This is where we started the conversation. One of my points in initiating this discussion was that not many people were attending/supporting the workshop sessions. And that includes both "patients" and "doctors".
Fixing of problems is the main use of this mailing-list. Although fixing things often works better face-to-face if you have someone who knows what they are doing, hte mailing list still serves as a very valid and useful forum for problem diagnoses and solution suggestions.
Therefore, I would prefer meetings to consists of things that a mailing list doesn't easily provide:
1. Talks (guest speakers etc.)
2. Demos
3. Socialisation.
rather than fix-it-up workshops, for which the mailing list can often be an effective substitute.
Note that 1 and 2 above generally require a bit more work on the part of the presenter, and I'm not suggesting that we eliminate fix-it-up workshops altogether.
Since I suggested it, it would be cowardly of me not to volunteer to do a talk :-) I'll do a talk entitled "A taste of LaTeX". (The title is the most well-developed part of the talk so far :-). I'm crazily busy for Jan and Feb, so make it April or later.
Any other volunteers? It doesn't have to be long. Even a 20-30min demo of <nifty-app> would be good.
Michael J, what about that talk on filesystems?
Cheers, Carl.
