telecons, IRC, & chat--none of 'em are perfect (was: AU charter2 or something similar)

in responding to frank, love wrote:

quote
I withdraw my objection. Perhaps all fora could investigate the possibility 
of a "chat" format to supplement the telecons and possibly make F2Fs less 
frequently required?
unquote

i can't believe what i'm hearing -- i for one object to such a strategy on 
the strongest possible terms, despite frank's defence of IRC and chat...

first of all, it shouldn't be an either-or proposition -- teleconferences 
could, and probably should, be supplemented by focused IRC sessions 
(sub-committees, formal or informal working on specific techniques, etc.), 
but quarterly face2face meetings serve a very valuable purpose, and as AU 
and UA have repeatedly shown, can be extremely effective fora for getting a 
tremendous amount of work done in a short period of time, as well as 
refocusing the WG's concentration on long-outstanding issues, as well as 
fostering (and justifying) both the "working" and the "group" components of 
phrase "working group"

as for the accessibility of IRC, if you are using a windows-based 
screen-reader (and/or screen magnifier) with DOS-box emulation 
(increasingly the most common configuration for blind and visually impaired 
computer users), attempting to keep up with the flow of conversation can be 
maddeningly frustrating, as speech synthesizer buffer rates are easily 
messed up by refresh rates which lead to delays in the display of comments 
on the screen (or, most frequently, only receiving a portion of a comment, 
and then hearing a portion of another comment, necessitating extensive 
pausing and screen review on the part of the blind/VI user, which only 
serves to further hamper his or her participation in the conversation, as 
it has long since passed them by, for by the time they are able to find out 
the last part of john doe's comment and the first part of jane doe's 
comment, joe blow has already responded to josephina botchelina's comments, 
and so on -- and there are a host of other problems inherent in the IRC 
format that -- while definitely making it a superior means of interpersonal 
communication for some -- renders IRC rather irksome to the point of being 
completely unusable to others...

in a post on this topic, charles noted:

quote
There has been from time to time a possibility of having one or more 
participants who are deaf or hard of hearing. The two options available are 
to use a relay service, or for the working group to try out this method.
unquote

before you jump to such a conclusion, would you please ping some deaf 
individuals, particularly those involved in international consortia *not 
exclusively concerned with the issues surrounding deafness and hearing 
loss*, to ascertain whether or not a telecon would absolutely preclude 
their participation?  would not a deaf individual or someone with a 
profound hearing loss not typically have a TTY (teletypewriter) device at 
their disposal?  while i've never used such a device myself, and, hence, 
don't know how it handles party lines/conference calls, it's entire purpose 
is to enable the deaf and hard of hearing to use the phone to 
communicate...  there are also voice relay systems for the 
"speech-impaired", so that those who are incapable of vocalization can 
still use the phone to communicate, and i strongly believe that it is 
incumbent upon the W3C (and not just the WAI) to ensure that *ALL* of the 
bridges used for W3C telecons incorporate relay systems that are compatible 
with both TTY and voice relay systems...

no one should be forced into choosing between a telecon or IRC sessions -- 
both have their merits and drawbacks, but as someone who has attended HWG 
town meetings, as well as IRC sessions held by other fora, including 
disability groups, i'd not only vote against any supplanting of one medium 
of intragroup communication over another, but to supplant telecons by IRC 
or some other chat-type interface would be a draconian decision, 
inconsistent with the WAI's mandate to ensure that it provides a forum 
where the opinions of all persons who have been invited or assigned to 
participate in the endeavor can be aired and received by all, and 
substituting IRC or a chat facility for a telecon doesn't qualify...

gregory

Received on Wednesday, 20 September 2000 13:39:17 UTC