Daily reports on the TeX Users Group Meeting 2011 can be found on tex.blogoverflow.com:

• Day One
• Day Two
• Day Three

Now also online: the presentation on TeX Online Communities.

From Usenet to Web 2.0 and beyond - Presentation on TUG 2011

I attended the TeX Users Group Conference 2011 in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, from October 19 to October 21. On this meeting I made a presentation about TeX online communities, such as discussion groups, mailing lists and web forums. I introduced the TeX Q&A site tex.stackexchange.com and showed some of its features which make it a good choice for developing and sharing TeX contents, for building a TeX knowledge base besides just discussing. Finally I compared those systems.

Direct PDF download:

This presentation and text is free with cc-wiki license and attribution required, which means you are free to use, to share and to remix it, while mentioning the author’s name and if possible linking back to here.

Abstract:

Bringing together TeX users online - from Usenet to Web 2.0 and beyond

It all began with the Usenet, around 1980. The online discussion board comp.text.tex emerged, where TeX hackers gathered and still populate it today.

On the continuously developing Internet, TeX user groups created mailing lists, built home pages and software archives. Web forums turned up and lowered the barrier for beginners and occasional TeX users for getting support.

Today, TeX’s friends can also follow blogs, news feeds, and take part in vibrant question and answer sites.

In this talk we will look at present online TeX activities.

See also the TUG 2011 conference program.

Next week, October 19-21, the 32nd annual meeting of the TeX Users Group will take place in Trivandrum, Kerala, India. It’s hosted by River Valley Technologies. The conference focuses on document production using LaTeX, TeX, ConTeXt, MetaPost, and related software.

For further information, visit

• the TUG 2011 information page
• the conference program with a list of participants
• the conference flyer in PDF format

The question and answer site tex.stackexchange.com also known as TeX.SX, which has about 6,600 users today, is part of the Stack Exchange network. This consists of currently 63 question and answer sites on various topics with more than 1,180,000 registered users. On the TeX.SX meta site, the idea has been brought up, to join the TeX Users Group (TUG) with the whole Stack Exchange Network, as an institutional member, which has been strongly supported by the TeX.SX community.

The TeX Users Group is a not-for-profit organization for TeX users word wide. TUG was the first TeX users group, founded in 1980, and it is the most international one, being an important part of the worldwide TeX community.

TUG supports the TeX software archive network CTAN, produces the print journal TUGboat and the TeX Collection DVD which contains TeX Live, a TeX distribution where also TUG members work hard on. Its membership income is also partly used to directly support development projects.

As result of the TeX.SX initiative, Stack Exchange now joined the TUG as institutional member, which means also sponsoring by a membership fee. Furthermore, eight TeX.SX users will individually join. On Meta we are currently discussing about how to determine these members.

See also the list: Institutional members of the TeX Users Group.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

The question & answer site tex.stackexchange.com is now more than one year old. Until now, there are 8,784 questions, 97 % of them have been answered. It has grown to a great TeX support web site, and now it is a content rich knowledge base.

Some of the most active contributors are members of the international TeX User Group (TUG). How about the other way round - how about Stack Exchange joining the TUG as institutional member? If you would like to support this idea, read and vote on

Do we want StackExchange to become an institutional member of the TUG?

It would be great if you would contribute further thoughts which may convince Stack Exchange Inc. or just work out this idea further, especially if you are a TUG member and familiar with it.

I’ve read in a post by Jürgen to TeX-D-L tonight: at the TUG 2010 Donald E. Knuth announced the successor to TeX: iTeX. Read more on slashdot and science.slashdot.org. Don’t take it too seriously.

Update: the recording of the “earthshaking announcement” can now be seen on River Valley TV.

I’ve read on the texhax mailing list today that Karl Berry has posted the schedule of talks for the TUG 2009 conference. There you can read about the program, workshops, talks and participants of this years annual meeting of the TeX Users Group on July 29-31, 2009 plus the workshop day on July 28.

The TeX Users Group is holding a competition to design its new logo. If you are interested to contribute visit http://tug.org/logo/competition/ for more information about reasons and requirements. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2009.