Community Profile

(This community information largely revised August 2009)

If you do not regularly attend LUMSFS, but wish
to become "A Friend of LUMSFS" Please click here

For clarification, I am fixx, and I maintain this community as a public beacon for stray LUMSFS people who wish to find LUMSFS and help them return if they wish.

I also operate a similar club called mumsfs which is much less public in nature. The main difference between lumsfs and mumsfs is that I solely run mumsfs and nobody runs lumsfs, meaning that when lumsfs runs into difficulty, it is usually a complete "Train Wreck". For lumsfs, all I do is attempt to keep up to date with its activities, make emphatic suggestions as to where it might meet, and attempt to report where it is currently meeting. I also attempt to keep an accurate record of who actually attends these meetings so that interested parties can make informed decisions about returning.

LUMSFS meeting place information update 8/13/2009:
Lumsfs has finally adopted a restaurant rotation schedule similar to the ones I proposed for LUMSFS prior to going off to start MUMSFS. Although they do not have an entirely transparent schedule of events, which is shocking for a club which originally shot down my proposal on the basis it would be too difficult to follow, one thing appears to be settled, and that is exactly when, and exactly where it will meet in Northern Virginia.

Beyond that, I am told that LUMSFS is currently rotating a new restaurant each month save for the second Tuesday of the month (similar to the rotation schedule I provided last year when I opened LUMSFS to a modified MUMSFS schedule for three months), the major difference being that now LUMSFS appears to mostly only meet in or around Columbia MD. All that I'm certain about is that "Mimi's" being the choice Columbia area restaurant for the month of August 2009. If I correctly, it sounds as though the LUMSFS collective has settled on a standard of the 2nd Wednesday of each month meeting at the Amphora of Vienna, VA.

It is so difficult with to get any accurate information with regard to what LUMSFS is doing. Many have complained that figuring out the dates of events before they happen, I figured I'd list a few of the upcoming NoVA event dates here so that you have something to mark your calendars with.

Dates of expected 2nd Wednesday NoVA events at the Vienna Amphora for 2009:
September 9, October 14, November 11, December 9

Be sure to check back here for the latest LUMSFS meetup location information as it becomes deciphered.


Update April 14, 2007:
Though I know I am not alone in my personal feeling that LUMSFS meetup locations should not be posted publicly, in deference to the vocal majority, most of whom are not subscribed here, I am lifting the restriction banning any of the membership of this community from discussing meeting place locations publicly.

I'd personally like to know how a more than 60 person membership of a Yahoo Group, also named for "LUMSFS", justifies getting so upset about a rule affecting so few people, most of whom are not even subscribed to the Yahoo List. I mean, what business is it of theirs how this community operates? I think they all need to get a life! I suppose next they will tell me I'm not operating the mumsfs community to their liking?


Joining:
Please do not join this community without first reading this.
If you are not a LiveJournal user, but have been attending meetings and would like to have your identity replaced or appended in future LUMSFS attendance reports with a website URL or email address, again please email me. Telling me such information at meetings is more work for me and tends to result in errors.

Use this link to sign up for an announce-only Group to carry strictly high priority LUMSFS location information announcements. Subscribe here

There appears to be some confusion about "joining" this community. Anyone can friend this community to watch. Membership refers only to posting access. You have to be a RAM status to have membership and post here.

This is not a typical Live Journal Community (is there such a thing as a "typical" community on LJ?) in as much as this LJ community has a strictly defined purpose and therefore functions more as a sort of "newsletter" supported only by those few who show their support for the PLG by actually attending and maintaining RAM status.

This community is *not* an open discussion group for people who do or have attended LUMSFS. This is more of a "focus group" for people who wish to protect and preserve the PLG and help maintain its continued physical existence.


About this community:
*Membership* in this LJ community is *not* for people who used to go to LUMSFS, nor is it for people who heard about it from a friend.

If you do not regularly attend LUMSFS, but wish to become "A Friend of LUMSFS" Please click here

This community is not now, nor has it ever been, a discussion group for topics outside the immediate concerns of preserving and prolonging the tradition of physical LUMSFS meetings.

If what you want is to partake on online discussions with other LUMSFS members old and new regardless of attendance status, you will want to choose from the following selections:
lumsfs_poll for a moderated, flame-free discussion and polls
lumsfs_talk for a no-holds-barred unmoderated chat
or the yahoo discusssion group bearing the "LUMSFS" name.

Common to ALL LJ UMSFS communities is the feeling among many of us that that discussions of restaurant locations should not be discussed publicly, although currently the majority feels otherwise so as moderator of this community I'm currently changing that from a requirement to a recommendation.

