How do we get more people involved?

Something else everyone could be doing is communicating with their local Ruby user group: http://rubyusergroups.org/

There is a lot of work to do around Diaspora.
As a Mozilla contributor, we are organized in 5 groups :
Translation (this is clear :p)
Support : Help users with our projects
Communication : Promote our projects (to users) and find new contributors)
Evangelism : Promote our projects (to devs : why you should use the web standards at work)
Development : Build tools around our projects (website for promotion, tools for translation, etc. For Diaspora, this is diaspora-project.org, podupti.me, etc)

As you can see, there is a lot of things to do for no-dev.

Something else everyone could be doing is communicating with their local Ruby user group: http://rubyusergroups.org/

Excellent idea Robin! I found the Helsinki local "Ruby Brigade" (http://rubybrigade.fi/) and I think I'll take an action point for myself to join in on one of their meetings and maybe if I get enough courage do a little presentation on Diaspora* :)

Maybe we could aim to produce some nice presentation material for common usage for those who want to speak at events about Diaspora*? Anyone with good presentation making skills who would want to help with this?

I think I will play with some pictures and facts about diaspora to create a presentation. Can you please list up some facte I should defintly add?

Okay I created a very early version of the presentation. Please give me some general facts I could add. Later the day I will upload and share it to my cloud for you.

Hurrah! I got a reply from my local RUG, someone wants to get involved. I've created a separate discussion on what new people should be pointed to work on.

@Goob: I assure you, I have no intention of creating a power base. I really do not see why it is that the fact I started a group should matter. If you don't want to be in it, then just leave. Jason did this very thing after making quite a statement and grand exit, right Jason?

@Jason R: There has been friction from the beginning in terms of how you and I seem to communicate.

I have tried to be involved, and for some reason my contributions and suggestions have been shot down. I am actually not trying to talk slag, as you say. I would like to know what you have done to invite me into this group. I don't recall any warm fuzzies inviting me to do anything. Nor leadership to try to understand what I have been attempting to contribute.

When the D* community first came to Loomio, I started the group "What is Community at Diaspora?" and everyone nearly had a heart attack. It's like I started a group called, "Let's Talk about Manicures!" or some totally off-topic thing. Then I got lectured that I was not allowed to start a new group. There has been this weirdness from that point on.

This notion of the little pie charts counting as votes doesn't mean anything. Even the folks at Loomio say the pie charts are not the law, but to gauge on how people feel about something. So some people didn't like it that I made another group. OK. If you'll notice, I have not made anymore new groups, out of respect to how touchy people are about that. But I feel strongly that if people want to write what they think community means at Diaspora they should feel free to do that. If you don't want to, then don't be in that group.

In the meantime, let me say for the record, there were at least two very experienced developers who were interested in being involved, but no one wanted to listen to them. So they got pissed off and left. One even deleted his/her account at diaspora and will never be back, but who really knows with nyms, right?

That is the third wave of people I've seen who want to contribute and then told where the door is.

So I'm sorry, there is a bad rep out there, and I'm not the one responsible for creating that aura. Don't shoot me because I'm the messenger.

I have sat back because I'm curious to see what happens. And also see if there will be a shift of any kind. Believe it or not, I am hoping for the best.

I have been sincere in wanting to know how NON-DEVS are to contribute. You don't care what community members want, you just want to do cool software. Why do you want to hold peopel hostage so you can do cool software? And what if community members don't think it's cool? What is the process to deliberate that?

That's why I think you don't care, that is the only thing I can think. I'm a user, and have been one for over a year. If you want to run me off, that's OK. You are getting really good at doing that. But running me off or anyone else will not change the problem that you are facing. It will only make your gene pool smaller. Confirmation bias doesn't make cool software.

And one very important thing I'd like to point out: this project does not belong to me. I'm not trying to steal if from anyone. If I make you that insecure, you really need to reflect on why that is.

Telling someone to delete something they post is just like censorship. For being about free speech, you sure need to tell people to be quiet a lot. Please notice I could have said that in a much nastier way, but did not.

And Sean, thanks for being the devil's advocate.

Last it is true that I am very defensive writing these words, and there is a reason for that. I do not mean to start a flame war here, I am doing my best to communicate. So if I have written anything that you want to take as inflammatory, it was not meant to be read that way. And if you want to read it that way, then you are projecting.

@Madamephilo - really, to avoid poisoning talk here, we should move this discussion to Diaspora* itself - it doesn't belong here. I will create a post later explaining my views about this thing.

I like all of you, I guess.

Anyone with good presentation making skills who would want to help with this?

YEP ! I am in the communication group in Mozilla, and I have a very beautiful template for presentation in HTML5 !! Yeah, you rode right, no PowerPoint, no Impress, HTML guys ;)

It is under MIT license so we can adapt it. You can find it on my github : https://github.com/Flaburgan/presentations-mozilla