TPU was started as an impromptu response to newsgroup postings. You can see it all for yourself by searching for "Teen Programmers Unite" at groups.google.com. I'm thinking it might be appropriate to repeat the strategy that led to the foundation of TPU and the success of its early years. Any comments, and perhaps suggestions of the message to send and where to send it?

I was just searching through the old TPU newsgroup posts, and came across this post from 1998 (two years after David Kitchin began TPU for those who are interested) which says this:

I know the stonesoup project has been tried twice with both coming out as
failures but I have a new idea. There is a group called TPU (Teen
Programmers Unite) and they seem to have somehow solved the problem of
working as a group over the internet. They're actually working on a new
linux clone called 'Entropy' right now.

If that's to be taken as true, I would say that TPU has gone backwards, as we've lost the solution to the problem of working as a group over the internet. At its peak, TPU had over 900 memebers and that was still when it was in David Kitchin's care (this is my opinion). I think we need to regularly meet on IRC, say every Saturday, just like the original TPU. We need to breed relationships between memebers more than anything else, as I believe that's what will keep us together in the end. Whatever happened to the TPU culture? The flaming goat and the IPOJ(tm :-)) seem to have taken a backseat, and we've become lost in a sea of corporatilism (is that a word?) veiled in obscurity.....

I was already running TPU at that point, actually. David ran out of motivation about a year after the start. I agree with you entirely, though I don't think TPU has ever had a solution to "working as a group over the internet" if you add a qualification of producing a final product. I know that lots of TPU members have learned a lot from unfinished projects undertaken with others. I don't really see producing software as related to TPU's mission.

So, I think you're just agreeing with me, and the issue is to come up with ways to make it happen. Hence the post and my previous one.

Very true, all I really managed to do was .. er .. very little..

Anyway, does anyone have any idea on how these problems can be solved? I don't think I've worked with enough online groups before to have any decent solutions.

received scholarship for English score of
690 in 99th percentile <---- See I told you that you were abnormal, and all us other jargon-spewing little people should worship you.