"This" community lumsfs is for people who actually GO TO LUMSFS, (why is this so hard to understand?) not the mailing list, but the Real, Physical, Tangible LUMSFS meetings. You can call me an elitist if you prefer, it's a free country, but *membership* in *this* community is a reward for to those who earned it by keeping a tradition of attendance alive by choosing to be RAMs of the PLG. To join this community, click here


Attending the PLG meetings:
Historically speaking LUMSFS has always met in one standard default location week in and week out until or unless ordered to leave. This has changed. Apparently following an example I set last year with MUMSFS, LUMSFS now changes it's restaurant once a month save for the Second Wednesday of each mont when it returns to one restaurant which is the same month after month. That restaurant appears to be the Vienna Amphora on the Second Wednesday of every month. The CRRRAAAAAZZZZYYY thing is that those who are scheduling these events are calling THAT one "The Voyager".... Sigh!


Attending Voyager meetings:
Given the history of LUMSFS to always cling to one location until thrown out of that location (sometimes with the help of the police) it is difficult to describe the current (2009) schedule as anything but one long Voyager, which is fine, really. It keeps things lively. However it can make it a little difficult to find. This much is certain. It appears that LUMSFS currently meets in one place once a month, every month, at least for now, and that one place appears to be the Vienna Amphora on the Second Wednesday of every month. The CRRRAAAAAZZZZYYY thing is that those who are scheduling these events are calling THAT one "The Voyager".... Sigh!


Comparing the "LJ-LUMSFS" community, to the physical LUMSFS group:
The LJ community lumsfs is *not* itself the PLG, but an online reflection of that group and a newsletter, but with an agenda and a purpose described below. As the owner and moderator of this community, my actual power is limited to this LJ community, not the PLG.


Community Purpose:
The primary purpose of this community is to help aid the survival of a tradition of physical meetings dating back over 30 years. As the members have gotten older, many having moved away, and attendance became so low (sometimes 2 or 3) that often attendees would totally miss each other upon arrival and leave. The community exists primarily so that RAMs can keep up with meetings even if they can only attend half or fewer of them, and to keep even non-attending members up to date with the ongoing events.


Locked Entries:
Due to issues of member privacy, and meeting security, some entries are intended only for RAMs (Regularly Attending Members) who are the only ones who should actually join this community. RAMs may introduce new members to the physical group, but they may not use this community's public postings to do so. Any unauthorized persons found reposting private information from locked entries will have their community membership revoked.


Weekly Reports posting:
I'd really like to see the return of some volunteerism among members in the area of posting meeting reports. They don't have to follow any particular format, carry a particular icon or look anything like mine. You can get as detailed as you like regarding topics of discussion, (I'm pretty sloppy there myself). Alternatively you can just focus on who showed up, just try to avoid using last names.

UPDATE to LUMSFS Glossary of terms: (posted at bottom)

Glossary of terms:

• RAM: Regularly Attending Member, [subject to change] currently defined as attending a minimum of one PLG meeting out of 6. Only RAMs are allowed to join this community.
  
• PLG: The Physical LUMSFS Group (as opposed to a community or mailing list) On average, the active majority of the PLG is not subscribed to MYDG or at least not paying attention to it.
  
• LUMSFS Member: By definition anyone who has ever come to a LUMSFS is by definition a member of LUMSFS. This is the case because LUMSFS is, by definition, "An Idea". There is to my knowledge no comprehensive record of actual LUMSFS membership anywhere.
  
• Stray Lambs: Those who attended LUMSFS many years ago, and just found this community on LJ. Feel free to contact me for up to date meeting place information or if you cannot make it to meetings for any reason you have a couple of online options among LUMSFS-centric discussion groups, here on LJ in lumsfs_talk, or if you are not even on LJ, there's a Yahoo group referred to here as MYDG
  
• LUMSFS-Alert list: One of a number of ways to be alerted to LUMSFS venue changes and special events open to *all* people identifying themselves as LUMSFS folk. The one currently recommended by this community is hosted on Google Groups.
  
• MYDG: referring to "mathaeus's Yahoo Discussion Group" referred to by its membership as "The LUMSFS List", although it is significantly younger than the LUMSFS, and does not represent all of LUMSFS. Only a very small percentage of members (5-10%?) attend LUMSFS meetings anything resembling regularly. The list owner mathaeus posts libelous remarks about me personally on a regular basis. In the past he has specifically targeted my computer service customers, dissuading them from doing business with me. He also enjoys making inciteful and erroneous remarks about this LJ community, its purpose, rules and practices. As you might imagine, posts on MYDG are mostly "off-topic" with relation to LUMSFS and of interest only to the membership. Many of those those membered there appear to feel they have "ascended" and are above the need for physical meetings. Referred to here as "LISTers", the vast majority there have fallen out of touch with the PLG (or never even attended a meeting). Members there often appear to believe they dictate PLG meeting place decisions as if the PLG is merely an occasional meeting place for that list. Considering how it is operated, that misconception is not surprising.
  
• MUMSFS: referring to mumsfs is *not* LUMSFS. It cannot replace LUMSFS for many reasons. It does however provide a fun weekly meetings to disgruntled LUMSFS members, newbies and "Stray Lambs" alike. MUMSFS has a recorded membership and can be joined either by joining the mumsfs community or by subscribing to a Google announcement-only list.

(More to follow as more of the much complained about excessively long info page is condensed)

Members (6):

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