Potential change of venue for Board meetings
Hey folks. In order to collect discussions that are related to Inkscape's internal processes, ethics and policies, we've been kinking the idea around for a RocketChat Channel #board_room, which will be a place to house not only our board meetings, but also conversations that need the board's attention. Reasoning for this is:
1. To make it easy for board members to see conversation which is relevant to decisions the board will have to make, all in one place. 2. To keep the #team_devel channel for code development matters. 3. To keep other channels such as #team_vectors uncluttered 4. To allow project members who wish to participate in the discussion a place where their points are likely to be seen by board members (to reduce having to explain nuanced conversation again)
Thus this new channel will be a digest for board members to scan through and see board-related matters before and after board meetings.
This room would be open to everyone in the project just as board meetings have always been.
Thoughts?
Hi Chris,
I'm in favour of a new channel. Although I'm aware that some board members use IRC a lot, and the board mailing list could do with information too.
So we could optionally add an IRC room, and mirror it to irc like we do with the devel channel. Alternatively we could mirror it to devel, but with a switch to turn it on at specific times (for meetings) although that's more complex.
Another point would be to be able to digest the discussions and post them here on the board mailing list as minutes. If this was automated, that would be great. I'm looking at rocket chat plugins to see how possible it is to have that as I think it'd be very valuable to tie our discussions together.
Thoughts?
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Wed, 2021-04-28 at 23:14 +0100, C R wrote:
Hey folks. In order to collect discussions that are related to Inkscape's internal processes, ethics and policies, we've been kinking the idea around for a RocketChat Channel #board_room, which will be a place to house not only our board meetings, but also conversations that need the board's attention. Reasoning for this is:
- To make it easy for board members to see conversation which is
relevant to decisions the board will have to make, all in one place. 2. To keep the #team_devel channel for code development matters. 3. To keep other channels such as #team_vectors uncluttered 4. To allow project members who wish to participate in the discussion a place where their points are likely to be seen by board members (to reduce having to explain nuanced conversation again)
Thus this new channel will be a digest for board members to scan through and see board-related matters before and after board meetings.
This room would be open to everyone in the project just as board meetings have always been.
Thoughts?
Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Apr 28 2021, at 5:14 pm, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
Thus this new channel will be a digest for board members to scan through and see board-related matters before and after board meetings.
This is my concern with the proposal. I don't think that describes chat at all, the backlog is generally lost to time if people aren't there and joining in the conversation. And that's a benefit of chat. But we shouldn't expect that people read a chat room unless we've requested their attendance ahead of time (meeting). Personally, I'm not super active in the chats, but when I do check in I haven't seen them overflowing with messages or situations where on-topic chat is blocked by board discussions. There's a rule on the internet about only making mailing lists when it has become painful, and rarely even then. The downside of segregating chat is that it makes the project seem less active (no one is chatting) and people don't see ancillary discussions (that they may not have realized applied to them). Ted
My concern is that board member time is limited by other duties in the project. If everyone on the board agrees to sift through the #Team_Vectors content for stuff that needs the attention of the board, that's totally fine with me. Frankly, I don't expect anyone to do that. The idea is to make it easier for board members to see what's important.
And yes, I think before a board meeting, board members should have read through the purely on-topic conversations that go on in #board_room.
There is plenty going on in the various chat rooms to show the project is active. The most active chatrooms are actually #general and #inkscape_user. Everyone in the project knows how active the project is, even if a room is quiet for days (which is rare).
Some topics having to do internal policy matters of Inkscape can also get heated and quite long, creating an atmosphere which is not pleasant for those trying to work on vectors tasks, etc. I'd rather not subject new people who signed up for vectors duties to be met with walls of administrative conversation and conflict. It makes the project look unfriendly and in conflict without any context. Whereas if the conversation takes place in the board room, it's more expected that there will be strong differences of opinion, and doesn't expose people who just want to help the project and skip the politics to things they certainly didn't sign up for. :)
We can make announcements each time there's discussion in the board room about a particular topic, and since it's separate, it's not intermixed with development matters, or vectors matters, etc. and thus is easier to digest.
-C
On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 4:01 PM Ted Gould ted@gould.cx wrote:
On Apr 28 2021, at 5:14 pm, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
Thus this new channel will be a digest for board members to scan through and see board-related matters before and after board meetings.
This is my concern with the proposal. I don't think that describes chat at all, the backlog is generally lost to time if people aren't there and joining in the conversation. And that's a benefit of chat. But we shouldn't expect that people read a chat room unless we've requested their attendance ahead of time (meeting).
Personally, I'm not super active in the chats, but when I do check in I haven't seen them overflowing with messages or situations where on-topic chat is blocked by board discussions. There's a rule on the internet about only making mailing lists when it has become painful, and rarely even then. The downside of segregating chat is that it makes the project seem less active (no one is chatting) and people don't see ancillary discussions (that they may not have realized applied to them).
Ted
On Apr 29 2021, at 11:01 am, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
My concern is that board member time is limited by other duties in the project. If everyone on the board agrees to sift through the #Team_Vectors content for stuff that needs the attention of the board, that's totally fine with me. Frankly, I don't expect anyone to do that. The idea is to make it easier for board members to see what's important.
And yes, I think before a board meeting, board members should have read through the purely on-topic conversations that go on in #board_room.
I disagree strongly. Chat is ephemeral. That is the good and bad of it. If someone has a topic that needs discussion and more visibility than those online right now, email or a wiki page or an issue are all more reasonable asynchronous methods for conveying that.
Some topics having to do internal policy matters of Inkscape can also get heated and quite long, creating an atmosphere which is not pleasant for those trying to work on vectors tasks, etc. I'd rather not subject new people who signed up for vectors duties to be met with walls of administrative conversation and conflict. It makes the project look unfriendly and in conflict without any context. Whereas if the conversation takes place in the board room, it's more expected that there will be strong differences of opinion, and doesn't expose people who just want to help the project and skip the politics to things they certainly didn't sign up for. :)
We can make announcements each time there's discussion in the board room about a particular topic, and since it's separate, it's not intermixed with development matters, or vectors matters, etc. and thus is easier to digest.
If it is becoming that big of a deal in the vectors channel, that seems like a reason to have a new room. I'd agree with Martin that we should make an #inkscape-board on Freenode as well and bridge them. I will certainly idle there, just not read all the backlog. Ted
participants (3)
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C R -
doctormo＠gmail.com -
Ted Gould