Re: Workshop and meeting requirements

On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 1:23 AM, David Singer <singer@mac.com> wrote:

> I agree that making remote participation the best it can be is important.
>  But you missed — and we missed you at — a lot of ‘hallway conversations’
> and the opportunity for socializing ideas and so on, by being remote from
> Shenzhen. Being there really is better than being on the phone.
>

Indeed.  But you're never going to make it convenient (or even possible)
for everyone to be in the same room.


> I actually think that the W3C’s remote participation tools and techniques
> are quite good — more functional than some commercial projects — but that
> some amount of web engineering could make them even better.  On some WG
> calls, I have a chat session open, the spec., the tracker page (issues and
> actions), and the email threads — all in separate unlinked windows.  But
> they are all web resources.  Seems like a few tricks could really integrate
> these so participants are not dotting around between windows all the time.
>

It's not just that.  I think the culture of IRC and IRC minuting is good; I
think the affordance for virtual participation is not.  For example, proper
teleconferencing hardware.  VIDEO conferencing, with screensharing.  A
culture of pre-publishing slides in web formats.  These things could all
make remote participation much more effective, and although of course
hallway conversations and socialization are lost, it would still result in
much improved participation.  How many of the China participants from
Shenzhen do we expect to see in Santa Clara?  Wouldn't we be better off if
they could still more effectively participate?

-C