Using IRC

Hi all!

For our meeting at TPAC, we'd like to try a tool used with good success by
a number of other WGs - using IRC for queue management and minuting.  I've
put together a one-page for what you need to know below (also in our
administrivia repo on Github:
https://github.com/immersive-web/administrivia/blob/master/IRC.md.)

-Chris and Ada

--------

For the TPAC meeting, we’re going to use IRC to performing minuting and
speaker queue management.  Since we’ll be doing queue management in IRC, it
is very important that you stay logged in to IRC during the meeting so you
can ask for a turn to speak.  There’s a whole guide to using IRC at the W3C
<https://www.w3.org/wiki/IRC>, and further details on the Zakim
<https://www.w3.org/2001/12/zakim-irc-bot> IRC bot, but this mail lays out
the key bits.

Please note that we don’t want this to be overwhelming, and it doesn’t mean
that you cannot speak without holding the virtual baton - however, we want
to ensure that everyone gets an equal chance to make their points, so
expect the chairs to discourage long speeches out of turn.

We’ll be using the irc.w3.org server, in the channel #immersive-web.  If
you have your own IRC client (I’m a big fan of IRCCloud, personally) point
it at irc.w3.org:6667.  If you want to use the W3C’s basic IRC web client,
head over to http://irc.w3.org/, enter a nickname for yourself (please use
something identifiable as you!) and the channel name #immersive-web.

Quick Guide to Queue management in IRC:


   -

   When you want to get a chance to speak, type “q+” in the IRC channel,
   and hit enter.
   -

   If you want to get fancy - or like me, you’re worried you will forget
   what you had to say before it’s your turn - you can say something like “q+
   to say I want to suggest an approach based on quantum mechanics”.  Note
   that others in the channel *will* see this comment when you queue up (i.e.
   before it’s your turn).
   -

   You can ask who is on the queue by typing “q?”
   -

   If you decide you no longer need to be on the queue, you can simply type
   “q-”.  (For example, if people saw your statement above and it’s already
   been incorporated in the conversation and you had nothing more to say.)
   -

   You’ll see the chairs using “ack x” when someone is at the head of the
   queue - that means it’s your turn to speak (we’ll acknowledge you in person
   too).


Minuting using IRC

We will be using the W3C’s IRC-bot-based RRSAgent
<https://www.w3.org/2002/03/RRSAgent> system to take minutes, too.  The
short version of how this works is that you join a meeting, you should type
“present+” to let the system know you’re in attendance.

If you are the scribe, you should type “scribe: <your name>” or
“scribenick: <your IRC handle>”.  From then on, just take notes like you
normally would - preface people’s comments with their initials or IRC nick
or the like.

If you want to change the log - for example, you believe the scribe did not
capture your point adequately, or there’s an error - you can tell the bot
to change things when the minutes are generated by typing “s/<old
text>/<new text>”.

Finally, sometimes it’s useful to make comments that you don’t want in the
minutes, or that may even be a side-channel conversation that you don’t
want recorded in the minutes.  You can do this using IRC “action”
statements, which are typically entered in most IRC agents by typing “/me “
first - for example, when we’re in the middle of a conversation but I’m
getting hungry, I might type into IRC “/me thinks it’s time we broke for
lunch”, and the IRC channel will see “cwilso thinks it’s time we broke for
lunch” as an out-of-band comment - and then the RRSAgent bot will omit that
entirely when generating the minutes.  In general, your snarky side
comments should be in /me statements. :)

(There’s a Quick Start guide
<https://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/2002/scribe/scribedoc.htm?content-type=text/html#Quick_Start_Guide>
for RRSAgent for scribes.)