Renaming CentOS Dojos

CentOS periodically hosts a series of free mini-conferences called Dojos for reasons that have been lost to history. We enjoy the lightheartedness, but the name itself isn’t helping us build the inclusive culture that we want. So, the CentOS Board would like to gather community input on a slate of potential replacement event names.

Please vote on which options you like, and feel free to comment if you have more to add.

  • CentOS Connect
  • CentOS Jam
  • CentOS Sync
  • CentOS Link
  • CentOS Fair

0 voters

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Random thoughts!

I think “Connect” is nice. It has visual alteration even if not actual.

Jam seems too unstructured (and like, maybe it will go on for about 10× as long as is pleasant?).

“Fair” conjures vendors selling stuff from booths to me — or else other meanings of “Fair” which don’t sound like an event.

I didn’t like “Link” at first but that could really grow on me, I realize, as I’m trying to write an opinion on why I didn’t like it.

I think “Sync” seems too much like some kind of file-sync service. Plus can be heard as “sink”, with various negative connotations.

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Interestingly, one of the things I like about “Sync” is the phonetic alliteration, even though it’s a different letter. (Thanks English.) Thanks for your insights.

As the word dojo is a “Hall or place for immersive learning”, that was likely the original meaning or intent of using the word. I still think it is an applicable word in that case, unless the structure of the meetings have gone more social than say, educational about CentOS. Just my “outside of the CentOS community” POV.

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Yes, that was the original goal, per wiki : “Events/OrganizingDojos - CentOS Wiki” : "CentOS Dojos should focus on user stories, technical content, tutorials, how-tos, and so on. We don’t want to feature sales pitches or marketing fluff in any of the presentations, so we will ask that organizers agree to this policy and ensure it. "

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Well then, the poll options don’t express that concept to me. What is the format for delivering the conferences? Are you using something like Nest, or is it in person? Is the intent to even have a word representative of the presentation agenda, or the event? If it is the event, then the name would be more suited to the poll offerings I suppose, but maybe like “Nest with Fedora” it could be “-Descriptive word for event activities- with CentOS”. Just tossing out ideas here of course.

All good questions, Stephen. Historically, Dojos have been in-person events. With the pandemic, we started doing virtual events. We’re now looking at doing a combination of all-virtual events and hybrid in-person events. They aren’t generally at the scale of Flock or Nest, but usually larger than Fedora Hatch.

The link Fabian shared really captures the type of content. But it misses something important, which is that Dojos are also an opportunity for people to meet, socialize, and connect. Even when we do virtual events, we try to create a virtual hallway track so it’s more than just some talks you could watch whenever. The name options are inspired by this idea.

So then the names are inline aren’t they? Connect with CentOS has a nice ring, if pretty standard, Sync does fit too in that light.

What’s wrong with Dojo? Why isn’t it inclusive?

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I was about to jump in to ask the same question. Dojos are events for people to gather to do stuff. For everything else there are meetups.

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I think that “dojo” — along with some other words we use in Fedora, like “karma” for package-update-candidate feedback, are examples of “Orientalism”, where someone acting in Western culture takes a term from an Asian language in order to impart a sort of charm or mystique. Often in the process this trivializes something which has deep significance to people — or other times, imparting a deep mysticism to what is an every-day term in practice. Either way, it is “othering”.

And all of that is rude. I haven’t heard a wide outcry of people who are actively offended (although perhaps the CentOS Board has). But to me, it’s not really about offense or anything like that. We can be less rude and more descriptive.

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Thanks for taking the time to explain it. I sort of see what you mean, though in this particular case it seems a bit of a reach to me. I can’t imagine who might say it’s rude to call a gathering for the purpose of learning a “dojo”, but maybe that’s just me.

To answer the original question, CentOS Connect seems ok. Perhaps a bit corporatey, but better than the other options. CentOS Share? CentOS Guild? Now that I’ve written that, I really want to go to a CentOS Guild meeting!

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Hey all. I would like to remind you that

  1. This is a CentOS Project section of this forum, but I expect people to act in line with the Fedora code of conduct here too.
  2. The first post clearly states that the CentOS board has already discussed this, has made a decision, and is looking for specific feedback.
  3. If you’re not even reading the first post, but using this as an excuse to rant or to open some general culture war debate, please stop. That’s not what this is here for.
  4. If you have constructive things to say, that is excellent, as long as they are on topic and actually relevant.
  5. If you do feel strongly that you need to take this to the CentOS Board for reconsideration, please do that in the way you would raise any other issue to the board — directly, and in a positive, constructive way.
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