Talk:FOSS.IN

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[edit] Location

Minor cleanup done -

• According to the event website(s), it has always been held in Bangalore. There is no reason for wikipedia to mention that it may be held elsewhere in the future. I've removed those lines.
• Removed some reduntant words, excessive adjectives.
• Some edits for NPOV.

Jaidev 09:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The renaming of Linux Bangalore to FOSS.IN was done with the specific reason to make it portable. While it is true that the event has so far always been held in Bangalore, it does not change this fact. Am putting that fact back in place.

Achitnis 16:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, we give credit where credit is due, so have reinstated the logo credit.

Achitnis 16:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, the renaming is pretty clear from material available elsewhere. The fact is that it has been held in Bangalore. Whats the need for a wikipedia article to speculate that the event might be held elsewhere? That would be appropriate for the event's website where I don't see it. Jaidev 03:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FOSS.IN/2005

The figure of 3000 registrations is disputable as it has not been proved. The source has been given as a newspaper article. The source for the newspaper article is the organiser of the event. And it is the organiser of the event who has provided the figure of 3000 in the first place. Which he tries to substantiate by quoting a newspaper article of which he is the source. In fact, until 2004, when the event was conducted by the Bangalore Linux Users Group, there was a ticker updated hourly showing the no of registrations. This ticker vanished in 2004 when the BLUG was ousted from the event. Hence this figure should be proven or deleted. Credible evidence could only be the official printout from the database of the organiser, or the official statement of accounts of the event. Since the organiser claims that the event is an open event, this information should surely be openly available for attribution.

Lawgon - you weren't at the event, you have no basis for your accusations. And it doesn't matter either. The event's success is not based on figures: whether 300 or 3000 - the impact and success of the event remains unchanged. The fact, however, is that we have a database of all the people who registered and paid the registration fee, so we are quite clear about figures - you on the other hand, are simply making up wild accusations because you want to be nasty, as usual.

As a matter of fact, this year the number of people who attended the event *was* lower (but of course you have no way of proving it one way or another), and by design so - we chose to refocus the event, and reduce the mad crush of people at the event. We were partially successful, but the number of registered people still exceeded 2000.

What exactly is your beef? Could you start doing something yourself, instead of trying to be an armchair revolutionary with limited facts available to him, trying to discredit something you are not part of?

Stop trying to prove something that isn't true, and stop being such a spoilsport. Thousands of people came and enjoyed the event. You can't take that away, no matter how hard you try.

And nice try about trying to rake up that "the BLUG organized the event" thing again and attempting to get it put on record. The team that organized the events since 2001 continues to be the same one to this day (apart from a few exceptions).

And we intentionally didn't put up the live registration counts this year (or last year) because in 2004, we found that a lot of people were registering just for the joy of it, driving our estimates wonky. 2005 figures are here (as also posted on the mailing list a long time ago) and the 2006 stats are here (these do not include sponsor and exhibitor passes, about 200 or so).

Achitnis 08:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

p.s. Start signing your comments with the ~~~~ shortcut - anonymous comments aren't very credible and frowned upon on Wikipedia. Achitnis 08:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Cool - at last we are getting the statistics. But registration of 2751 in 2005 is not 'nearly 3000', and 1903 in 2006 is not 'over 2000'. Anyway, as long as you link to those pages for proof, no issues from my side - my objection was trying to prove it on the basis of the report in The Hindu. Could we now have similar stats on how many people attended?

At my age, all I can do is sit in an armchair and theorise - I am long past the stage of actualy contributing meaningfully to anything. And I am always willing to be a part of the event (to the extent of my limited abilities of course) and tried hard to be so in 2005, and was so in the previous years. And will do so again as as soon as participation in the organisation of the event is thrown open to the community. Dont forget that I was instrumental in sending a large team to the current edition, encouraged them to participate fully and briefed them on how best to learn from the event.

Whats wrong with saying hundreds of people enjoyed the event. It is true - my team thoroughly enjoyed it. Why do you feel the necessity to add zeros to your achievements? As you yourself said in this thread - numbers are not important. My only beef is: why are you making them important. Incidently I was there in 2004, and i dont believe that 3000 people participated as you claim. My estimate was around 1500. May we have the statistics of that too?

My comments were not anonymous - I made them as a logged-in user and that is shown in the history. Anyway, thanks for telling me about that signing thingie, I will try to learn how to use it. Lawgon 11:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You may have been there in 2004, but you certainly do not understand how things work at such events. This has been explained over and over to you, and hence I know it is futile trying to explain it to you *again*. Let's just leave it. We have accurate registration figures, and I don't really see why you are wasting your time challenging something about the event that gains nobody anything and that we can easily prove (but don't have to)?

Or are you trying to set up a precedent for comparison with another, upcoming, event? :) It is rather strange that you are hammering away at this particular item.

