New Chapter Request: nodeschool.mil

[hollomancer]

I'm with https://operationcode.org/, and we're looking to start an online/remote chapter of NodeSchool focused on students at military installations!

[martinheidegger]

Hello @hollomancer Somehow I am not sure what you are asking. The point is about this:

Chapter … A NodeSchool chapter refers to a place where at least one (but preferably more) NodeSchool events happen. Chapters are based on their geolocation (!not on any other structure!) and are usually setup for an area that is easy to reach with public transport within approx. 40min. Usually that means one Chapter per city.

We talked about NodeSchool Online before but I somehow think that the concept is somehow not yet fitting. Would you mind to share your vision in the #233.

[hollomancer]

NodeSchool Online seems sort of similar - due to the highly distributed nature of military installations, the small clientele at each location, as well as the frequent nature of moving from place to place, we do not necessarily see this as entirely online. It's a similar problem to what you might encounter catering to a rural population.

We have mentors and trainers in various regions. Given the military culture, as well as the limitations in accessing military installations (both in terms of network access and physical access), we would like to consider a chapter specifically dedicated to this user base!

[martinheidegger]

@hollomancer Hmm, seeing your argument I could think that a "afghanistan-us-mil" chapter or so would make sense. (Because the afghanistan-rus-mil chapter would probably not be able to attend, right?) I am also slightly confused about what audience & information you have? I assume that you can't publicly post your event days (seeing as it tells people where you are at what time). As such you would need private mailinglists and private issue trackers and things like that (to hide the gh accounts of the members)?!

[hollomancer]

We want to do as much of this online as possible, but we can handle the coordination of where individual teams are physically, outside of GitHub. That is not a major security concern for us. While some of the students may be deployed, the vast majority of our audience is on military installations back at home.

Something like us-mil would work!

[martinheidegger]

us-mil is location independent. This would be the first restricted and location independent "chapter" which imho. misuses the word chapter (as I mentioned above). @nodeschool/core Please voice your thoughts.

[Sequoia]

NodeSchool Core Member™ checking in 😸

Regarding restricted membership/non-inclusivity

I don't see this as an issue at all. As mentioned, members of the US military have highly specific logistical restrictions, i.e. they are here there & everywhere and (I assume) not able to attach to local groups like local nodeschool chapters. For this reason, it seems reasonable for a group to cater specifically to this demo. Civ probably wouldn't be able to attend .mil events (assumption?) probably for logistical reasons, but remember: .mil's can't easily attend other events (assumption?).

Regarding "it's the US military, do we want to be associated with that?"

This concern was brought to me privately. I can definitely understand this concern & want to address it because I'm sure there's more than one person who feels this way.

A bit of perspective from a US citizen (myself) who is generally very critical of US foreign policy might be useful here, as Nodeschool is a highly distributed global confederation: while I would be hesitant to lend direct assistance to the projection of US military power overseas, as an educator I have no problem with teaching individuals in the military, and feel an obligation as an educator to help anyone learn who wishes to do so.

Operation Code seems to be oriented towards job training for veterans: again, some US perspective may be helpful here: veterans in my country are generally not treated well by society: they frequently suffer from life-long injuries, physical & mental (for which they often cannot get adequate medical care), they have relatively high rates of homelessness (it's not at all uncommon to see homeless veterans on the street begging), and often have trouble reintegrating into civilian society. If you're from Northern Europe it may sound odd to you but we don't have much in the way of social safety nets here, it's basically up to each individual to sink or swim. To be clear, initiatives to help veterans have nothing to do with helping the US military, they are about helping a vulnerable population.

So that's just one person's opinion but I'm one US citizen who is 100% anti-Pax-Americana, 100% pro-helping-veterans. I think this initiative is fine.

Logistics/purpose

@hollomancer one main purpose of Nodeschool chapters & the listing on nodeschool.io is for people to be able to find a group near where they live so they can find local events to attend. How do you see this working for a .mil group? Where would trainings convene? If I'm stationed in Fayetteville & I go the .mil chapter page, will I find events I can attend? What if I'm stationed in Ramstein? It's not clear to me how this will serve the traditional purpose of nodeschool chapters.

Note that Nodeschool content is free to use by anyone at any time, chapter or no. It may make more sense for you to work that content into your existing Operation Code framework, which is already tailored to your needs, rather than trying to make the location-specific Nodeschool chapter model fit your needs in serving a non-colocated population.

Let me know your thoughts here, I'm interested in hearing your "user story" for "I'm an enlisted person stationed in Okinawa/Virginia/Honduras & I'm looking on nodeschool.io for events I can attend... [???]"

[Sequoia]

Note also that no one has trademarked "Nodeschool" and there's absolutely nothing stopping you (on our side) from registering nodeschool.mil and doing whatever you want! 😸 Personally I think this could be a good solution: just link out to nodeschool.mil from nodeschool.io & say ".mil does their own thing, you can find them over here"

[hollomancer]

So - will grab a couple of these point by point. @Sequoia

Civ probably wouldn't be able to attend .mil events (assumption?) probably for logistical reasons, but remember: .mil's can't easily attend other events (assumption?).

