BayLISA -> BayISSA

[Mark C. Langston]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2004 at 03:29:40PM -0700, Strata R Chalup wrote:
> 
> Hal Pomeranz, before his move up to Eugene OR, tried to get an
> EastBayLISA or NorthBayLISA going but not enough folks were
> interested to make it work (doh).


My experience with this problem in the SFFf Bay area has demonstrated
there are two possible solutions, with typical outcomes:

1)  Refuse to splinter group.  If people want to come, they come. If
not, they don't.

	Outcome 1:  Group dies from lack of interest.
	Outcome 2:  Group remains, with continued interest, a "core"
			group of attendees, and rotating irregulars.

2)  Splinter group into one or more regional groups.

	Outcome 1:  Splinter groups die from lack of participation.
	Outcome 2:  Splinter groups survive, main group dies.  Little
			or no communication among splinter groups.
	Outcome 3:  Splinter groups survive, main group survives.
			Amount of participation in all groups suffers.


Splinter groups are great if there's an overabundance of participation,
or distinct subinterests that diverge significantly from the main group.
I don't see either occurring here.

-- 
Mark C. Langston                                    Sr. Unix SysAdmin
mark at bitshift.org                                       mark at seti.org
Systems & Network Admin                                SETI Institute
http://bitshift.org                               http://www.seti.org