[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Next community meeting is 14 September 2012, 17:00 UTC+0

[Lazar, Alexey Vladimirovich]

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 <jason at 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:  jason at 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/