Online meetings

[Young Master Smeet]

In reply to:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/regional-branches/north-east/correspondence-nerb#comment-31831

jondwhite wrote:

Agreed that a meeting should not be conducted on a forum, discussion board or mailing list.

A meeting should be conducted in real time.

This could be teleconference which can be user friendly such as Skype.

Or it could be live chat such as IRC.

That knackers half the advantage of online meetings: not only can geographically disparate members attend meetings and make decisions, but also people working awkward shift patterns.  To be frank, conference call, IRC, etc. didn't need special standing orders, since they practically work like a face to face meeting: the issue is meetng by correspondence.

[Anonymous]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

….the issue is meeting by correspondence.

Isn't that essentially what an online meeting is?; the only difference is that the correspondence is electronic.The real issue, shirley, is that measures need to be put in place to prevent a repetition of this particular interminable and acrimonious thread…http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/regional-branches/north-east/agenda-april-meeting

[Tristan Miller]

Thanks for starting a new thread here.  (Your previous thread was in the NERB section, and the branch has formally complained to the EC about non-members posting there without permission.  Until that complaint is addressed, and in the absence of any obvious way to ask for such permission, I didn't want to post a reply there.)Anyway, in that thread, you opened with the following:

Quote:

As to online meetings: it is apparent that the Standing Orders at the moment are not fit for purpose, they are designed for teleconference or chat-room formats, not bulletin board or email lists.

I can't help but wonder whether you may be looking at an older copy of Branch Standing Orders.  Are you aware that they were revised in 2013 to include a set of orders designed specifically for bulletin boards and e-mail lists?  If you think those new orders are somehow deficient, that's fair enough, and it would be great to hear your suggestions on how they could be improved.  But I don't think it's fair to claim that they were not designed to be used for online correspondence.

[jondwhite]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

In reply to:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/regional-branches/north-east/correspondence-nerb#comment-31831

jondwhite wrote:

Agreed that a meeting should not be conducted on a forum, discussion board or mailing list.A meeting should be conducted in real time.This could be teleconference which can be user friendly such as Skype.Or it could be live chat such as IRC.

That knackers half the advantage of online meetings: not only can geographically disparate members attend meetings and make decisions, but also people working awkward shift patterns.  To be frank, conference call, IRC, etc. didn't need special standing orders, since they practically work like a face to face meeting: the issue is meetng by correspondence.

I would suggest that 'meeting' implies real-time and any contributions outside of a real-time meeting can be addressed in correspondence to and from the meeting.

[SocialistPunk]

gnome wrote:

The real issue, shirley, is that measures need to be put in place to prevent a repetition of this particular interminable and acrimonious thread… 

Good point. There does appear a need, for the elected chair of an online meeting, to be able to gain some control when faced with disruptive members.If my memory serves me, many moons back the NERB requested that the forum moderator not intervene unless specificaly asked. With hindsight, that decision was a bad call.Two possible options are available. The online meeting is subject to moderation like any other thread, meaning the moderator is able to dish out warnings and suspensions for disruptive behaviour. Or some form of temporary moderator powers are given to the chair, with possible use decided by the branch?In either scenario the members of a meeting must be made aware of the moderation system in use before each meet. Perhaps it culd be written into SO?

[Young Master Smeet]

Tristan Miller wrote:

I can't help but wonder whether you may be looking at an older copy of Branch Standing Orders.  Are you aware that they were revised in 2013 to include a set of orders designed specifically for bulletin boards and e-mail lists?  If you think those new orders are somehow deficient, that's fair enough, and it would be great to hear your suggestions on how they could be improved.  But I don't think it's fair to claim that they were not designed to be used for online correspondence.

I think I have tried to use the bulletin board version.  The main problems I'd suggest are the requirement for an awful lot of phatic communication, it starts with the roll-call, then an election of chair, vote on chair, etc.  Before you've even started discussing anything substantial, each person has to make four or five posts, and, of course, not everyone is there at the same time, and we time out before we begin.  Plus, most people have not read and digested the long and detailed SO's and that makes it hard to keep them to them.I've tried thinking of alternatives, based on simultaneous threadsFixes I'd suggest are: chair automatically presumed to second all motions (cuts out seconding emails).All voting happening at the end of the meeting (and the voting being the roll-call for attendance).Allowing a volunteer chair (at least for the first meeting, or making a permenant chair branch post, so each meeting doesn't have to spend acres of time electing one).So you'd have three phases: agenda, discussion, voting.This is a rough sketch, but it gets closer to something workable.  I'd also throw in raised quorum for online meetings, backed up with either a physical meeting once a year top ratify all business, or a paper referendum.

[Anonymous]

SocialistPunk wrote:

gnome wrote:

The real issue, shirley, is that measures need to be put in place to prevent a repetition of this particular interminable and acrimonious thread…

If my memory serves me, many moons back the NERB requested that the forum moderator not intervene unless specificaly asked. With hindsight, that decision was a bad call.

I have it on good authority SP, but am frankly incredulous, that the moderators do not have "jurisdiction over the NERB section".  It seems that any intervention can only occur if requested by the branch…

[jondwhite]

If you've corresponded with someone by letter or e-mail, then would you say you had 'met' them? Probably not, hence why taking a meeting to mean a meeting in real-time only would solve all of the problems of quorum, electing, seconding and voting in non-temporal "meetings". 

[SocialistPunk]

gnome wrote:

SocialistPunk wrote:

gnome wrote:

The real issue, shirley, is that measures need to be put in place to prevent a repetition of this particular interminable and acrimonious thread…

If my memory serves me, many moons back the NERB requested that the forum moderator not intervene unless specificaly asked. With hindsight, that decision was a bad call.

