanet São Paulo,Event:YOURGROUPNAMEHERE/Events of YOURGROUPNAMEHERE" /> .
  • Don't forget to add your team's calendar link to the Subscribed Calendars section too.

If you already had events scheduled in your team's calendar, you should now be able to see them in the LibrePlanet calendar too. However, if your team's calendar is empty, then nothing visible will happen, so we recommend that you schedule at least one "dummy" event just to test the feature.

Starter Pack

Email campaigns@fsf.org for a Super Sticker Mega Multi Pack, membership cards, copies of the FSF Bulletin, and flyers!

Badges

Badges like this one for the LibrePlanet Massachusetts team identify users using Semantic Mediawiki. Ask the LibrePlanet Wiki Helpers if you need help.

File hosting

If your group will be making documents, code, or other files available, consider using a free software hosting service designed for this. You can register a project at Savannah, the official development hosting site for the GNU Project, using the same naming standard as the mailing list. Another option is to register a Launchpad team, and then add it to the global umbrella team.

Announce the team

Making a big-as-possible announcement about the formation of your team is essential for the initial recruiting process. See the Media coverage section of the software freedom Activism Guide for good tips on writing a press release.

Running the team

See: here