os/2 re-engagement ... we need Team OS/2

[JTA]

"There's a lesser known fourth pillar, too: Community. The Windows K2 initiative is eager to rebuild a community of fans and enthusiasts around Windows. It's bringing back Windows Insider meetups, and appointing members of the Windows team to be more forward facing on social media and in forums to respond directly to feedback from people online."

(from: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/what-is-windows-k2-everything-you-need-to-know-saving-windows-11)

This has nothing to do with OS/2 of course, but does point out that ANY os can slide (or finish sliding) into obscurity. Hopefully, as above, an OS vendor recognizes that danger, and does something about it.

What are we doing about it?

Only thing I can think of is "Team OS/2", and using those folks to bring back interest in OS/2 meetings, demos, and such (mini-Warpstocks, year-round). Show folks how we can run OS/2 (ArcaOS) without any problems, on modern hardware, and still make use of object-orientedness that pretty much no other os has.

What else will we do? What will Arca Noae do?

PS: look at some of the threads below this one ... some with nearly 200k views. That's a lot of folks interested in OS/2

[Dave Yeo]

PS: look at some of the threads below this one ... some with nearly 200k views. That's a lot of folks interested in OS/2

Or a lot of bots scraping the site. I doubt that there are that many OS/2 users, and less that visit OS2World.

[JTA]

The number (200k) doesn't have to be users actually *using* OS/2 ... as I said in my 1st comment, it was folks *interested enough* to click the thread. That's a sizeable number of people interested in the topic of that thread. They came to OS2World, over the period of one year, and clicked that article.

This, to me, implies folks who could be converted into OS/2 users, if "Team OS/2" was out there doing it's thing. IMHO, most folks won't change the status quo (windows desktop), unless someone shows them a new/better/different way.

The ratio of humans to bots (per most stat counters) is still 80/20 or thereabouts, so 80% of 200k still seems worthy of a Team OS/2 effort.

[Sabon]

One idea is to see if a booth could be available at things like Comic-Con where LOTS of people would be passing by and if we could show games that they would be interested in, that especially work better running on OS/2 or just as good as anything else, it might spark interest in some people that have never heard of OS/2 or thought it was totally dead. Just thinking about traditional spaces for OS/2 to be viewed isn't going to cut it. People that know about OS/2 and are interested in it, can search for OS/2 and find ArcaOS but you have to know about it to think about searching for it.

I >>>KNOW<<< that comic con is a stretch to think we can get a booth there. But I believe you understand that I'm talking about finding non-traditional nerd spaces for people that feel "different" and might be interested in a different OS. Something has to be done to gain interest in OS/2 because the people maintaining OS/2 are not getting younger and then what happens with the OS. YOUNG PEOPLE need to OS/2 to be shown in places where they will see it and it wouldn't take very many people before the size of the number of people using OS/2 would jump a HUGE percentage wise. Thinking outside of the box is something that should be considered.

If someone found out that say comic con would allow someone to show OS/2 during the convention running games with the OS/2 banner above it, I would help fund that, something like $100 for a show. Someone with ties to Arca would have to vouch for this person so that I'm not paying into a scam. Even if we all chipped in $20 each to find a booth run with volunteers to show off Arca could really be worth it. And I'm not saying JUST that convention but anything where nerds get together where something different would be appreciated. Understand?

[JTA]

An interesting idea, one that got me thinking and researching ... thanks! Lots of Con(vention)s out there ... Wikipedia had lists of them.

One common thread ... expensive, complicated. Booth rental, extensive rules/paperwork to get a space, hotel rooms/travel. A hundred donations at $100 each  *might* begin to cover it all. Las Vegas seems to be the epicenter, with a coast or three coming in close behind, as the location of choice for all these -Cons. CES, Comic-con, etc.

So, I backed off and thought more local ... hold these OS/2-Cons in *your* city, using whatever free resources might be available. This would get the ball rolling, and might also achieve another goal, which is to bring back OS/2-Clubs (in your city).

Again, great idea ... don't know if the national idea or the local club approach will be what takes off, but hopefully others will think more about it as well!