I have it on good authority SP, but am frankly incredulous, that the moderators do not have "jurisdiction over the NERB section".  It seems that any intervention can only occur if requested by the branch…

It's something that will be on the discussion list at the next NERB meeting. Whenever that is.I remember posting as a guest at one NERB meeting, saying something along the lines of it being an interesting experiment.It was inevitable the issue of disruptive behaviour was going to be put to the test sooner or later. It's the way most things progress. Failings are indentified and put right, then on to the next problem. A never ending process.

[SocialistPunk]

jondwhite wrote:

If you've corresponded with someone by letter or e-mail, then would you say you had 'met' them? Probably not, hence why taking a meeting to mean a meeting in real-time only would solve all of the problems of quorum, electing, seconding and voting in non-temporal "meetings". 

Not 100% sure what you're getting at JD. Would you be willing to elaborate?

[Young Master Smeet]

jondwhite wrote:

If you've corresponded with someone by letter or e-mail, then would you say you had 'met' them? Probably not, hence why taking a meeting to mean a meeting in real-time only would solve all of the problems of quorum, electing, seconding and voting in non-temporal "meetings". 

The word 'meting' is a red herring, it is about communicating to achieve group decisions.  But a correspondence meeting is just as plausible as a correspondence game of chess.

[Bijou Drains]

[/quote]I have it on good authority SP, but am frankly incredulous, that the moderators do not have "jurisdiction over the NERB section".  It seems that any intervention can only occur if requested by the branch…[/quote]I think you'll find Gnome, this is because there are two types of people in the world:1. Geordies2. People who wish they were Geordies

[Tristan Miller]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I've tried thinking of alternatives, based on simultaneous threadsFixes I'd suggest are: chair automatically presumed to second all motions (cuts out seconding emails).

That would definitely save time in putting motions on the floor, but I think it order to evaluate this suggestion further it's necessary to consider why motions in real-life meetings require seconders in the first place.  I suppose this is done mostly to avoid having the meeting discuss motions that attract so little support that they're unlikely to be adopted.  It's also done, I think, to ensure that such motions, which may be awkward, erroneous, or otherwise inappropriate, do not get published in the record.  The second reason doesn't really apply to online meetings, provided they're held in public, but perhaps the first does.  If the object of automatically seconding all motions is to save needless back-and-forth contrbutions, then how is that objective served by encouraging the meeting to discuss motions that have no support other than the mover?

Quote:

All voting happening at the end of the meeting (and the voting being the roll-call for attendance).

What about the case of mutually dependent (or mutually exclusive) motions?  Doesn't it often make sense to retain some sort of sequence in the voting?

Quote:

making a permenant chair branch post, so each meeting doesn't have to spend acres of time electing one).So you'd have three phases: agenda, discussion, voting.

I think this is a great idea, but there's nothing in the current Standing Orders that prevents branches from adopting it.  (Well, maybe a strict reading of Order 24 does — it could be changed from "If the Chair was not elected at the previous meeting" to "If the Chair was not elected at a previous meeting".)  The option of electing a standing chair could definitely be explicitly mentioned, so as to encourage its use.

[Bijou Drains]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

If you've corresponded with someone by letter or e-mail, then would you say you had 'met' them? Probably not, hence why taking a meeting to mean a meeting in real-time only would solve all of the problems of quorum, electing, seconding and voting in non-temporal "meetings". 

The word 'meting' is a red herring, it is about communicating to achieve group decisions.  But a correspondence meeting is just as plausible as a correspondence game of chess.

I disagree that the word meeting is a red herring, meetings are about more than achieveing group decisions, its about the process of discussion and the development of understandings whicih then inform the decisions. I think part of the difficulty is that communication and therefore the transfer of meaning and understanding is different in the written form that it is in the direct personal form. In the written form there are many nuances, meanings and intentions that are missed out on. I would say that online meetings do need to be available and we need to develop a better way of holding them, however face to face meetings are far more effective, less time consuing and achieve better consensus than using any type of written form.As hinted at in the thread, part of the difficulty also arises from the order in which contributions are made. in a personal meeting the chair can invite speakers and note requests to speak so that the contributions develop logically. In pn line meetings there is no such structure, terefore conversations may move out of synchronisation and what tends to happen is that longer more in depth contributions, that may take time to compose, are often superceded by shorter more pithy comments, which may be more prolific but are often less useful

[moderator1]

  

Quote:

I disagree that the word meeting is a red herring, meetings are about more than achieveing group decisions, its about the process of discussion and the development of understandings whicih then inform the decisions. I think part of the difficulty is that communication and therefore the transfer of meaning and understanding is different in the written form that it is in the direct personal form. In the written form there are many nuances, meanings and intentions that are missed out on. I would say that online meetings do need to be available and we need to develop a better way of holding them, however face to face meetings are far more effective, less time consuing and achieve better consensus than using any type of written form.As hinted at in the thread, part of the difficulty also arises from the order in which contributions are made. in a personal meeting the chair can invite speakers and note requests to speak so that the contributions develop logically. In pn line meetings there is no such structure, terefore conversations may move out of synchronisation and what tends to happen is that longer more in depth contributions, that may take time to compose, are often superceded by shorter more pithy comments, which may be more prolific but are often less useful

All of these concerns raised are catered for on the Teamspeak platform which has been used to good effect by TZM.  It seems that everybody wants to complain but are so unwilling to look at alternatives which are readily available at no cost.Teamspeak, Teamspeak, Teamspeak.  How many more times???? 

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