And how difficult is it to go http://linux-bangalore.org/2004 and click on the stats link? :) http://linux-bangalore.org/2004/register/stats.php

This number is the exact number of registrations (confirmed attendees) for the event, not counting free passes to sponsors (which are part of the sponsor kit).

I would now suggest that you create an article for the upcoming IFC and focus on *that*, rather than on events you are not involved in, have no first hand (or even second hand) information about and are not involved in in *any* way. FOSS is about creation of stuff, not attempted destruction of something else.

I am ending this discussion - it isn't worth anyone's time, and I have no reason to lie about attendee figures - even if only 500 people attended the event, it would be more than any community event in India. The fact that we have databases to prove our contention of almost 3000 attendees last year and in earlier years proves your "perception" wrong. If you want to really take this up, please attend the event next year, stand at the gate and count heads.

BTW - inline replies are frowned upon on Wikipedia - please do not edit anyone's comments by adding text inline. Answer *below* his/her comment, with proper indentation

Achitnis 13:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Where is the inline reply? Lawgon 15:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately you cannot end the discussion. It is now clear that the figure is 2751 and not 'nearly 3000'. And they are not the same. 2751 is a verifiable fact - which can be proved by linking to the report from the conference database. 'nearly 3000' is an advertising term - like 'only $1999' often used to mislead customers about prices. Wikipedia needs facts. So either you put the correct fact and link it to the authentic source. Or I do it. Or we submit the dispute to wikipedia for mediation. Incidently it would be a good idea to also provide actual attendance figures for all the years. You have the figures. There is no valid reason for concealing them in an article in wikipedia. So who does it?

ps. I have now understood what you mean by inline editing and have reformatted to conform with the rules. Thanks for the heads up. Lawgon 03:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the line in the FOSS.IN 2005 section to read 'around 2700' now. Since FOSS.IN is not about numbers anyway, I doubt this would hurt anyone. Hope everyone's happy with this so we can stop fighting! KillerX 17:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Since wikipedia is about accuracy, and the exact figures are available i have changed the line to read 'there were 2751 registrations'. Again in the interests of accuracy, i propose to delete the statement that there were 'over 3000 participants' in 2004 as there is no evidence for this. Further, since there is again no evidence that the participation in the events ever crossed 2000 for any event, The term 'thousands of participants is misleading and inaccurate and i propose to replace it with 'hundreds of participants'. It is to be noted with regret that though the organiser of the event has the exact figures of participation, he has declined to reveal them. I would further like to point out that the tone of this article to a large extent is that of a 'puff' article designed to attract sponsors and participants rather than a factual article. I am trying to redress this balance. Lawgon 09:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

http://linux-bangalore.org/2004/register/stats.php - figures shown do not include invitees, sponsor-passes and others (not even speakers). Just sponsor passes would exceed 200. And the only way to prove the figures to your satisfaction would be to reveal the delegate database, and it will be a cold day in hell when we violate our Privacy Policy.

End this now - you are banging away at minor points and are simply being disruptive. You really have no evidence to the contrary at all, yet are trying to "prove" somehow that the thousands of attendees of our events don't exist. We don't need to lie about numbers (even if numbers were that important) - but you seem to have some strange compulsion to prove that we are anyway. And now you have brought in this strange "attract sponsors" thing - which, apart from being completely untrue, also clearly shows your intention to somehow hurt the event. I will not be participating in this discussion any further - further matters will got to arbitration, because you are clearly not being rational. Achitnis 10:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BLUG vs. Linux-Bangalore

The earlier linux-bangalore conferences were held by the BLUG, which apparently is different from the "linux-bangalore" group. Until the controversy settles with conviction, the neutrality of the article must remain disputed. See [1], [2] and [3]. KillerX 13:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The matter was settled ages back. You are raking up old stuff that was settled long ago[4], and with real evidence. Do not use Wikipedia as your personal attack platform - try doing your own stuff for a change instead of attacking other people's work. Achitnis 11:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you did not see my 3rd reference. That was a reply to the link you mentioned, and there has not been any response to that so far from linux-bangalore. If there is such a reply, please let me know. And for your kind information, this is not in my personal interest, I am a third party here: not involved with either of the groups. I am merely trying to maintain neutrality and authenticity in Wikipedia. If you can't live with that, I'm sorry! KillerX 13:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed some of the content that may be deemed as a "personal" attack. If you have problems with the article being marked NPOV, please read the same pages you referred to me: WP:V and WP:RS. The reply on linux-bangalore.org is about as reliable as Kingsly's blog, and therefore we must either consider both sources or none at all. It is better to have no content at all, than content that is questionable. Also I would like to re-iterate that I have no personal involvement in the whole issue, but am definitely striving to make Wikipedia as authentic as possible. Feel free to contact any of the Wikipedia editors to confirm my stand; and I highly recommend that you don't remove the NPOV status KillerX 13:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I dispute your being a "third party" here - in fact I'd say you are an interested party, and are acting as support to the original editor who started this campaign.[5]. You have provided no evidence to prove your claim of NPOV other than circumstancial and discredited and earlier disallowed information, almost certainly to back up the original editor. Achitnis 17:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The link you provide provides no evidence to suggest that I am not a "third party". The fact that someone mentioned my name in some article doesn't attribute my actions as a consequence of his. In fact, I wasn't even aware that there was such an article until I saw your link. As for evidence, read WP:RS; anyone can challenge content; it is upto the author to prove that their facts are true. KillerX 18:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Kingsly John was proven to have lied using clear evidence. Unlike his Blog entry, which was an unsubstantiated ramble and a personal attack, our reply to him was an official one by the Linux Bangalore managers, on teh official Linux Bangalore site, and was substantiated with evidence and documentation.

