Regular IRC meetings

[Robert Leverington]

Hi,

I would like to propose having regular IRC meetings (e.g. two to three
times a month).  This would involve specifying a time (probably in the
evening) on one weekday, and everyone interested congregating in the
channel.  There would be a specified agenda and we would go through the
points and discuss them.  Minutes would then be produced by one of the
members and the decisions made actioned.

The rationale for this is that currently discussions can take several
weeks to actually come to a consensus, this is frustrating and wastes
time.  IRC meetings would result in all points being completely
discussed withing two to three hours.  IRC meetings have proven to work
with many other organisations including freenode and Wikimedia.
Real life meetings are nice, but obviously can't happen as often as IRC
ones can and also exclude people not in proximity to the location
(especially when talking about things that affect the whole of DFEY
rather than just individual branches).
--
Robert Leverington
http://rhl.me.uk/

[Isabell Long]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 04/08/2009, Robert Leverington <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to propose having regular IRC meetings (e.g. two to three
> times a month).  This would involve specifying a time (probably in the
> evening) on one weekday, and everyone interested congregating in the
> channel.  There would be a specified agenda and we would go through the
> points and discuss them.  Minutes would then be produced by one of the
> members and the decisions made actioned.

This is a very good idea.  It's practical to hold meetings 2-3 times a
month on IRC while everything is up in the air and we're trying to
sort the group out as a whole (Dogfish, website etc.), but we must not
forget about the real life meetings that will hopefully happen once a
month eventually and possibly cut down on the number of IRC meetings
after problems have been ironed out etc. and things are mostly sorted
out and a decision has been made about the main issues at the moment,
and ones that are no doubt going to arise in the near future.

>
> The rationale for this is that currently discussions can take several
> weeks to actually come to a consensus, this is frustrating and wastes
> time.  IRC meetings would result in all points being completely
> discussed withing two to three hours.  IRC meetings have proven to work
> with many other organisations including freenode and Wikimedia.
> Real life meetings are nice, but obviously can't happen as often as IRC
> ones can and also exclude people not in proximity to the location
> (especially when talking about things that affect the whole of DFEY
> rather than just individual branches).

Yes, as I said above we mustn't forget about the real life meetings,
but IRC meetings with good, well structured agendas almost always
work, especially in the case of Wikimedia.

I like this idea, and once I get back to England the time difference
will be better so I will have more chance of attending these IRC
meetings, if we ever reach a decision (obviously at least a week
before each meeting) about date, time and topics to be discussed.

- --
Regards,
Isabell Long.  <[hidden email]>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.
Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on irc.freenode.net
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[x_rob]

2009/8/4 Robert Leverington <[hidden email]>

I would like to propose having regular IRC meetings (e.g. two to three
times a month).  This would involve specifying a time (probably in the
evening) on one weekday, and everyone interested congregating in the
channel.  There would be a specified agenda and we would go through the
points and discuss them.  Minutes would then be produced by one of the
members and the decisions made actioned.

The rationale for this is that currently discussions can take several
weeks to actually come to a consensus, this is frustrating and wastes
time.  IRC meetings would result in all points being completely
discussed withing two to three hours.  IRC meetings have proven to work
with many other organisations including freenode and Wikimedia.
Real life meetings are nice, but obviously can't happen as often as IRC
ones can and also exclude people not in proximity to the location
(especially when talking about things that affect the whole of DFEY
rather than just individual branches).

i can see the benefits of having IRC discussions but what you're suggesting would take ludicrous amounts of time to undertake; I personally am not going to sit in an IRC channel for 2-3 hours 2 or 3 times a month following the complete detail of the discussion and i don't believe many other people would actually be happy with this. I don't believe there's actually enough to discuss to warrent such frequent and lengthy 'meetings'.

Another point I'd like to mention is that Wikimedia and Freenode are organisations which have real structure and have gravitas such that petty squabbles won't take place. DFEY is -to be brutally honest- a bit of a shouting match sometimes on IRC and I can see it becoming a real problem in a discussion such as this. IRC gives the opportunity to shout at eachother and DFEY as an organisation is nothinglike Wikimedia and has nothing nearly so important worth discussing at the moment.

