Subject: Re: [vmeet] Remote participation

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 20:43:54 -0600

This is a very helpful page. I made a few tweaks, but not much was needed.

On 3/29/12 2:50 AM, George, Wes wrote:
> Melinda - This is great. I got volunteered to do this when I mentioned it at the plenary, so you just saved me a bunch of work. :-) Copying Peter and Chris, since they both volunteered to help.
> 
> I made a few changes in the wiki page, summarized below:
> 
> Paste the link to the presentation currently being discussed into the jabber room, and update which slide is being viewed so that participants can follow along with the slide deck (this assumes that Webex or Meetecho isn't being used).
> 
> It's often very difficult to understand people when they announce their names, and this helps to clarify (may also help the minutes-taker fill in details later). If you couldn't understand it to type it, chances are no one listening (who didn't already know the person) could either.
> 
> It may be worth noting that the audio stream typically runs at a 5-15 second delay, and give those proxying remote participant comments to the mic a priority interrupt/jump-the-line pass so that the comments are relayed while they are still relevant.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Wes George
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
>> Of Melinda Shore
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 4:32 PM
>> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
>> Subject: Re: [vmeet] Remote participation
>>
>> I've put up a first crack at a how-to-do-remote-good page, here:
>> http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/group/wgchairs/wiki/RemoteParticipation.
>> Please fix any errors, add any suggestions, etc. and otherwise have
>> at it.
>>
>> Melinda
> 
> This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Time Warner Cable proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or subject to copyright belonging to Time Warner Cable. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout.

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 08:59:11 -0400

(directed to <vmeet> only:)

Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> ... On Behalf Of Melinda Shore
>>>
>> I made a few changes in the wiki page...
> 

   It's a very helpful page for remote-attendance. :^)

   It's, alas, not up to the task for remote _participation_. :^(

   "Typically 5-15 seconds" isn't good enough. (I'm not arguing whether
_one_ second is even "good enough".)

   The delay needs to be known. Adjusting to a five-second delay is one
thing; adjusting to a 30-second delay (which is too-often seen) is quite
another. Adjusting to an unknown delay is no longer "participation".
When asking whether the remote audio is OK, _measure_ the delay.

   The part about one person being both jabber-scribe and minute-taker
needs to be "Don't do this!"

   If remote participation is important, minutes need to happen separately.
To some degree, minutes can be pieced together after the fact, provided
there is a separate backup audio recording.

   The Jabber Scribe needs full-time access to a microphone. Arguably the
Jabber Scribe should be sitting next to the meeting Chair.

   Mentioning the issue of adjusting for the audio delay when recognizing
remote participation is good -- but there needs to be a practical way of
accomplishing this. Sitting next to the meeting Chair and mentioning
who wants to be channeled seems plausible...

   Projecting the jabber stream probably isn't a great idea for the general
case (there will certainly be exceptional cases). Advising the in-room
participants to use the jabber room is always good, though.

   The part about clarifying the name of each speaker at the microphones
is a start, but again there needs to be a practical way...

   In practice, what I find works best is "Who's talking" questions in
jabber, followed by "Please state your name for the minutes" if nobody
answers in jabber. (Of course, this coming 30 seconds _after_ the person
mumbled his/her name _is_ disruptive, but IMHO it's important enough to
justify the disruption.)

   It's asking _a_lot_ of the Jabber Scribe to note the name of every
person who speaks, but possibly the Jabber Scribe could guess and add
a question-mark when s/he's at all uncertain. (If the Jabber Scribe
already has no idea whatsoever, asking on-mike is called-for IMHO.)

   I suggest that the jabber stream SHOULD contain the name of every
participant speaking at the microphone (or channeled). In practice,
the Jabber Scribe can't simultaneously type and speak; so someone else
would probably need to add the "channeling NN" note.

<asbestos-suit = ON>

--
John Leslie <[email-masked]>

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 10:47:53 -0400

> needs to be "Don't do this!"

First, please note that some WG are "jabber-active" and others are
not. In other words, some consistently have many participants on
jabber, and others consistently do not.

I really like to take minutes on jabber, as (at least for the
jabber-active WG). Two pro's :

- the jabber logs are saved, so even if my laptop dies, the log does not.
- In a jabber active WG, the inevitable ellipses will be filled in by
other participants.

Two con's :

- If the local WAN goes down, so does the jabber log. (And, this does happen.)
- It can drown out the other jabber chat by other participants.

I have suggested a number of times that there be 2 jabber chats for
each WG meeting, one for discussions, one for
minute taking, but without any traction so far.

