RE: Minutes

This email is in response to Gregg's explanation of why group  minuets
can/should contain summaries that rely on the issues number. For example:

 


"LC-848  resolution: accept LC-848 as amended " 


 

The most important premise is that the minuets are useful to working group
member to track the decisions of the group and therefore need to be
accessible to all participants. Sometimes accessibility takes a bit of
effort and thought -especially when we have a lot of work to do.

 

 

 

Gregg wrote : 

If we included all of this (the comments, the proposals, the input from each
member etc) that we cover in each meeting for each of the 15, 30 or 50
comments that we processed each week -- the set of minutes would not be
usable by anyone - since they would be reams of pages long. .. As it is we
often sit silent on the call waiting for the minute taker to catch up

 

Lisa's response : 

 

There is a valid point hear, but you can still add a summary that gives some
kind of handle or label to each comment or issue. This will help people who
are slow readers or people who find it difficult to copy over numbers into
the database and refer back to minuets number reference . They can at least
identify what issues might be relevant to them and concentrate there efforts
on relevant issues. It will also allow them to tell if they have referenced
the wrong issue in the data base (typically I make mistakes dialing numbers
approximately every third time)

 

For example:

 

"LC-848 - spelling mistake found"

 

Gregg wrote: 

 

RE: Referring to comments by number. .Well we really wish that we did have
something other than a number (and shorter than the whole comment) to refer
to them by.  But we don't.  

 

We can't reduce comments to short phrases for two reasons.  One, it is
always one persons interpretation and simplification of the comment.   This
is dangerous because it loses much of the comment and colors your reading of
the comment. ....  Comments also often cover several parts of the document
or different topics.  

 

Lisa's response : 

Again this is a valid point and a reason often used to avoid the use of
summaries. However there needs to be an understanding that a label is just a
label and not a full description or anything close to normative. In fact,
labels can be marked as  " Label (inexact)"  (or something like that) making
it clear that the purpose of the label is to allow people to navigate
through the minuets and locate the content that they need. When they find
the comments to important them they can then use the database to see the
full details and spend the time reading through them.

 

Also a few sentence of standard instructions could be placed at the top of
each set of minuets  that  explain that the use of the label is to help
usability and are inexact. Secondly, we also need to have instructions on
how to use the database, where it is etc (Personally, I have no idea where
the comment database is)

 

A link to a simple instruction page would also be good for the wiki (which I
also have no idea how to use)

 

Instructions and summaries are key tools for accessibility that we need to
be using.

 

All the best

Lisa