[Connor Smith]

On Tue, 4 Aug 2009 16:50:13 +0100
Rob Barry <[hidden email]> wrote:

> i can see the benefits of having IRC discussions but what you're
> suggesting would take ludicrous amounts of time to undertake; I
> personally am not going to sit in an IRC channel for 2-3 hours 2 or 3
> times a month following the complete detail of the discussion

You don't have to, of course:

> Minutes would then be produced by one of the members and the decisions
> made actioned.

Those of you who have an attention span less than a couple of hours can
simply read and comment upon the summary produced. The rest of us
shouldn't, however, have to suffer sluggish mailing list bureaucracy
simply because you can't be bothered to show up in IRC at an agreed
time...

Thanks,

cls

[x_rob]

Connor, your arrogance astounds me. Of course we don't have to turn up for the IRC meetings but there are people who want to be involved in certain aspects of the decision-making process but don't want to have to hang around reading 2 hours worth of rambling in an IRC chat room. Sure people can read the summary and comment upon it but if the decisions have already been made before they can comment on it, how is it that they can possibly help make decisions? I would also say that a summary simply won't do justice to a 2 or 3 hour discussion - you can't possibly reflect all of the opinions shown and I really doubt you'll find anyone willing to make a decent summary.

There are some people who will find it very difficult to fit 2 or 3 hours, 2 or 3 times a month into their lives because they have a lot of stuff to do; these people shouldn't be discriminated against for that reason alone! In fact, I would say that when school starts up again, you'll be lucky to get 2 or 3 members to turn up to one of these IRC discussions!

I don't think the people who turn up to an IRC meeting will be representative of the community at all and for that reason alone I think we should stick to the beauracracy that is the mailing list; at least then everyone has an equal opportunity for their voice to be heard and decisions aren't left completely up to those who have too much time on their hands and sit in the IRC channel all day.

[Richard Thompson-2]

2009/8/5 Rob Barry <[hidden email]>

Connor, your arrogance astounds me. Of course we don't have to turn up for the IRC meetings but there are people who want to be involved in certain aspects of the decision-making process but don't want to have to hang around reading 2 hours worth of rambling in an IRC chat room. Sure people can read the summary and comment upon it but if the decisions have already been made before they can comment on it, how is it that they can possibly help make decisions? I would also say that a summary simply won't do justice to a 2 or 3 hour discussion - you can't possibly reflect all of the opinions shown and I really doubt you'll find anyone willing to make a decent summary.

There are some people who will find it very difficult to fit 2 or 3 hours, 2 or 3 times a month into their lives because they have a lot of stuff to do; these people shouldn't be discriminated against for that reason alone! In fact, I would say that when school starts up again, you'll be lucky to get 2 or 3 members to turn up to one of these IRC discussions!

I don't think the people who turn up to an IRC meeting will be representative of the community at all and for that reason alone I think we should stick to the beauracracy that is the mailing list; at least then everyone has an equal opportunity for their voice to be heard and decisions aren't left completely up to those who have too much time on their hands and sit in the IRC channel all day.

Folks... Chill out :)

I propose, we scrap IRC 'meetings', seeing as the organisation involved is going to be more hassle than it is worth. Also I don't really like the idea of sitting in front of IRC for 2 hours discussing various stuff, (I already waste far too much time in IRC as it is).

So I reckon we stick to more or less what we have been doing i.e.

Anything important discussed in IRC can be sent to the mailing list where a discussion can also take place.

What do folks think?

--
Richard

[Connor Smith]

On Wed, 5 Aug 2009 12:59:16 +0100
Rob Barry <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Connor, your arrogance astounds me.

How about we keep this from being personal? Let's keep your enthusiasm
for judgements of my character off the list. Thanks a lot.

> Of course we don't have to turn up for the IRC meetings but there are
> people who want to be involved in certain aspects of the
> decision-making process but don't want to have to hang around reading
> 2 hours worth of rambling in an IRC chat room.

I suppose the solution to that would be to organise what should be
talked about? I'm sure we'd all be happy to put the most important
items first so people who are short on time can simply drop in to
express their view before the other less important items are discussed.

> I don't think the people who turn up to an IRC meeting will be
> representative of the community at all and for that reason alone I
> think we should stick to the beauracracy that is the mailing list

I'm sure it would be rather representative of the community who are
able to put time into DFEY. Obviously we aren't discussing those who
"have too much time on their hands and sit in the IRC channel all day",
but rather those who have enough time to sit in an IRC channel for a
couple of hours a couple of times a month. I'm not entirely sure if
those who only able to interact by debating on the mailing list are
really "the community" at all...

As it happens, I don't care too much either way, really. Your first
email simply seemed overwhelmingly bull. As it happens, I have to agree
with Richard's suggestion, if for no other reason than entropy.

Thanks,

cls

[Tim Dobson-2]

Robert Leverington wrote:
> Hi,

Tensions are, patience is low, it's time for everyone to get out a
deckchair, grab some icecream and sit outside in the lovely rain we've
been having and chill.

In all seriousness, I think stopping & thinking long and hard before
sending any email is a very good idea.

If your annoyed about something and you are writing an email, Stop.
Don't do it.

If you disagree about something, sleep on it, go for a walk, do
something different for a while, and once you've had a long think about
whatever it is, draft an email with your opinions, check whether it
could be taken on a personal layer; if it can remove that bit.
When you've written it, read it through and check that it reflects your
opinion. If your sure you've written it with a clear head, send it.

One of the reasons this mailing list exists is to provide an tolerant
environment where one can learn from the things and have fun.

So anyway, if you're feeling wound up, take a break, go and do something
else for a bit and calm down. :)

Take care,

Tim

[Richard Thompson-2]

2009/8/5 Tim Dobson <[hidden email]>

Robert Leverington wrote:

Hi,

Tensions are, patience is low, it's time for everyone to get out a deckchair, grab some icecream and sit outside in the lovely rain we've been having and chill.

In all seriousness, I think stopping & thinking long and hard before sending any email is a very good idea.

If your annoyed about something and you are writing an email, Stop. Don't do it.

If you disagree about something, sleep on it, go for a walk, do something different for a while, and once you've had a long think about whatever it is, draft an email with your opinions, check whether it could be taken on a personal layer; if it can remove that bit.
When you've written it, read it through and check that it reflects your opinion. If your sure you've written it with a clear head, send it.

One of the reasons this mailing list exists is to provide an tolerant environment where one can learn from the things and have fun.

So anyway, if you're feeling wound up, take a break, go and do something else for a bit and calm down. :)

Take care,

Tim

You cork poking pimple lotion, everything you say is stupid, I think you should die, rawrrrrr ;-)

Just kidding, this is great advice, I think :) I just went for a walk it was lovely, got lots of things figured out.

Peace and Love
--
Richard

[Joe Henthorn]

I find Twining's unique blend of Cinnamon, Mango and Orange really does soothe the soul.

The first time I've ever posted on this mailing list, and it's about TEA?? Gosh.

[Connor Smith]

On Wed, 5 Aug 2009 17:33:40 +0100
Joe Henthorn <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I find Twining's unique blend of Cinnamon, Mango and Orange really
> does soothe the soul.
>
> The first time I've ever posted on this mailing list, and it's about
> TEA?? Gosh.

Me and Richard had a few cups of tea while walking to Glastonbury over
a few days, and since then I've found tea really hits the spot! It may
have even surpassed coffee in my passions. Good lord.
Lovingly,

cls

[Richard Thompson-2]

2009/8/5 Joe Henthorn <[hidden email]>

I find Twining's unique blend of Cinnamon, Mango and Orange really does soothe the soul.

The first time I've ever posted on this mailing list, and it's about TEA?? Gosh.

Mmmm tea :)

--
Richard

[Tim Dobson-2]

Robert Leverington wrote:

> I would like to propose having regular IRC meetings (e.g. two to three
> times a month).  This would involve specifying a time (probably in the
> evening) on one weekday, and everyone interested congregating in the
> channel.  There would be a specified agenda and we would go through the
> points and discuss them.  Minutes would then be produced by one of the
> members and the decisions made actioned.
>
> The rationale for this is that currently discussions can take several
> weeks to actually come to a consensus, this is frustrating and wastes
> time.  IRC meetings would result in all points being completely
> discussed withing two to three hours.  IRC meetings have proven to work
> with many other organisations including freenode and Wikimedia.
> Real life meetings are nice, but obviously can't happen as often as IRC
> ones can and also exclude people not in proximity to the location
> (especially when talking about things that affect the whole of DFEY
> rather than just individual branches).

