Re: List of regional contacts up, please revise! - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

Simon,

> How will you handle the situation that most people's phone numbers won't
> be answered "PostgreSQL", but actually will be various companies? This
> might lead to some confusion - should that be mentioned, or not?

Hmmmm ... good question.

> Could you list me as the press contact for UK & Republic of Ireland?
> Thinks some more...what other countries are missing...

Are you certain that Ireland *wants* to be lumped in with the UK?

> I notice also that we have no press contacts for:
> Denmark - .dk Troels Arvin?
> Netherlands - .nl
> Norway - .no
> Spain - .es there is a "spanish" list, but they're in way different
> timezones...
> Portugal - .po perhaps Armando Halpern?
> Czech Republic - .cz there is a czech list
> Greece - .gr Alexander Antonakakis <alexis@maich.gr>?

I'm a little reluctant to tap people as Regional Contacts if they aren't on
this list, and haven't volunteered.    It's better not to have a contact at
all for a region than to have on who doesn't answer his phone/email -- or
even answers it wrong.

> South Africa - .za Anton de Wet <adw ( at ) obsidian ( dot ) co ( dot )
> za>?

Yeah, he just sent me contact info.

> also there are no contacts from Africa or the Arabic world at all, which
> is not good at this time.

Actually, I just got a potential volunteer from Iran.   Waiting to see if he
wants to do RC.

> Nigeria? - http://www.postgresql.org/news/185.html

Hey, if you know someone there ...

> You're also missing NZ and English-speaking Canada. Perhaps it might be
> politic to list the US and Australian contacts as covering those
> countries also?

Hmmmm ... yeah.  Mind you, if we had a French-speaking Canadian contact, they
would be separate.

> I thought Afilias was actually an Irish company...

Nope.

> I'm in the same timezone as SouthAfrica, and it is common for the UK to
> be associated with Northern European countries (who typically speak
> English better than we do...). It might be an idea to list me as the
> contact for Rep of Ireland, South Africa, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark
> until we find a better spokesperson for each. So list me as "UK &
> Northern Europe".

I'm a bit reluctant to have people covering "beats" that don't include their
actual countries/areas.   After all, have you ever actually *been* to Norway?
Would you be able to travel there to meet someone?   We're a volunteer
organization, not a commercial company with a sales budget.  More than that,
I find that a lot of countries resent having foriegners "speak for" their
country and there could be a negative reaction.

> ...or maybe don't group them together, just have an additional section
> at bottom, saying "if your country does not have a dedicated press
> contact volunteer, please contact one of these regional contacts:
> Northern Europe            Simon Riggs
> Nordic & Baltic            Jussi Mikkola
> Central & Eastern Europe    Ewald Geschwinde
> Southern Europe & Middle-East    Devrim Gunduz

This makes a lot more sense to me.   However, I'd tend to think that people
could figure it out on their own.   What to others think?  We'd also need:

Mexico & Central America        Alvaro
Pacific Islands                Gavin
East Asia                    Shridhar or JPUG

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco