Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
2009/10/20 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net: Due to technical limitations, it won't be possible to have this part of the meeting open to the public. Have you considered using a free conference call number instead? That way people can phone in any way they like, with Skype, or with a normal phone, or whatever. It removes the restrictions on the number of people that can call in and avoids people being forced to use Skype if they choose not to. I don't know about the ones in the UK, but I've used a couple of US ones which worked ok. It cost the same as a normal call would (Skype to the US is 1.4p per minute). I believe they have options to moderate the call and mute certain people, but I've not tried that. Some also offer recordings. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=enq=free+conference+callmeta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB Angela ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
2009/10/21 Angela bees...@gmail.com: 2009/10/20 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net: Due to technical limitations, it won't be possible to have this part of the meeting open to the public. Have you considered using a free conference call number instead? That way people can phone in any way they like, with Skype, or with a normal phone, or whatever. It removes the restrictions on the number of people that can call in and avoids people being forced to use Skype if they choose not to. I don't know about the ones in the UK, but I've used a couple of US ones which worked ok. It cost the same as a normal call would (Skype to the US is 1.4p per minute). I believe they have options to moderate the call and mute certain people, but I've not tried that. Some also offer recordings. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=enq=free+conference+callmeta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB That costs money. I would rather stick with a free option like Skype, which I think we can make do what we want. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
How does everyone think it went on Tuesday? Personally I found the Skype part to be much more productive than IRC - it was a lot easier to discuss potentially contentious and complex issues over Skype than over IRC. The main negatives were the fact that it wasn't open to our supporters to listen to and we couldn't record it for the record afterwards. I notice now there's actually a Skype extra called Pamela for Skype which can be used to record. It's available as a free 30 day trial or €18 to buy - something like that might be worth doing, particularly if we could get one for free! When we came to the IRC there was significantly less participation from non-board members (not including our Head of Fundraising) and it would be good to see how we could enable that more. On Oct 21, 11:56 am, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/10/21 Angela bees...@gmail.com: 2009/10/20 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net: Due to technical limitations, it won't be possible to have this part of the meeting open to the public. Have you considered using a free conference call number instead? That way people can phone in any way they like, with Skype, or with a normal phone, or whatever. It removes the restrictions on the number of people that can call in and avoids people being forced to use Skype if they choose not to. I don't know about the ones in the UK, but I've used a couple of US ones which worked ok. It cost the same as a normal call would (Skype to the US is 1.4p per minute). I believe they have options to moderate the call and mute certain people, but I've not tried that. Some also offer recordings. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=enq=free+conference+callmeta=cr%3Dcount...countryGB That costs money. I would rather stick with a free option like Skype, which I think we can make do what we want. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.orghttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK:http://uk.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 14:56 -0700, AndrewRT wrote: I notice now there's actually a Skype extra called Pamela for Skype which can be used to record. It's available as a free 30 day trial or €18 to buy - something like that might be worth doing, particularly if we could get one for free! There used to be a free Skype recorder for Windows - I found it unreliable. I ended up buying SkyLook which integrates Skype with Outlook - very nice. However, on GNU-Linux the Skype recorder is completely free and I've had no problems with that. You're just not using the latest version of Skype. -- Brian McNeil brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.org Wikinewsie.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
[Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
Hi all, The next board meeting is this evening: Tuesday 20 October 2009, 8.30-10.30pm BST. The agenda is at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2009-10-20/Agenda Following from a conversation at the in-person board meeting, we'll be trying something different this meeting to try to optimize the use of the meeting time. The first hour of the meeting, 8.30-9.30pm, will be held by Skype conference. This part of the meeting will be discussions, not decisions, and will essentially be focused on making sure that all of the board members are on the same page, and to identify issues that need resolution or deciding upon. Due to technical limitations, it won't be possible to have this part of the meeting open to the public. The second hour of the meeting, 9.30-10.30pm, will be held on IRC as usual. This part will focus on decision-making, as well as asking for your views. This will be held as usual in the #wikimedia-uk-board channel on irc.freenode.net, with discussion in #wikimedia-uk , and everyone is more than welcome to attend. If you don't have an IRC client, then you can connect using http://webchat.freenode.net/ . Hopefully with this new format, board meetings will become more efficient - both of board member's time, and also of your time during the second half. This is a trial - we may find that it doesn't work, and return to holding all of the meeting via IRC. I would welcome suggestions both on tweaks to this new format, and also on alternative ways of holding these meetings Thanks, Mike Peel ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
On 20 Oct 2009, at 14:25, Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/10/20 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net: That technical limitation. :-) Also, there are concerns about the required connection speed for hosting a multi-way conference like this (as I understand it, the calls are all routed through the host computer), and also the quality of the connections (I believe this degrades as more people are added in?). Additionally, in order to join in a conference call, they would need to skype call the person hosting the meeting, who would then have to put the conference on mute to answer the call and conference them in. That can really slow down the conference. IRC meetings have gone perfectly smoothly when no-one has remembered to moderate the channel, so I expect voluntary muting would work. The call would need to be hosted by someone with a good internet connection, that is true. People could ask to be added through skype chat, there is no need for a voice call. That wasn't no-one remembering; as there hasn't been a problem so far, I was choosing not to +m the channel, as it makes things easier if someone loses voice, or we want to ask someone to speak. You're correct in saying that voluntary moderation would probably work. From my experience hosting skype conferences before, a separate call needs to be established, and then that merged into the conference - there's no way to have someone join a conference directly - although that may have changed in the last year or so. These may not be problems - in which case we can relax that restriction in the future - but for the first attempt, it's logical to keep things as simple as possible. The aim here is definitely not to exclude people, or become any less transparent, it's to become more effective as a board. It is worth a try. It will be interesting to see how well it works - there may be problems with people talking over each other. Will a recording of the meeting be made public? I would also ask that more detailed minutes be produced, since there would be searchable IRC logs to get the detail from. I'm not aware of a way to record a Skype conference without requiring an external device (i.e. recording the signal to the speaker, rather than digitally within the computer); if anyone knows a way to do this, then the meetings should definitely be recorded. It remains to be seen what the reduction in information in the IRC logs will be - the signal to noise should greatly increase, which may offset the reduction in time that the logs go on for. Mike ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Next board meeting: this evening, with a different format
On 20 Oct 2009, at 14:45, Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/10/20 Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net: I'm not aware of a way to record a Skype conference without requiring an external device (i.e. recording the signal to the speaker, rather than digitally within the computer); if anyone knows a way to do this, then the meetings should definitely be recorded. It remains to be seen what the reduction in information in the IRC logs will be - the signal to noise should greatly increase, which may offset the reduction in time that the logs go on for. Ask the WikiVoices (formally Not The Wikipedia Weekly) people how they do it. They do basically the same thing we want to do. Their HowTo page talks about Skypecasts, though, which I think means it is out of date. They have created recent programs, though, so they must have a new method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikivoices I know that Seddon participates in this - so I'm sure that he can provide suggestions hints as appropriate, or ask the others in case of difficulties. Mike ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