Hi Robert (& all),

Thanks for your email there are definitely valid points.

Things are becoming quite drawn out - I do accept responsibility on some
level - I am juggling a lot of things (Young Rewired State, DFEY-NW for
example) and I have been juggling a lot of things in the not too distant
past (Open Source Schools Unconference, Liverpool LUG, 2morro, Tomorrows
Web) which obviously all have fixed time constraints.

If anyone would like to step in and help out with the organisation
between these events, please just get in touch. You may not be able to
do everything but anything that takes this sort of pressure off me is
good for my wellbeing and lets me concentrate on the less exciting
issues where action is needed.

(For instance, I think we should be writing to schools & colleges,
bussiness people/entrepreurs, prominent bloggers etc asking them to
promote us within their organisations - when I did this for just a few
people in Manchester back in about April we got featured on a Manchester
Evening News blog - not exactly fame and fantastic publicity, but a few
steps towards it. I'd like to do more of this kind of letter writing but
I appreciate that there might be more important things that I have to
prioritise first because only I, or only a few people, can actually deal
with them - perhaps someone would like to pick up this torch...)

As it is, I don't currently feel that IRC meetings are necessary at the
moment. Essentially, I don't think it is a terrible idea having a date
each month when we present where we are up to with various issues but I
personally am not convinced IRC/IM is an ideal medium for our sort of
group. (and as Robert rightly said, real life discussions for the whole
of DFEY is not feasible or likely to be in the future).

I do however, believe that we are sorely lacking in an administration
orientated mailing list. Though it's not widely known, almost all
internal decisions for the Debian project for instance, are (or should
be) discussed on mailing lists. This goes right up to the highest
echelons (if Debian has such a thing) and recently I understand there
was a big debate as to whether to open up top tier, private Debian
administration list archives. Anyway.. I'm going offtopic. Sorry.

I think the step is to get the mailing lists sorted.

I know I've been saying this for sometime and I know there is some
frustration but I'm prioritising things the best I can. It's sometimes
hard to realise that administration work to let us grow is just as
important as actually going out and spreading the word.
This needs to be done and I take full responsibility for it not being done.

I don't think anyone can help directly with this - I need to talk with
the savannah hackers(sic) on how they can help us reorganise DFEY in
terms of savannah projects which will allow us more flexibility and the
ability to create mailing lists for things without any hassle.

The reason it is problematic in the first place was a mistake of mine
about 15 months ago now; I didn't anticipate this would be DFEY in a
years time and simply failed to plan for the future! Sorry.

Anyway, we need an administration list, (I'm going to set up
DFEY-NW-admin but I'd like to keep that for DFEY-*North West* stuff when
I do) because this list should be about freedom, young people and doing
cool stuff! ...not clogged full of delightful admin related emails. :)

I'm truly sorry everything is not run like a greased machine and so your
patience and understanding is really appreciated. Remember, the best way
to get something done is probably not to blindly criticise already
stretched souls but to work with, assist and make things better.

I'm happy to talk to anyone, on or off list who'd like to talk this over
a bit more.

Cheers,

Tim

p.s. Remember, if your truly stressed about something and not thinking
completely rationally or clear mindly, it's probably best to wait a
while before you reply.
Here are two examples of email's I regret, and these are just humorous
looking back, from 2007:
http://ur1.ca/8trk
http://ur1.ca/8try
(you will need to be on the horrible listserv ManLUG mailing list
unfortunately)

[Robert Leverington]

Thank you for your response.

