Talk:Geohashing General Meetings

I don't see the advantage of a general meeting honestly. That's a tool used in communities before the web existed, meant to get together a plenary capable of taking decisions. I would oppose however, to give decision rights to a general meeting when 1) that implies that people are left out (because of time zone and attendance problems), and 2) better means exists to involve everyone in a discussion. If we needed to take decisions more quickly, we could set deadlines on any discussion in the wiki.
If it's meant to be a nice get-together in the channel to further discussion, that's fine by me. That's what we are doing all the time. :D -- relet 17:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to address the points one by one:

1. We can iron out all the little kinks etc before making a decision,

That's what talk pages are for.

2. It's a hell of a lot faster

I suggest voting deadlines, if you want to act quickly, and not exclude anyone in a decision. But generally, a decision is ready when it has been around for a while, and there is no opposition.

3. It allows for full communication of ideas more effectively,

In a chatroom? A detailed write-up of your ideas should get the message across much more easily. And it's permanent. Chatrooms are noisy and lossy.

4. Under discussion topics move so fast and I for one always forget to re-check them.

Didn't you just say that discussions in the wiki were too slow-paced?

-- relet 17:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Full ack to relet here. Timezones alone are reason enough that any real-time communication can not lead to a halfway democratic discussion here. We are a global bunch, with large groups in three general areas that pretty much span the whole day, so no matter at which time you meet, there is always one significant group for which it is during sleepytime. --Ekorren 18:10, 27 May 2009 (UTC).

I agree on the time zone issue. There's nothing wrong with having a real time discussion about any of the issues in the proposed agenda, but I don't think it should have any authority superseding the wiki discussion: just summarize the conclusion of the IRC discussion into the wiki. Also I like to be able to sleep on it, discuss it on the ferry on the way to the next geohash, and see what other people have written when I get back. And I probably won't be able to attend meetings and don't wanna be left out. -Robyn 05:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

My take on things: For discussions - meetings in person are better than phone. Phone is better than realtime text (IRC). Real time text is better than time fragmented text (wiki discussion page). However. Distance makes in person unpossible. Finances and timezones make phone a poor alternative. Timezone issues are also the biggest failing of IRC. It has worked in other projects, but other projects tend to have a geographically centralised team... geohashing by it's very nature is not. I think IRC is a GREAT place to discuss stuff, and I fully advocate that people DO discuss stuff there - and logs can be kept and posted to the wiki if they seem important enough. But at the end of the day, I think final _voting_ should be handled on the wiki. (as has been pointed, watching the wiki for changes is cumbersome - if there is voting to be done, may I propose that the IRC channel be /topic updated as a courtesy reminder for people? :) --Nemo 11:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The /topic is quite crowded already, especially on weekends. How about updating the Current events page or New on the wiki banner? -- relet 13:05, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

even on the weekends, the /topic is pretty basic compared to some channels I lurk in. Keeping it on Current Events or New on the wiki is great - IF you're already on the wiki. My whole point, however, was to get the reminder of discussions and votes OUT of the wiki. (which I think was largely the very original point... a point I agree with in principle, but also agree that it's impractical in practice due to timezones). --Nemo 15:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

So far, nothing that I have seen under discussion has really been pressing enough that it would warrant a real-time vote to go through. Most of the discussion I have seen is about new achievements, or other niceties to include on the wiki. Those discussions, while important, are not time sensitive. As others have said, in this community we are fairly evenly spread throughout the world, with a few centers of high activity. This does not lend itself well to a single time meeting, as it would leave at least one group alienated. Discussion on the IRC channel can be a good thing, but anything discussed there can easily be posted to the wiki in the form of a summary or a log transcript. The "new on the wiki" template is a great place to put information about new items under discussion. If we do start a semi-regular meeting time on the IRC channel, I suggest that the time cycle through so that no one group of our geopeoples is neglected. e.g. month one meeting is europe-asia-australia, month 2, europe-americas, month 3 asia-australia-americas. --aperfectring 14:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)