Regards
Marshall

> _______________________________________________
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---

From: Brian Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 11:04:23 -0400

I've recently been converted to using Etherpad for minutes (I usually volunteer to be note taker for 2-3 sessions at a meeting).  It's a very nice tool for the job.

Any jabber user can login to the Etherpad to see the minutes taking shape as I type them.  That way, they have them if they want them, and don't if they don't.

I personally think the minutes are not a good feed for jabber in the abstract.  The goals of a jabber scribe are not the same as the goals of the minute taker.  My ability to take minutes would be seriously compromised by doing it in jabber because of editing.  I edit as I go, and I'm done when the meeting is over.

Brian

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 09:08:18 -0600

On 5/22/12 9:04 AM, Brian Rosen wrote:
> I've recently been converted to using Etherpad for minutes (I usually
> volunteer to be note taker for 2-3 sessions at a meeting).  It's a
> very nice tool for the job.
> 
> Any jabber user can login to the Etherpad to see the minutes taking
> shape as I type them.  That way, they have them if they want them,
> and don't if they don't.
> 
> I personally think the minutes are not a good feed for jabber in the
> abstract.  The goals of a jabber scribe are not the same as the goals
> of the minute taker.  My ability to take minutes would be seriously
> compromised by doing it in jabber because of editing.  I edit as I
> go, and I'm done when the meeting is over.

I agree. One constraint is that there are hard limits to the number of
people who can participate in the Etherpad session (Henrik can tell us
how our instance is configured). The collaborative aspect of Etherpad is
especially helpful (folks other than the primary minute-takers can
correct typos, spelling of names, etc.).

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 12:21:39 -0400

The question of tools and techniques for taking/organizing minutes 
should perhaps be considered separately.

I made one experimental try at Etherpad that didn't go well. And we had 
a notes taker in CLUE try it, which also went badly. I don't consider 
that definitive - maybe we just needed a better version/deployment 
and/or better advanced practice.

But Etherpad doesn't currently fit well with my working techniques for 
notes taking. I always found it hard to keep up when taking notes - I 
would want to capture who was presenting (if I didn't already know) and 
the doc they were discussing, but often couldn't get it off the first 
slide before they moved on. So for a few years now I have been preparing 
a notes template before hand for each meeting, with extracts from the 
agenda for each session I intend to attend. That way I only need to add 
to that with points made or blow by blow.

If that was viewed as a generally useful technique then etherpad could 
be pre-primed in every session. But if not it would be inconvenient to 
do on the fly.

The other thing is that when taking notes I often write some 
observations that are for me, but that I wouldn't want to share with the 
world. If I'm official scribe then I extract my notes for the session 
and "sanitize" them before sending on. If I were using etherpad I would 
be inhibited from capturing those private observations for myself.

	Thanks,
	Paul

On 5/22/12 11:04 AM, Brian Rosen wrote:
>> On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 8:59 AM, John Leslie<[email-masked]>  wrote:
>>> (directed to<vmeet>  only:)
>>>
>>> Peter Saint-Andre<[email-masked]>  wrote:
>>> John Leslie<[email-masked]>

---

From: Brian Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 12:33:26 -0400

To each his own I suppose.  You wouldn't like notes-in-jabber either for the same reasons.

I always copy the agenda into the Etherpad at the beginning.  That's my outline.  As I always have the tools agenda open on my laptop, it's one click, select all, copy/paste.  Convenient enough for me, but I wouldn't object if it was automatic.

Brian

On May 22, 2012, at 12:21 PM, Paul Kyzivat wrote:

> The question of tools and techniques for taking/organizing minutes should perhaps be considered separately.
> 
> I made one experimental try at Etherpad that didn't go well. And we had a notes taker in CLUE try it, which also went badly. I don't consider that definitive - maybe we just needed a better version/deployment and/or better advanced practice.
> 
> But Etherpad doesn't currently fit well with my working techniques for notes taking. I always found it hard to keep up when taking notes - I would want to capture who was presenting (if I didn't already know) and the doc they were discussing, but often couldn't get it off the first slide before they moved on. So for a few years now I have been preparing a notes template before hand for each meeting, with extracts from the agenda for each session I intend to attend. That way I only need to add to that with points made or blow by blow.
> 
> If that was viewed as a generally useful technique then etherpad could be pre-primed in every session. But if not it would be inconvenient to do on the fly.
> 
> The other thing is that when taking notes I often write some observations that are for me, but that I wouldn't want to share with the world. If I'm official scribe then I extract my notes for the session and "sanitize" them before sending on. If I were using etherpad I would be inhibited from capturing those private observations for myself.
> 
> 	Thanks,
> 	Paul
>