Re: Another teleconference partial edited transcript

On Sat, 12 Apr 2003, David Dawes wrote:

>>There's nothing really private about it, at least not to my
>
>It is private simply because attendance is by private invitation.  I'm
>sure that there are lots of people here who would like to take part,
>and they are being cut out of your "process".

I am merely a participant in the confcalls, and don't have any
actual involvement in setting up the specific process behind the
confcalls.

I was invited to be on the call, and I accepted the invitation,
as did many others.  I believe from the list of participants that
attempts were made to try and contact people representative of
various different groups out there, including XFree86.org.  No
process is perfect however, so it is possible some group may have
been overlooked perhaps.  If so, nobody at least to my knowledge
has stepped forward claiming they're being left out of any
process.

I've only seen positive feedback from the community so far in
response to the confcall transcriptions and minutes meetings.  I
encourage everyone to provide any kind of feedback however, no 
matter what their opinions may be.

Speaking out to everyone else out there:  Is any group of people
out there feeling left out of the calls and not being
represented?

If so, I hope they please speak up and let everyone know they're
here so that their voices can be heard and represented.  David,
feel free to point out any groups of people you think are not
being represented adequately on the phonecalls also, so that
hopefully this issue that you've raised can hopefully be
addressed, if there are in fact groups out there who feel their
lack of presence leaves them unrepresented in the discussions.

This will hopefully make sure nobody feels left out, and everyone 
considers the confcalls as open as confcalls can be.


>>In the spirit of openness, unless I'm mistaken you were also
>>invited to participate on the last few calls, as has the XFree86
>>board of directors however it's been unfortunate that none of you
>>have been able to attend yet for whatever reasons.  Hopefully
>
>Well, you *are*  mistaken.  I have never received an invitation to
>participate.

My apologies, I seem to have misunderstood whom has been invited
to the calls.  I thought someone had mentioned you had been
sent an invitation to the last call or so.  My mistake.


>The XFree86 BOD received an invitation to participate in the
>call on Thursday, but with only three hours notice.  Not to
>mention that the call was scheduled during normal working hours,
>and all of the XFree86 BOD are volunteers who have day jobs.  

I was not aware of that, however it is perfectly reasonable that
nobody from the BOD was present if there was only 3 hours notice
given to them.  Indeed people need time to agendize meetings,
etc.  Hopefully next week someone from the BOD will be present if
time schedules line up.  If not, perhaps someone on the BOD whom
would like to participate can suggest a time that would be
convenient for them to attend.


>It is difficult to see how such an invitation could have been 
>made in "good faith".

Sounds to me more like a bit of disorganization from the side of
the confcall setup than lack of good faith.  I doubt any of the
people on the confcalls would say we suffer from
over-organization.  ;o)

It's not a perfect mechanism, but it is new and is loosly
organized so far so there are likely to be bumps here and there.  
Plus we're all volunteers too, which has caused the
transcriptions and other things to get unfortunately delayed a
few times now, including multi-round-trip email lag.  I'm sure
you can understand and respect the unforseen delays and other
organizational glitches that can occur when volunteers are
working together on projects, delayed time schedules, etc.

Perhaps next week we can discuss how to try and organize and 
delegate things better.  I'll try to remember to bring that up.


>But you've been around long enough to realise that you can use
>manipulative statements like this to your advantage.  If I call
>you out on your "mistakes", I'm seen as being defensive.

I'm not sure what you mean by that David.  By all means if I've
made a mistake, such as I did above, please bring it to my
attention and I'll try to address it as I did above.  I don't see
you as being defensive above, although you do seem to be a bit
upset.  Anyone can have a bad day now and then, myself included,
so I'm not taking anything personally.  Quite to the contrary, I 
am glad to get your feedback and to hear your concerns.


>Do you wonder why some of us might be wary of attending a
>private meeting when the mechanism for publishing it is also so
>easy to manipulate?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but let me take a stab
at it, and please correct me if I'm wrong as I definitely do not
want to put words in your mouth.  If I read you correctly, you're
concerned that because the confcall transcriptions receive
editing, that if you participate you may get taken out of context
or your words (or other people's words) may be manipulated in
some way in order to mislead people without your approval or 
review.  Does that sound accurate?

If that is the case, that is definitely a legitimate concern that
anyone might have who is on a call.  That is why the confcall
transcripts have not been posted publically until everyone has
had a chance to review them and provide typo cleanups, etc. and
comment on them and be sure what is transcribed reflects the
contents of the calls.

Even though there has been a bit of disorganization with the
calls, it has been done fairly well overall I believe, and I
don't think anyone has been misrepresented.  Initially I
personally thought that a meeting minutes would be more useful
than a complete transcription, however many others thought a
transcription was best as it would more adequately reflect the
complete contents of the calls and would be a more "open" way of
presenting to the community the full discussion of what
discussion transpired on the phonecall.

If either you and/or a BOD member were to participate in a call,
you would have the same opportunity as everyone else on the call
does to do the same typo corrections etc. to the transcriptions
before they get published.  I would be rather upset if _anyone_
on the calls were not represented in the transcriptions true to
both their word, as well as their intended meaning.  Accuracy is
very important.

Does this adequately address your concerns?  If not, do you have
any suggestions as to how your concerns might be addressed in a
way you consider reasonable?

Looking forward to seeing your participation in a future conf
call if you are interested, and available to attend, as well as
anyone else whom is representative of a group not currently being
represented by someone already.

Thanks again for your feedback and for conveying your concerns.

Take care,
TTYL

-- 
Mike A. Harris