Posted by Bevan on September 14, 2009 at 6:56pm
DrupalCon Australia-NZ Regional Organizing Group
0% (0 votes)
DrupalCon Australasia Regional Organizing Group
13% (5 votes)
DrupalCon Asia-Pacific Regional Organizing Group
79% (30 votes)
DrupalCon Asia Regional Organizing Group
5% (2 votes)
DrupalCon Australia Regional Organizing Group
3% (1 vote)
Total votes: 38
Comments
Discussion points
Obvious from Cary Gordon's post to drupal.org homepage is that "Australasia" is not precise or clear enough to communicate the region this group is intended to serve. If I am not mistaken from discussions at DrupalCon Paris, this group is intended to serve (in somewhat-biased and approximate order of significance);
In my opinion the name that does not mention any specific countries, is not ambiguous (or easily misunderstood), and is aligned with the naming convention of other DrupalCon regional groups ("North American", "European", "South American"). "Asia" and "Asia-Pacific" are the only two options above that meet these criteria. "Asia" normally does not include NZ and Australia, which is an issue because it is expected Australia will probably provide most resources to this group.
Am I missing any candidate names? Let me know and I'll add them above. Should we be including this post on the the gdo groups of the nations the group is intended to serve?
Bevan/
I agree with your sentiment
The only thing that concerns me is that APAC region feels a lot larger that say North America or Europe regions. Will be a challenge I think, to meet the needs of this "region". Not sure where the lines could be drawn though.
Cheers
James
Grand slam
I am confident that "Asia-Pacific" (or Asia Pacific) will be a grand-slam here since it tends to cover most Asian+ territories.
@bejames is right regarding Asia's large geographic scale -- it presents communication barrier as a bad factor. It gets more complicated (and confusing) due to the existence of "region clusters" namely: East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australasia and Oceania. Other barriers include difference in culture, language, religion, economic zones, weather conditions (you get the picture). At least the diversity make Asia an exciting destination for future events.
Here in the Philippines, a few IT companies and orgs are planning to have a mini-Drupal Camp or DCon in a distant time. Although we have very few Drupal experts, traveling here is not that expensive compared to our neighbors.
I wonder what the Japanese (visa required), Indian and Singaporean + Malaysian groups would have to say since they also have great venues.
Marckee for Short
Two groups?: Asia & Oceania
Probably a group for Asia and another one for Oceania might be useful soon, given the growing interest about Drupal in Asia.
You know, there is sometimes a misunderstanding on the name Australasia, which is not Australia + Asia, but part of Oceania, roughly Australia + New Zealand + New Guinea and neighboring islands.
About the interest on Drupal around the world, see some Google search results about web pages mentioning Drupal in different languages, including Asian ones:
25,400,000 All languages
23,000,000 English
2,400,000 Non-English languages
1,250,000 German
1,040,000 Japanese
932,000 Spanish
791,000 French
664,000 Italian
501,000 Russian
426,000 Thai
411,000 Chinese (Traditional)
411,000 Dutch
402,000 Hungarian
394,000 Portuguese
392,000 Indonesian
277,000 Filipino
262,000 Chinese (Simplified)
259,000 Polish
215,000 Vietnamese
211,000 Czech
etc...
Link your references please
Where did you get these numbers from? Please provide a link.
I agree that it's possible that the regions might be better served by two regional drupalcon groups. I don't think this would be wise at this time, given the changes the Drupal association wants to make to the way DrupalCons are organised. See my comment below for more detail.
Bevan/
Google; Asia-Pacific is also good
For the language numbers, I've used Google's advanced search, searching for "Drupal" in the languages listed there, and including those with over 200,000 web pages.
And, sorry, I've made two mistakes: A wrong line for non-English languages (I calculated that number, 2,400,000, by a simple subtraction without taking into account the pages in more than one language). And a missing line (I forgot to include the 314,000 pages in Turkish).
Yes, one group for now seems also fine, until the Drupal Association decides otherwise. I also think Asia-Pacific is a good name, because there is really a lot of Drupal activity in that wide region. Middle East seems to have much less activity at this moment, excepting Turkey (neighbor to Europe). India is possibly a different case, more active, but maybe it could be included in Asia-Pacific.
Most organisations seem to
Most organisations seem to include India in "Asia-Pacific", and I believe that would be the intention here; That India be 'served' by this DrupalCon regional group.
Bevan/
I agree that the range of
I agree that the range of distances, languages, cultures and other differences in the regions which this group intends to serve will be a challenge – quite possibly the most significant challenge this group will face.
There is no reason that there can't be an "Asia" group and another group for NZ, Australia and the Pacific Islands. (However that group will have this same naming issue again!)
In my opinion it is better that we try to keep as one group and co-ordinate across our lingual and cultural differences to meet our common goals. Whether these regions should have one or more groups can be re-evaluated when/if necessary. It will of course need the approval of the Drupal Association and it's events manager (currently Cary Gordon, highermath) in order to run DrupalCons.
With regard to naming, I see "Asia-Pacific" is more ambiguous in meaning than I had originally thought. I looked at how others define the term. All my references and images are from wikipedia;
Even with this ambiguity, I still think "Asia-Pacific" is better than "Australasia" because that excludes Asia by common definition;
I also still think "Asia-Pacific" is better than "Asia" which excludes NZ, Australia and most Pacific islands by common definition;
All the others are also exclusive of regions this group is intended to serve, for more obvious reasons, e.g. "Australia-NZ", "Australia".
Bevan/
well done!
Now that's a good interpretation of research. So we have the facts... how can we get people to support the endeavor? I smell some community action might be of need.
Most importantly, are you going to change the name of the this Drupal group (I'm a bit curious if that's possible without creating a new node)?