On 2009-08-10, Tim Dobson wrote:

> Thanks for your email there are definitely valid points.
>
> Things are becoming quite drawn out - I do accept responsibility on some  
> level - I am juggling a lot of things (Young Rewired State, DFEY-NW for  
> example) and I have been juggling a lot of things in the not too distant  
> past (Open Source Schools Unconference, Liverpool LUG, 2morro, Tomorrows  
> Web) which obviously all have fixed time constraints.
>
> If anyone would like to step in and help out with the organisation  
> between these events, please just get in touch. You may not be able to  
> do everything but anything that takes this sort of pressure off me is  
> good for my wellbeing and lets me concentrate on the less exciting  
> issues where action is needed.
>
> (For instance, I think we should be writing to schools & colleges,  
> bussiness people/entrepreurs, prominent bloggers etc asking them to  
> promote us within their organisations - when I did this for just a few  
> people in Manchester back in about April we got featured on a Manchester  
> Evening News blog - not exactly fame and fantastic publicity, but a few  
> steps towards it. I'd like to do more of this kind of letter writing but  
> I appreciate that there might be more important things that I have to  
> prioritise first because only I, or only a few people, can actually deal  
> with them - perhaps someone would like to pick up this torch...)

This is what individual branches should be doing in my opinion.  DFEY-SE
won't be meeting until October so we'll start doing stuff in the south
east properly then.

> As it is, I don't currently feel that IRC meetings are necessary at the  
> moment. Essentially, I don't think it is a terrible idea having a date  
> each month when we present where we are up to with various issues but I  
> personally am not convinced IRC/IM is an ideal medium for our sort of  
> group. (and as Robert rightly said, real life discussions for the whole  
> of DFEY is not feasible or likely to be in the future).

Do you have any suggestions for alternative real time mediums?  You've
already ruled out IRC/IM and meeting in real life is not feasible.  The
only other thing I can think of is VoIP, but that doesn't seem ideal to
me at all.

> I do however, believe that we are sorely lacking in an administration  
> orientated mailing list. Though it's not widely known, almost all  
> internal decisions for the Debian project for instance, are (or should  
> be) discussed on mailing lists. This goes right up to the highest  
> echelons (if Debian has such a thing) and recently I understand there  
> was a big debate as to whether to open up top tier, private Debian  
> administration list archives. Anyway.. I'm going offtopic. Sorry.
>
> I think the step is to get the mailing lists sorted.
>
> I know I've been saying this for sometime and I know there is some  
> frustration but I'm prioritising things the best I can. It's sometimes  
> hard to realise that administration work to let us grow is just as  
> important as actually going out and spreading the word.
> This needs to be done and I take full responsibility for it not being done.
>
> I don't think anyone can help directly with this - I need to talk with  
> the savannah hackers(sic) on how they can help us reorganise DFEY in  
> terms of savannah projects which will allow us more flexibility and the  
> ability to create mailing lists for things without any hassle.
>
> The reason it is problematic in the first place was a mistake of mine  
> about 15 months ago now; I didn't anticipate this would be DFEY in a  
> years time and simply failed to plan for the future! Sorry.
>
> Anyway, we need an administration list, (I'm going to set up  
> DFEY-NW-admin but I'd like to keep that for DFEY-*North West* stuff when  
> I do) because this list should be about freedom, young people and doing  
> cool stuff! ...not clogged full of delightful admin related emails. :)

We are only using this list for admin stuff because there are no other
lists.  Personally I don't see the advantage of a dfey-nw-admin list
since as soon as there is a dfey-general-discuss list this one will
probably quiten down signficanlty.  It is not my place to offer my
opinion on NW matters, however I do believe we agreed at some point to
have new mailing lists dfey-se-discuss and dfey-general-discuss -
please correct me if I'm wrong.

> I'm truly sorry everything is not run like a greased machine and so your  
> patience and understanding is really appreciated. Remember, the best way  
> to get something done is probably not to blindly criticise already  
> stretched souls but to work with, assist and make things better.

I understand this, but it's difficult when very few of us have the
ability to do a lot of this admin stuff.  Please also see my other
e-mail about moving some things to Dogfish, doing so will mean you have
more time to spend doing other stuff and technical changes can be made
more promptly.

> I'm happy to talk to anyone, on or off list who'd like to talk this over  
> a bit more.

--
Robert Leverington
http://rhl.me.uk/