Re: First Meeting: 15 December 20:00 UTC

Hi folks,

I am not able to regularly attend these meetings, but am considerably
less likely to drop in on for weeks I have capacity to when Zoom is
used. For similar reasons to hellekin, I won't install a native client,
but I have reluctantly used Zoom in the browser in the past when I've
seen no other option, and I can choose between giving it access to my
mic or being cut off from the call every 5 to 10 minutes, which makes
participating properly pretty difficult.

Unfortunately I don't have a device capable of reliably making an hour
long phone call so dialling in would be really difficult for me as well
(phone signal is bad where I live, I'd have to top up credit as I don't
have a phone contract, and my phone battery life is pretty appalling
when it's actively doing something).

In the TAG currently we use whereby via whereby.com (webRTC based) which
we haven't had trouble with with over 10 participants in the past, and
requires no setup. I'm not sure what the expected attendance of these
meetings will be. The Credentials CG uses a volunteer-managed jitsi
instance which was needed for the huge number of participants there. In
the Social CG we have used bigbluebutton with a high number of
participants, the instance of which is maintained for us by a volunteer.
I could check that is still up and working and this group would be
welcome to try it, although I don't think I can promise to be around to
debug if anything goes wrong (but I can give admin to anyone willing,
and there are Social CG members in this list who are familiar with it).

Take care,

Amy

PS. Sorry I skipped the intros thread - my background is decentralised
social web stuff, and currently I work on open data for public good as
part of a co-operative, as well as being on the W3C TAG focusing on
privacy and ethics related things.

On 9.12.2021. 12:23, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> On 9 Dec 2021, at 10:35 pm, hellekin <how@zoethical.com> wrote:
>> On 12/9/21 10:45 AM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> You're free to dial into the teleconference without using Zoom -- see the attached numbers.
>> You must be kidding me. How did you do before Zoom existed? What changed?
> No, I'm not kidding. Before Zoom, it was WebEx, and before that my employer usually provided another effectively proprietary, telephone-based platform for conferencing. I also went to meeting rooms and sat across tables from people, but for some reason haven't done that in quite a while...
>
> Other possibilities:
> - Signal: Also proprietary
> - Telegram: Also proprietary
> - Slack: Also proprietary
> - Facebook Messenger: Even I have limits.
> - WebRTC: still riddled with interoperability and usability issues, especially with many people and high latency. Also requires a site to host it, which is either proprietary or a maintenance burden.
>
> We could take a poll and try to come to consensus on what tools are least offensive to everyone. I really hope to avoid that, because I have a sense of urgency about our work, and getting bogged down in administrative disputes is not a great way to start.
>
> This group has a *chance* to be effective if it focuses on its output; it has zero chance of making a difference by refusing to use tools based upon a purity test (I guarantee you, Zoom will not notice if we don't use it), and spending our time arguing about this wastes the slim opportunity we have to push towards a world without proprietary technology having a chokehold over communication.
>
> There's also a certain elegance in using the tools now to work against their masters' longer term interests.
>
> So - 
>
> 1) hellekin, can you dial into one of the numbers provided? I believe I can generate an invite with local numbers in most any country if necessary.
> 2) does anyone else have an issue with using Zoom? 
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> --
> Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/
>
>

Received on Thursday, 9 December 2021 12:51:45 UTC