Proposing changes to how we communicate with the group

[Clayton Ramstedt]

Hey everyone,

During our last meeting, I brought up the idea of creating a Discord channel for the user group, and those in attendance seemed open to the idea. I know there is an IRC channel for the group, but personally, I have never used IRC, and apps like Discord and Slack seem to have superseded it. Discord is also popular among the college crowd, and I would love to start advertising to the Weber State population. I think a move like this would make advertising to a student population easier. 

I have also had several people express a desire to attend remotely. Discord's streaming features and voice chat would simplify that process significantly from the perspective of someone who is running meetings. Again, this is a great way to lower the barrier to entry for participating in the group while also improving accessibility.

Additionally, Google Groups has been waning in popularity for a number of years, and, given Google's track record, I can't help but wonder if it is a matter of when, not if, Google is going to kill off Google Groups. All together, I think there is a good argument to diversify the communication channels we use as a group.

There were some concerns that the people in attendance at our last meeting brought up that I want to address here:

• The Discord channel would not replace in-person meetings. The in-person element of this user group is a flagship feature of the group, and it isn't going anywhere.
• The Google Group will still be a valid way to interact with the group. I would plan to advertise meetings both on Discord and on the Google Group.

On a related note, how would people feel about letting me redo the current website? After seeing Tristan's presentation about AI vibe coding during project night, I want to try my hand at vibe coding a new website for our group. Does anyone know who currently owns the domain and hosting for the current site?

Thanks in advance for everyone's participation!

[Seth House]

I've got the domain, and the site is hosted as GitHub Pages via an OALUG GitHub Organization. If you're good with static site generators, the idea behind the current setup is anyone from the group can be added to the GH org to spread the ownership around, and updating (or replacing) the site is as easy as committing to the repo. If you'd rather have a backend, we can figure something else out too. Reach out to me off-list with your GitHub username to get you added.

As for Discord, IMO anything that helps bring in new blood is a win and Discord seems to be on top ATM. With or without Google, there should always be a mailing list for announcements and curmudgeons (like me), but augmenting that is always a good idea. It's been a while, but the group has streamed meetings before too (via whatever Google called it back then (Hangouts?)).

On a personal note, it's confirmed I'm moving back to Ogden and looking forward to seeing (and meeting) some of you in person again :-).

[Tristan Rhodes]

I like the idea of a Discord group. It is how I usually talk to communities (and also via Twitter).

Clayton, I agree that you should try vibe coding the website; it will be a lot of fun!
I think you can import the existing Github repo into your tool of choice (Cursor, Windsurf, Bolt, Lovable) and when you push changes, Github Pages will deploy it live.

Welcome back to Ogden, Seth! 

Tristan

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Site: http://www.oalug.com
Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/oalug
IRC: #oalug on irc.freenode.net
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[Clayton Ramstedt]

From the sounds of it, both the Discord channel and the website overhaul are a go! Thanks, everyone, for your feedback!

I've already gone ahead and vibe-coded up a prototype for the new site. It is completely static, so it should work with GitHub pages, but I would love to get some feedback before it goes live. I've included some screenshots of my prototype below. All of the meetings are made up, but I will fill them out with the appropriate information before the site goes live. It will require manually adding events and cycling them into the backlog via git commits, but overall, not bad for 51 cents of Claude Sonnet 3.7 tokens!

Seth, what do you need me to do to be added to the OALUG Github org?

As for the Discord channel, I haven't created it yet, but I am planning on creating it in time for the new site to go live. That being said, I don't know what the best way to handle administration and moderation for the Discord channel would be for the user group. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, I may just create the channel and make that a problem for future me to figure out.

Main page:

Past meetings page:

[Seth House]

What is your GitHub username?

I'll add you to the Admins group. (It's been a minute, but IIRC) to update the site you just push to the master branch on the repo below. The only file you need to keep is the CNAME file so GitHub knows how to map the domain.

https://github.com/oalug/oalug.github.com

[Clayton Ramstedt]

cramsted

Also I see that there is a google calendar. I have been using my personal google calendar for the club events but I would perfer to use the existing google calendar. Anyone know how to access it?

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Site: http://www.oalug.com
Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/oalug
IRC: #oalug on irc.freenode.net
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Clayton Ramstedt

[mi...@theadamsresidence.net]

I think that is something Seth has the keys too.

- Mike

> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/oalug/6951f460-1282-4b0e-aa13-9e18de5d2842n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> > .
> >
>
>
> --
> Clayton Ramstedt

>
> --
> --
> Site: http://www.oalug.com
> Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/oalug
> IRC: #oalug on irc.freenode.net
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[Seth House]

Invite sent!

The Google account predates me and I don't have those creds. I'm not sure who does -- perhaps Kevin or Aaron?

[Joseph Barney]

I just noticed a message from this group my email and I'm interested in joining the discord and coming to as many meetings as I can and make it to. Hello everyone! 

Joe

On Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 10:10:53 AM UTC-6 Clayton Ramstedt wrote:

[Seth House]

Wait, I'm dumb. I was thinking Google Account and I completely forgot there was just a shared calendar. Invite sent for that too.

[Seth House]

Hi, Joe!

[Clayton Ramstedt]

Hey Joe!

I just created a discord channel. Anyone can join it here anytime in the next 7 days: https://discord.gg/az5BhV2Y

I'm still figuring out how to get a link that does not expire attached to the website, but one thing at a time.

[Clayton Ramstedt]

The new OALUG website is now live: http://oalug.com/. A permanent link to the Discord server is now attached to the website, but I will leave the link I posted earlier active until it expires at its normal time.

(For those who care, I have archived the old website under the pre-2025 tag on GitHub.)

As for the Discord server, I'm still new to running a public community Discord server, so if you see something that looks off, let me know!

[Seth House]

The site looks great. Nice work!

[Clayton Ramstedt]

So I am trying to make OALUG https because I have run into some situations where the page is not rendering correctly due to content filters not liking http sites. ​However, when I get into the github page settings, the option to enable https is disabled and it has this message

Does anyone know what the situation with the domain is?

[Seth House]

Looks like you got it configured correctly, but there may have been a lag-time between setting it up and GitHub procuring the certificate from Let's Encrypt across it's infrastructure. I visited for the first time in a week and did get redirected to HTTPS, but could also manually visit HTTP. After a couple of reloads it started redirecting all my requests to HTTPS too. Seems to be working now!

curl -i http://oalug.com
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
...snip...
Location: https://oalug.com/