Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished on the Friday, November 25th, 2016 meeting.

Last week's theme was friends and family, where we asked our regular volunteers to invite new volunteers to participate in the weekly meeting. mangeurdenuage had some great success posting in the Trisquel forums and some other spaces and attracted two new volunteers. They then trained the new recruits and helped them to add their first entries. While we didn't get as many new volunteers as we might have hoped, we put together some ideas for attracting more volunteers going forward.

And while the theme was about new friends and family joining us, there was still a lot of work from previous meetings that needed more attention. David_Hedlund has taken the lead in working through new requirements and categories for free software in the directory. For any free software package, a user always has the ability to modify the work to meet their needs. But for someone newly introduced to a package by the directory, there can be some other pertinent information they would like to know before diving in and downloading the software. The work we're doing on the categories should eventually make it easy for volunteers to tag certain issues with packages, and have some template text displayed on the entry. This feeds off the work we did in tagging some works as historical, but addresses a wider range of issues. While the work is not complete, a lot of progress was made at the meeting and we hope to have this feature fully implemented in the near future.

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST (18:00 to 20:00 UTC).

Participate in supporting the FSD by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week's theme is friends and family. We have a great team of regulars showing up to help improve the directory each week, but as the saying goes, the more the merrier. So this week we're hoping that you invite your friends and family to join in on the fun. We'll be focusing on training new volunteers on how to update and improve the directory. We'll be continuing work on other projects from previous weeks as well.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished on the Friday, November 18th, 2016 meeting.

Last week started off with a theme of outreach to maintainers of free software packages. mangeurdenuage and donaldr3 put together template volunteers can use to contact package maintainers to get them interested in keeping their own entries up to date. mangeurdenuage then went on to contact many maintainers. We hope to see everyone they contacted at upcoming meetings or at least in the revision log.

While the theme was maintainer outreach, there was still a lot of excitement about the previous week's discussion on how to deal with certain edge cases. David_Hedlund and IanKelling worked out that using categories to tag potential issues was probably the best system, as tagged categories could still flag a post with text explaining the potential issue. Lots of different categories of issues were discussed, with David_Hedlund implementing some of them for review. Those categories, their text, and implementation are still being reviewed and iterated on. That work will continue in this upcoming meeting as well, so be sure to join us all in directing the future of the directory.

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST (18:00 to 20:00 UTC).

As software permeates more and more aspects of society, the FSF must expand our work to protect and extend computer user freedom. On Monday, we launched our yearly fundraiser with the goal of welcoming 500 new members and raising $450,000 before December 31st. Please support the work that we do: make a donation or -- better yet -- join as a member today.

Electronics are popular gifts for the holidays, but people often overlook the restrictions that manufacturers slip under the wrapping paper. From surveillance to harsh rules about copying and sharing, some gifts take more than they give.

The good news is that there are ethical companies making better devices that your loved ones can enjoy with freedom and privacy. Today, we're launching the 2016 Giving Guide, your key to smarter and more ethical tech gifts.

Explore the Giving Guide online and in print. To sweeten the deal, many of the recommended gifts are specially discounted for the holiday season.

If you appreciate the guide, we invite you to to spread the word about it. Here's what you can do:

• Lead a Giving Guide Giveaway at a local shopping area to show that conscientious giving applies to computers and software. We've prepared a primer to answer common questions and help make your Giveaway a success.

• Share the guide on social media with the hashtag #givefreely and comment about it on gift or tech-related online articles.

• Email it to your family and friends – heck, you might even get a gift out of it!

Some translations are already available, but we need more volunteers to port the Giving Guide to their own languages. Check out the primer page for translation instructions.

Millions of people will open tech gifts this holiday season, and most of them will be walled gardens encumbered with nonfree software and DRM. But things are changing. With each year, our message spreads further and more people start thinking critically about technology and voting with their wallets. Join us in fueling the movement for ethical tech – use and spread this guide.

Participate in supporting the FSD by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week we're having a focus on reaching out to maintainers of packages to help keep their entries up to date. Plenty of maintainers like to add their package to the directory in order to take advantage of all the extra publicity it can bring to a project. But keeping things up to date will have the most impact, letting users know that the package is still under active development. So this week we'll be reaching out to maintainers to help get their directory entry looking the best it can.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.