As I said before - Wikipedia is *not* a platform for personal attacks. Even your "some" is NPOV, given that the entire content of the event is provided by the FOSS community, not by "some" people. Please get the permission from these speakers before you label them as someone's stooges or even non-community members.

You are basing your entire "case" on one ex-team member's blog rant. That, according to WP rules, is *not* a credible citation.

I am editing the text again to restore the earlier meaning. Unless you can prevent independent, credible evidence, I suggest you restrain yourself from further edits. I know the rules of WP, and know when I am within my rights to challenge your edits if they hurt the reputation of the event and people involved, especially if they are based on flimsy "evidence" and hearsay. The Wikipedia admins have disallowed that blog rant before in exactly the same context, and there no reason why they should not do so again. Achitnis 17:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

First off, thanks for not removing the NPOV status. To reciprocate, I will not modify the article but instead tell you what's wrong with it; and we can reason. Secondly, please be sensible enough to realize that I have nothing to gain or lose from all this. Conveying the truth is all I ask for.

I was wrong in stating that the content of the conference was not contributed by the entire FOSS community. A glance at the schedule shows that a healthy cross-section of the Indian FOSS community is involved in content contribution. I use this opportunity to publicly apologize to all the participants of the event if their sentiments were hurt. No qualms here.

What I actually meant was that the conference itself was not "put together" in any way by the whole community. The conference was mostly planned and executed by a very small team of individuals. Although you did make a public call for volunteers, it is not unknown that you prefer to work with people you already know or have worked with [6]. Nothing wrong with that, and I respect that decision because it does take a very dedicated team of individuals to organize a conference of such scale; and as such you cannot afford to "experiment" with new people. However, this does make your statement that the whole conference itself was planned by the "entire Indian FOSS community" untrue. All I'm asking is to give that credit to the linux-bangalore team, rather than portraying that it was a community venture of national scale (again, in terms of organization; not participation). You know this is true, and it isn't a bad thing at all.

My second problem is with the "history" section. It seems to send a message that FOSS.IN is just a continuation of the Linux Bangalore series; which both of us know is not true. The official reply to the "blog rant" on the linux-bangalore website, very clearly states that BLUG and linux-bangalore are two different organizations. While the Linux Bangalore conferences were organized by BLUG, FOSS.IN is an initiative by the linux-bangalore group. Please amend the section so that this is clear.

Thirdly, there is an issue with you editing the article. Since you play a very major role in FOSS.IN itself it is considered improper for you to edit this page. If you really know the Wikipedia rules, you should know this.

I do not think changing the "history" and "role of the community" section as outlined above would undermine the conference in any way. It would neither hurt the reputation of the event or the people involved with it. I see no reason why you would not agree to these very simple amends, but my ears are open.

As I said before, I will not edit the articles myself. However, I will mark both the sections whose content I challenge as disputed until there are changes, or until substantial evidence is provided to prove that FOSS.IN was an event organized by the entire Indian FOSS community. Peace. KillerX 18:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you are overextending your brief - you are using a "guilty unless proved innocent" approach. You really have no proof (or any sort of evidence apart from a discredited blog entry) to place this challenge, and that is probably the clearest definition of POV that exists. I am sorry, but I challenging your entire argument, and am removing the tags. Here are my reasons why:

o If you look at the team list of FOSS.IN/2005 and the team lists of LB/2001-2004, something is going to strike you - that almost everyone from those earlier LB teams is also on the FI team. You are trying to create an illusion of division where there is none. In addition, all of us (or at least those of us from Bangalore) are active BLUG members and I don't see any complaints/comments from the BLUG or any of its members (apart from Kingsly John who had ceased attending BLUG meets long before he was removed from the LB/2003 team). You can re-instate your tag only after you provide any kind of valid evidence that what you are claiming is true.

o There is no way of proving what you are asking for. You are the one providing the challenge, it is therefore up to *you* to prove that the contention that the event is actually NOT an event of/by/for the FOSS community.

