Wednesday, April 29, 2015

OWASP Community Manager News Flash – April 2015

OWASP Community Manager News Flash – April 2015

Greetings OWASP Community,

I have managed several chapter transitions since joining in November and am often impressed by the thoughtful, professional, and caring attitudes of our leaders. Change can be stressful, particularly where status as a leader is concerned. I commend those who have stepped forward to help when help is needed, and to those who have graciously passed on the reins to new leaders, I offer my most sincere gratitude for your service and mentorship to your chapter participants.

Read on for tips on Chapter donations, social media management and where to go for technical support. If you are a new leader and need guidance to resources on the wiki or any of our communications systems, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Noreen Whysel
Community Manager
OWASP Foundation
http://2015.appsec.eu/


Special Update on OWASP Nepal

I have reached out members of the OWASP Nepal Chapter to offer our support in the aftermath of the earthquake there. I have so far heard from Guarab Pant (Thanks also to Riotaro Okada from our Japan chapter). Guarab reports that many Nepalese remain unsheltered and in need of water, food and warm clothing. Over 5,000 are confirmed dead.

One way to help is to join the efforts of OpenStreetMap to map buildings, wells (very important) and open areas (potential helicopter landing sites for bringing in supplies) in Nepal. This platform allows even unexperienced mappers a way to contribute since all edits are reviewed by experts before they are made final. To learn how to participate, visit:

A Reminder: Many unsavory entities crop up at this time to take advantage of our charity and grief. One thing that we as a security community are aware of, but it bears repeating, is that we must be cautious about who we give funds to. You can help Nepal by engaging people in your personal and professional networks to give to known relief agencies, such as the Red Cross and UNICEF.

Hopefully, I will soon hear from other members of our OWASP community in Nepal and report other ways to help.


Latest News

Whats New?
I just returned from a conference in Minneapolis where I led a workshop on Wikipedia editing and was struck by the similarity between the open, collaborative principles of Wikipedia and our own community. Like Wikipedia, our own wiki at owasp.org offers anyone in our community the ability to contribute and comment on content and policies.

Every page on the OWASP wiki also has a corresponding Discussion page. Even user pages have a User Talk page that you can use to address comments to specific users. I encourage anyone who has a comment about a wiki page, to add your thoughts to the Discussion tab on that page. You can also add your questions to the Discussion tab of my User page here:


Chapter Leader Handbook Update
We are continuing with the Chapter Leader Handbook update. I have made edits to outdated information and corrected links. We have received some comments and discussion on various guidelines but could use your further input. As a collaborative community, everyone’s insight matters. If you have a chance, won’t you please look at the handbook and comment on anything that you feel should be revised or reworded:


Look for comments on the Discussion tab of each page of the handbook.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

IT Support – New Process
Starting in May, Matt Tesauro will be handling all IT requests exclusively via the IT Request system. Anyone can submit an IT ticket at http://owasp.supportsystem.com/ or by sending an email to IT-support@owasp.supportsystem.com.

Matt is also planning to migrate to a new host server in May or June and plans to work on upgrading to Mailman v3 following the server migration. You may notice temporary issues and disruptions as these migrations take place.

To learn more about what Matt does to support OWASP, visit User:Mtesauro on the Wiki.


Recent Chapter Activity

AppSec Events
The LATAM 2015 Tour finished its run of 10 countries in 13 full days of events an activities. For a recap of events, visit the LATAM event site (https://www.owasp.org/index.php/LatamTour2015) and the LATAM Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/owasp.latam).

Up next, AppSecEU is May 19-22, 2015 in Amsterdam, andAppSecUSA will be held in San Francisco from September 22-25th. Call for trainings has opened for AppSecUSA. Be sure to register!


New Chapters/New Leaders
This month was primarily a month of chapter relaunches and leadership changes. We rebooted chapters in Manaus, Brazil, led by Fabio Lapuinka and welcomed a new leader to Charlottesville, Jeffrey Collyer.

We also have a new student chapter at Leeds Beckett University, with Joseph Gwynne-Jones serving as President, Christopher Easton as Vice president, James Johnson as Treasurer and Connor Wilson as Secretary. Dr. Cliffe Schreuders will serve as advisor. Leeds Beckett is also signing on as an Academic Sponsor. We introduced new leadership at University of Washington Bothell with Tyler Laws and Brendan Sweeney taking on the leader roles.

For information or to join these communities, please visit their chapter wiki pages:

Manaus, Brazil:

Charlottesville:


UW Bothell:


Tip: Managing Social Media

Many chapters use social media as an extension of their communications to reach the widest possible audience. OWASP has provided a set of guidelines for managing social media accounts. These guidelines are beneficial to our entire OWASP community and should be reviewed periodically to ensure that you are communicating effectively and appropriately.

OWASP Social Media Policy:

Posts to social media accounts are subject to the same code of ethics and principles as any of our volunteer activities. This means they must be open, polite and vendor neutral. Are you monitoring your social media activity? Are you aware that any OWASP branded account you create reflects the activity of everyone at the Foundation? Do you need assistance in addressing any improper activity by social media users in your chapter? Please let us know how we can help.


Bonus Tip: Donation Button

Every chapter and project is eligible for funding via donations from external sources. The Chapter page template has a PayPal button where people can make direct donations to benefit your efforts. The template is designed so that the Donate button appears near the top of the page, where it is visible to site visitors. Project pages may also include a Donate button.

If you do not see the Donate button on your chapter page, you may not be using the latest chapter template. If you need assistance, I can help you integrate your current page with the template content so you can begin collecting donations from your chapter page.

Resources

Chapter Leader Handbook: 

OWASP Social Media Policy:

AppSecUSA:

AppSecEU:


Contact Me

Feel free to contact me at any time if you have a question or suggestion. To create a trackable case, please use the contact us form at http://www.tfaforms.com/308703.

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