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On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 2:17 AM, Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o> wrote: |
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> Voting before the meeting suggests that the council members mind is |
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> closed to any discussion that happened, or may happen at the meeting |
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> itself. Personally, I don't like the sound of that. |
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Letting people vote afterward doesn't encourage them to be present or |
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active during the meeting. People who are missing or are not really |
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paying attention do not participate in discussions anyway. This |
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comment might seem odd but whenever I chair a meeting (which happens |
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often) I keep track of who speaks on what topic. I use a pen and a |
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paper for that but that tool is damned effective. The original |
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intention was to make sure everybody had the opportunity to talk |
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before skipping to the next topic. When I see somebody not |
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participating to one topic I will often highlight his name to wake him |
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up. Quickly though it gave me an idea of who was actually paying |
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attention to discussions and who wasn't. And the result is I sometimes |
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feel lonely during meetings. |
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|
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> However, if the council members wish to vote entirely by email |
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> and announce the vote result (no discussion) at the meeting that's |
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> fine, as the vote happened after discussion was done. |
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How this started was when solar once sent his vote in advance because |
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he wasn't sure he could make it to the meeting due to work. Then for a |
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later meeting Tobias sent his vote also before because he wasn't |
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feeling well and didn't know if he'd be in shape at the time of the |
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meeting. We didn't accept any of them, and they wouldn't have changed |
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the results (I checked all votes), but I thought that was a shame |
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since both solar and Tobias went all the way and researched the |
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issues, discussed them and gave us a rather detailed opinion. I'm not |
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sure I could say the same of all in-meeting votes. |
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Anyway, my point is we didn't originally intend to make all votes |
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outside of the meeting, but it can definitely be discussed. That's |
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where Petteri's app comes into the picture. |
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|
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> In summary, votes must only be cast after discussion is done. |
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There's two kinds of discussions. Those that occur during meetings are |
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of poor quality due to time constraints and amplified by the fact that |
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typing isn't as fast as talking, and also by the attention factor |
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above. Those that occur on lists before the meeting are of better |
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quality when we can make people interested in actually participating. |
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You might have noticed that I try to animate those discussions to |
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prevent them from dying. I have a few tricks for that like making a |
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summary for a rather long or old thread, nitpicking on something in |
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order to revive interest, or talking about these issues on irc and |
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bringing ideas back to the thread pretending that I understand what is |
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being discussed. It works, but it's a lot of work. |
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Overall though, my opinion is that list discussions are of infinitely |
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more value than meeting discussions. I never count on the latter for |
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more than last minute remarks. The only exception was during the last |
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meeting when we had an open discussion on VDB. In order for it to work |
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though I had to prepare a number of questions prior to the meeting and |
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throw them in the discussion one after the other, like I wanted to |
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keep a fire alive. In the end it almost looked like I was a reporter |
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doing an online interview of solar (thanks btw). I'm obviously |
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caricaturing but you get the idea. |
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> That can be all by email, some at a meeting, others by email after the |
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> meeting. |
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What's the point of having a meeting then? |
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In an ideal world we'd discuss topics thoroughly before meetings, only |
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topics that had been enough discussed would make it to the agenda, |
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only last minute remarks would be accepted during the meeting, we |
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wouldn't mind occasionally receiving votes by email before the |
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meeting, and in case there was significant discussions/remarks on a |
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topic and the email votes could change the outcome then we'd ask those |
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who voted by email to confirm their votes within, say, 48 hours. |
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In the end the real problem is of motivation, not of process or tools. |
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Denis. |