[Baypiggies] Participation and improvement [Was: Re: Python Job posting- still allowed ?]

[Shannon -jj Behrens]

On 5/10/06, Danny Yoo <dyoo at hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> > Think about how much easier it would have been to post this initially,
> > rather than begging the question:
>
> [job posting policy content cut]
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> True; that probably would have been the better approach.  It's sometimes
> difficult to know if a response to a question is insufficiently
> informative;  we don't know enough about the questioner to realize that
> "look at the web site" might be too abrupt.
>
>
> > Bottom line: I'd like to see MANY more job ads on this list,
> > interspersed with the general list chatter (by people who almost never
> > come to the meetings, I might add... Maybe we should make a policy that
> > you can't post to the list unless you attend at least half the meetings
> > in a given 12-month period?  Just a thought...).
>
> I just wanted to comment on the last parenthetical comment.  Rather than
> encourage a policy of exclusion, I'd rather see a policy of participation.
>
> (Of course, I'm one of those people who haven't come to a Baypiggies
> meeting in a while, so of course I'm obligated to object to being
> silenced.  *grin*)
>
> That is, I think one could spend energy to discourage a group of people
> from dominating discussion.  But that energy could be also directed to
> start a new thread of conversation that allows others to participate
> freely.
>
>
> Let's go meta on this.  Here's a question for folks here: as a
> professional programmer, what other community resources do you use to
> become better at what you do?  Are there local workshops or classes in the
> area that have been particularly effective and successful?
>
> Do subscriptions to organizations like the ACM or IEEE (or BayPIGgies)
> help at all?  If not, what can such organizations do to help improve its
> participants?

I pay attention to the SDForum and the ACCU.

BayPiggies has value as a mailing list even if you can't make it to a
meeting.  This is about the only Python mailing list that I'm on, and
I find it valuable.