I am going to ask WP admins to examine my points above and rule on this. If they rule that your contention is valid, you may reinstate the tags, else I would request you assume goodwill and stop spitting into the soup of thousands of people who enjoy and look forward to this event every year and consider this event a community event.

Achitnis 09:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, the general perception in Wikipedia seems to be that the "guilty unless proven innocent" method is the best. It is very clearly stated in WP:RS that all information must have a source, and anything that does not, can be challenged. Again, I emphasize that it is indeed your responsibility to prove that what you state is true. I will repeat what I said before since you don't seem to understand one of the fundamental rules of WP: that it is often better not to state anything rather than stating something that is challenged and without proof.

As for the "illusion of difference"; I will accept that the teams from LB/2002 and FOSS.IN/2006 are very similar [7], [8]. I will withdraw my challenge against the "history" section.

However, this also proves that the organization of FOSS.IN is done by a small team of select individuals. The _same_ individuals over and over again. Oh, but what is this, does the "Team" page of FOSS.IN 2006 look a lot different than what it did just yesterday? Indeed, I see many names have been added in a haste! Please, Mr. Chitnis, you _cannot_ quote websites that are directly controlled by you as "proof" of anything! Again, you fail to counter my earlier point that it is not in the general interest of Wikipedia for you to be editing this page; since you very clearly play a vital role in the conference itself.

Since you are unable to provide proof (yes, it may be impossible for you to prove it anyway), I am changing the content of the "role of the community" and am leaving the "history" section as it is. As for my side of the "proof", a glance at the organizing team for LB/2002/03/04 and FOSS.IN/2005 very clearly shows that it is indeed the same set of individuals involved year after year. I would hardly call this an event that is organized by "the whole Indian FOSS" community. Please take a moment to review the exact changes that I have made, and ask yourself whether it is really fair or not; before backlashing blindly. I am not stupid enough to be spitting in my own soup; I consider myself to be a part of the Indian FOSS community and would definitely like to be a part of FOSS.IN in the future. All I ask is to attribute credit to the linux-bangalore team instead of sharing it with the whole country, they deserve it!

I consider this dispute closed until someone modifies the changes I made, in a way that changes its meaning. If you have any problems about the changes I made, feel free to refer it to the admins, if you have not already. My apologies to all for the inconvenience caused by this. As I said before, I am as much a part of the community as you are, and would not like the image of the Indian FOSS community tarnished. At the same time, I will _not_ stand up to misrepresentation of _anything_. Let us end this. KillerX 17:27, 25 November 2006 (UTC) Incidently the team page in 2005 is blank. There was no team ---> http://foss.in/2005/team/.

Ummm, now I am confused. I never contested that the Linux Bangalore team conducted the LB (and now the FI) events! Of course they are almost the same team (with a few exceptions) - that is what I have been saying all along! :) In fact, not just Linux Bangalore - we have been doing FOSS community presence at large events since 1999.

And apart from one *removal* (the said team member could not participate this year because of a death in the family), the only changes have been the addition of new people (who have not been in the previous teams). The core team has remained the same since this year's event campaign has started. So I think that you cannot really complain about the list changing - this is an ongoing event - as I write this, we are on day 2 of this year's three day event.

When I refer to "the whole FOSS community" being involved, I am talking about everyone playing their role - the core team sets up the facilities, but the entire event content comes from the community. And always has been. I just want to make sure that the community is credited for their role.

So if there isn't any contention on these two points, then I assume things are settled. Achitnis 18:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, you really know how to divert attention. Although you haven't answered any of my _specific_ questions, you have certainly ended the debate. No qualms from my side as long as you don't portray FOSS.IN as being organized, I repeat: _organized_ by the whole Indian FOSS community. I don't really care if the same team organizes FOSS.IN year after year as long as they're doing it well :) Just don't make a public "call for vounteers" just for the heck of it, we all know who's going to be on the FOSS.IN organizing team in 2007! Anyway, congratulations for the success of FOSS.IN 2006 and thanks for your co-operation (albeit very heated!) in this regard. KillerX 16:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for the heated tone of the discussion, but you have to understand that this happened right in the middle of the event period, and I already had enough problems on my plate organising the event. And as you can see from the original edit of the article - this discussion started in anything but a friendly tone.

You still have the wrong idea about the "Call for Volunteers" - that is a very valid thing and is *not* a call for "organising team" but literally just that - volunteers. That is clearly explained in the Guide for Volunteers, and has been for many years now. Somehow I get teh impression that this whole discussion has been based on a serious lack of supporting facts!

The team grows every year - some of the people who were volunteers in 2005 were part of the organising team in 2006, and some of the volunteers from 2006 will be in the organising team in 2007, and so on. This is how it has been since the event started in 2001, and is a very healthy approach to making sure that the team grows.

Achitnis 08:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)