• We work to maintain as inclusive a view of military populations as possible. This includes military spouses, children, and families - who are typically civilians. Given how often military members and their families are forced to move, a number of our mentors and teachers are civilians. Learning software development is a specific way of helping the families of this marginalized population, since such jobs can be done remotely (imagine needing to change job locations every one and a half years because your spouse was reassigned).
• In short, any civilian who has access to a military installation is welcome to participate.
• Military installations are in an interesting gray area (similar to rural populations), where the populations are small enough that they're hard to serve with a typical NodeSchool event, but large and distinctively cultural enough to function as their own community. This is why I thought a separate repo would be appropriate.
• I can definitely understand that NodeSchool wants to focus on the global nature of the organization and not affiliate with any particular government. If it helps, we do have members of our organization who are non-US, but members of their respective country's militaries. I would be comfortable opening this up to 'mil' and not specifically 'us-mil' - the primary reason for this was regional focus, not politics.

[hollomancer]

Maybe a better way to put it, is that military life can be restrictive to the career and learning opportunities of servicemembers and their families, and make it difficult them for them to transition out and rejoin their country's respective societies.

Or, user-story style: As a former member of the military, I would like to start a NodeSchool community, because I find it difficult to relate to the experiences and culture of the tech community at large, on transitioning out.

[jpwesselink]

Another Core member here...

Welcome @hollomancer, I think it is a great idea to help people build a future. My apologies for not responding sooner, I had to think your request over for a couple of days to come up with something sensible.

Chapter nature

I agree with @martinheidegger that the current NodeSchool framework is not suitable for restrictive location independent knowledge sharing events. But as @Sequoia mentioned, you can use any learning materials in the operationcode.org framework, which is imho much more suitable for your purpose.

Military chapters are military

I'm not so sure if you help people transition out of the military by creating a military chapter; they'd still be inside something military. Maybe it's an idea to have your students join an existing chapter, or even create a chapter themselves. Since they have already become familiar with the concept for 'workshopper' at operationcode, they might be able to adjust easier. If the chapter is public they might event connect with other civilians more easily, which might help transitioning out.

[hollomancer]

I understand. I was considering whether we wanted to fork content from Nodeschool's framework or not, and I also see your point on the military chapter.

My line of thinking was, by associating closer with NodeSchool, it would help promote a more inclusive mentality in the tech community towards the military population as well. But, as you and @Sequoia mentioned, we can just refer to the greater NodeSchool community in our own framework.

[Sequoia]

@hollomancer Speaking for myself, I see no reason Nodeschool can't refer back to you as well by linking to your Nodeschool section of operation code from nodeschool.io, so members of the military can locate it if they come across nodeschool.io.

Again speaking for myself, the issue with a military chapter is the same as the proposed (and decided against) "online chapter." Specifically, that the purpose of having chapters is to facilitate holding events and make it possible for people to connect with other Node-ers nearby them, so chapters are necessarily defined by their geographic location. Chapters contrast with and complement all the online resources specifically by not being online. An "online" or "military" or "space" chapter would not serve this purpose, so it's not clear what it would mean for there to be an online chapter.

All the online resources are of course available to you and anyone else who wishes to avail themselves including gitter and the issues repos. If you'd like a link out to operation code (once you've got a nodeschool specific landing page) please let me know & barring any strong objections from core I'll go ahead and add the link! 😸

If you have more questions or requests regarding this topic please follow up here, otherwise if your questions are answer you can close the ticket when ready.

[Sequoia]

/cc @hackygolucky does NodeTogether (a wandering node edu event) have anything to offer in this case?

[martinheidegger]

@hollomancer Note that we are discussing this issue lively in a chat.

[Sequoia]

@hollomancer

Update

First of all thanks for proposing this chapter! We're always thrilled to have more enthusiastic folks join the Nodeschool community.

This chapter request provoked a lot of discussion internally! Ultimately we came up with the compromise of (basically) creating a "military" chapter for your nodeschool community, but calling it something besides a chapter. This way you can get all the benefits of having a chapter (repo under @nodeschool, gitter, etc.) & location-based chapters can stay location based. We're still nailing down the term for this new type of group, "Nodeschool Group" is a possibility (rather than "Nodeschool Chapter") but personally I'm hoping for something a bit more descriptive.

Next Steps

1. Agree on name for this chapter type
2. Create repo for you
3. Create some mechanism (like this) to list this new type of group on the website.

We'll get back to ASAP as we sort this out!

[jpwesselink]

Also agree on name for your group, I propose 'US Military' since 'Military' would exclude all other military chapters.

[hollomancer]

For our part, we are not exclusive to US military (have some Israel / Canada folks on too)

[jpwesselink]

I understand. Would it be inclusive to people from the 'enemy'?

[jpwesselink]

@nodeschoolbot create-repo military-community-group

[nodeschoolbot]

I have created a new repo called military-community-group

[jpwesselink]

@nodeschoolbot create-team military-community-group

[nodeschoolbot]

I have created @nodeschool/military-community-groupteam

[jpwesselink]

@nodeschoolbot add-user @hollomancer

[nodeschoolbot]

I have added @hollomancer to the chapter-organizers team.

[jpwesselink]

@nodeschoolbot add-team-user military-community-group hollomancer

[nodeschoolbot]

I have invited @hollomancer to the military-community-group team.

[jpwesselink]

@hollomancer here you go. Since your group has a status aparte (nonlocal with specific affinity) it will be referred to as 'Community group' and not as 'chapter'.

Also please be aware that anyone with a military community should be welcome to pitch in on your group, so gatekeeping is not an option.

To get started please take a peek at the organizer's wiki, and join us on https://gitter.im/nodeschool/organizers 🎉

[hollomancer]

Understood. Will get this going!