Marckee for Short
That's not a problem. I just
That's not a problem. I just did that with another OG node. Only the manager (rcross) or admins can do it though.
Bevan/
Local Drupal communities
For contacts with Drupal communities by country, etc., useful links are:
Language-specific communities
Geographical groups directory
See also:
Regional event organizing groups
Drupal local groups directory
I've started a new wiki page, Drupal local groups directory (at Local User Group Organizers), with groups from all world regions , including Asia-Pacific.
World regions
I've just researched a little on the world regions used today. There are many different classifications, but a pretty common one is used for example by several United Nations agencies (UN Radio, UN Public Administration Network...). The most frequent names for those regions, according to Google searches, seem to be:
A variation with 5 regions, but similar to the previous 6 regions, is used by the UNESCO and the five UN Regional Commissions (Africa; Asia and the Pacific; Europe and North America; Latin America and the Caribbean; Western Asia). They unify Europe and North America in one region, and give the Middle East technical names such as Western Asia or Arab States. However, the 6 regions seem more common.
This seems reasonably
This seems reasonably consistent with the Drupal Assoc's divisions, with the exceptions being that;
* there is no Africa or Middle East group, mostly due to lack of energetic community members there, I assume
* we have "South America" instead of "Latin America".
Possibly the "South America" group should be called "Latin America", however this is the wrong place for that conversation.
By using the name "Asia-Pacific" we leave open the possibility of including the Middle East, or not if/when it is no longer appropriate.
Bevan/
From a corporate perspective,
From a corporate perspective, I have seen region splitting look like this in several companies.
Americas
EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa)
APAC (Asia Pacific)
This is in terms of management of assets and resources as well as travel.
I think Asia Pacific is a better universal term to describe all of the locations we want to include.
Symetrik Design
Drupal Consulting
http://www.symetrkdesign.com
Asia Pacific certainly sounds
Asia Pacific certainly sounds like the best option, it really is a huge diverse area though. Maybe in the future we'll split and become "Asia" and "Australasia"
Ok, I'm late but...
I agree with this comment. Although I think the split would more likely be Asia and Oceania, however.
Oceania seems a more
Oceania seems a more inclusive term than Australasia from over here.
pete davis : fuzion : connect + campaign + communicate
Done
Sorry for the slow response guys. I would agree with the Asia-Pacific terminology and I'm glad everyone else does as well. I've renamed the group now.
@Bevan - thanks for pushing this through while I was away.
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
Organising or Organizing?
Maybe now that the geographic name is settled we can start debating why 'organizing' and not 'organising'? ;-)
pete davis : fuzion : connect + campaign + communicate
Re: Organising or Organizing?
Well, the American spelling (Organizing) shows more search results (Google, etc.), however both forms (with z or s) are correct, according to the dictionaries.
I think the only details that remain to be corrected are the "Australasia" mentions in the mission statement of this group. Probably they will also change to the new name "Asia-Pacific".
Done
lets move onto something more productive now. :-)
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
tongue in cheek-y
my slightly tongue in cheek comment was that since this is an area that is not so Americanised as some others that perhaps the spelling of 'organisation' should be whatever is most commonly used in the region - which would be organisation in this neck of the wood. But I don't really want to generate another debate on this. I will just continue to use 's' wherever I can ;-)
pete davis : fuzion : connect + campaign + communicate
What is to be done?
How do we start coordinating to really push for DrupalCon in Asia?
How can we help?
The philippine users group is having a Drupal Camp this november.
Next steps.. ?
I'm sure it's going get tough enduring the diversity factors but I'm excited to see and learn how we make things happen for the organizational group.
Are we ready to begin setting up goals or laying out tasks and guidelines?
I'm personally interested on seeing how it goes (effectively & efficiently).
Marckee for Short
Possible Next Step
Hi everyone,
Thank you all very much for proceeding this discussion/movement on behalf of all Drupal users in this region.
Possible next step I can think of is, researching reports of past Drupalcons to find out what we have to think and decide.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
This may be helpful. I will
This may be helpful. I will take a look at it for more detail later.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/25179
Aki Iwata
http://www.forest-and-trees.com/
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Taiwan
I suggest Taiwan as a place to meet. Most of us would likely appreciate the food and lodging accommodations including prices. I think it might be the right kind of atmosphere.
With regards to whether the Aussie's and NZ people are part of Asia-Pacific?, you guys are probably like 20hrs away and culturally closer to the US than any Asian country, but hey if you want to travel all the way down here, by all means go for it. I'm sure you guys will be great help in organizing.
A tougher question might be to figure out a date, as we all have different holidays.
Best regards,
Scott Fujikawa
from Tokyo
Hi Fuji, Thanks for your
Hi Fuji,
Thanks for your input. My understanding is that this group intends to serve the Drupal communities of Australia, Asia, New Zealand and other Pacific Islands.
Please discuss locations over here. Also, you might like to update the Local user groups directory with numbers that indicate the size of the Taiwan Drupal user group on GDO to help others estimate the size of the community there.
Cheers,
Bevan/
Bevan/
Good point.
That is a very important factor we need to consider.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Cater for the majority, focus on accessibility
Given the wide range of cultures, religions and countries, Asia-Pacific DrupalCons probably will not be able to accommodate everyone's holiday dates & linguistic needs. But we can do our best to accommodate as many as possible for each event; Each DrupalCon should aim to cater for the majority with the goal of making the event as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, particularly focussing on the immediate locales. For example, an event in China would try to accommodate Chinese holidays and linguistic needs more than Australia's, while an event in Australia would try to accommodate Australian holidays and linguistic needs more than other countries', etc.
Bevan/