On Aug 30, 2012, at 12:19 , Ben Shum wrote: > Historically, the Community Meeting grew out of a need to disseminate > information from various groups and committees to a larger group of people > and it started as an extension of the Developer meetings conducted regularly > in IRC. There was some discussion in those early days about the format for > community meetings and whether we should continue to use IRC or find > alternatives. I don't recall anybody really suggesting or volunteering > alternatives at the time, but it never hurts to refresh the discussion. So > I'm inclined to support trying new approaches too.
Ben and Thomas, you both raise valid points, and Ben, thank you, as always for a little bit of a historical perspective. With my question, I assumed a complementary use of conference call and IRC chat where all participants would be using both. There is not a good immediate solution I can think of for bridging the call-only with IRC-only participants, if people can't do both simultaneously. I would say that's enough reason not to attempt it at this time. > > Some logistical concerns with conference call though: > > Looking back and doing a quick head count of people who identified themselves > during the last community meetings, we tend to have at least 12-20 > participants (possibly more lurking). Are individuals or organizations in > the community able to volunteer access to a conference call line large enough > to support that many (or more) simultaneous participants? Do we have to use > some sort of professional meeting tool like WebEx or similar? Will the > volunteers who setup the conference line be tasked to also coordinate the > running of the meeting, to avoid having everybody talking at once, etc.? I will check with our office to see what sorts of numbers our system could handle, should we decide in the future to give it a try. Crowding was exactly a concern I had for using IRC -- it seems to get a bit chaotic when many people are present. Perhaps the same problem would exist on a conference call, although in my experience long pauses tend occur more frequently than instances of multiple people trying to speak all at once. > > I think Thomas also raises a good point about participant cross communication > issues with phone/IRC. So bridging that gap would need to be necessary as > well. Yes, I think unless all participants can use both, conference call+IRC is not the ultimate combo, it would be a disconnected experience for some. > > -- Ben > > On 08/30/2012 12:24 PM, Thomas Berezansky wrote: >> I question how those who can't participate via IRC (assuming that is a goal >> here) and those who can't participate via the conference call will interact >> with each other. >> >> Not that I am sure I would be attending either way, but I am much more >> likely to participate in IRC than on a conference call. >> >> Thomas Berezansky >> Merrimack Valley Library Consortium >> >> >> Quoting Jason Etheridge <ja...@esilibrary.com>: >> >>>> Any objections to having this meeting on conference call in parallel to >>>> the IRC? >>> >>> I don't like the idea, but I don't necessarily object. Worth trying >>> new things and learning from the results. :) >>> >>> -- >>> Jason Etheridge >>> | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts >>> | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) >>> | email: ja...@esilibrary.com >>> | web: http://www.esilibrary.com >>> | Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org & >>> http://evergreen-ils.org >>> >> >> >> > > -- > Benjamin Shum > Open Source Software Coordinator > Bibliomation, Inc. > 32 Crest Road > Middlebury, CT 06762 > 203-577-4070, ext. 113 > Alexey Lazar PALS Information System Developer and Integrator 507-389-2907 http://www.mnpals.org/
