• AllensIdeas

Ideas for improving Compsoc

The following is a list of ideas for improving Compsoc. Most of the ideas come from browsing the websites of other university computing societies.

CSCS (Cool Stuff in Computer Science) style stuff - more orientated towards things like linux and much less (ie. none) lego.

I found http://www.compsoc.org.uk/ which looks like an intriguing idea. It could be useful to communicate with other computing societies and on occasion perhaps combine resources (for things like trips, inter-uni gaming, etc).

Talks & Workshops

Examples:

• http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/talks/index.html

• http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/workshops/index.html

• http://www.ox.compsoc.net/events/previous.shtml

• http://www.ox.compsoc.net/events/handouts.shtml

Events free to members - non-members are charged. (This note may also apply to other items)

Hardware / Software / Book Discounts

How? From looking at the sites it seems that they may be doing some sort of deal where they review the books, then get to keep them. Examples:

• http://www.st-and.compsoc.org.uk/aboutbody

• http://bcs.studentrecipes.net/

• http://bcs.studentrecipes.net/?view=affiliates <-- Free book reviews looks like maybe the route for discounts

Stuff we could do stuff on

• Linux / UNIX
• Perl
• Python
• C++
  • wxWidgets
  • openGL
  • SDL
• Regex
• Latex
• XHTML/CSS
• GPG - keys, signing, what it's all about
• Version control (CVS, SVN, etc)
• Web Development - PHP

Book library

The Adventure Gaming Society ( http://adventuregaming.co.uk/ ) runs a book library containing roleplay game manuals. We could do something similar for computing books. Examples:

• http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/library/

• http://sucs.org/services/library.php

Forums

(Partially) Members only maybe? Topics could include:

• Programming help

• General hardware & software support

• Linux support
• OSS projects / issues discussion

(Andee) Anyone can sort them out in seconds, don't see why not :)

Gaming events

Not necessarily a LAN event, but like tournaments or just organised matches. These matches could be both on-site and off-site (for off-site servers I'm sure there's many people who are in clans who have servers we could "borrow" for one off events). Andee also came up with the idea of holding gaming events with other universities.

Another thing to look at maybe console gaming. Could we organise small console gaming events? Perhaps in a nice room with a big projector.

(Andee) I've been working on a Gentoo-based Party Server, currently can run UT, UT2k4, CS, CS:S, HL, HL2, DOD:S, TFC, DMC. More can be added I'm sure. I'm also working on a front end to control them :D

MUD

A MUD / MOO or similar project that's developed by Compsoc members for fun.

Planet

Planet of members blogs and maybe other Computing department people? Examples:

• http://sucs.org/planet/

Interest Groups / Teams

Outline

Basically, create lists of people who are interested in particular areas of computing. For example: gaming.

Purpose

Give a small amount of structure to what we do, which I believe would help to get things done. It would allow people to go directly to specific members when they wish to get involved in that area of things.

Implementation

This could easily be handled with each Interest Group having a page on the wiki. A basic page structure might look something like:

• Purpose
  • The purpose of the IG. For examle the gaming IG purpose statement might read: To develop and maintain infrastructure for gaming on the SBS. To hold gaming related events including leagues and tables, LAN events and trips to gaming expos. To publicise gaming services to (potential) members.
• Members
  • List of members of the group. The idea of this is to have a list of people who dedicate a good part of their time to the group who keep up-to-date with what the group is doing and can help others who want to help the group. This is by no means a definitive list and anyone who wants to get involved in the group can do so.
• Current Projects
  • Items which the group is currently working on. This could include long-term items such as, in the case of the gaming IG, development and maintainance of the game servers.
• Future Ideas
  • Area where ideas which aren't currently active are developed.

Examples

• http://compsoc.tardis.ed.ac.uk/SIGs - The way another CompSoc carries out this kind of idea.

• This idea is also slightly based on the way the Gentoo Linux project works, altho they have a lot more formal structure mainly due to the sheer size of the project.

Voice Comms Server

An on-site TeamSpeak / Ventrilo server. Ventrilo has some major licensing issues when not for personal use so I suspect we'll be going with TeamSpeak if we do this.

Cracking / Security Competition

Not sure if we'd get enough interest, but something along the lines of: Everyone brings a computer, any OS they choose. Those taking part in the competition have to crack the other computers and keep control for as long as possible while keeping their machine secure. Need to look in to how other people organise this sort of thing. Would probably require our own networking equipment as I doubt Computing would like use hacking other the network. The idea is to get people to educate themselves on security issues and to have some fun.