Next year for mktg

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, 2008-09-08 at 16:23 +0200, Sandro red Mathys wrote:
> I'm not sure if this might be a bit off-topic. But as the topic was
> raised, let me add a little 'IMHO' on discussions over VoIP.

All of Sandro's points are very good ones.  It's very important to
remember this is a global project and that email discussions, being
asynchronous, may be slower but are always easier to manage for ESL
(English as a Second Language) speakers.

There's a pretty famous presentation that talks about ways to kill your
community, and one of them is to hold telephone meetings:

http://www.powerpostgresql.com/download/TFCKUpload/25.pdf 

A phone call that's open is an improvement, but *only* for those people
who actually can make it to the phone call.  If they can't, and you make
decisions on that call that affect them, you're not giving the community
a fair shot at participation.  Phone calls are not a good place to make
substantial decisions for community projects.

Phone calls are still good, however, for just talking about the status,
and saying, "Let's start a <TOPIC_XYZ> discussion on the mailing list."
The community must know that they're not being sidelined in these
discussions, which is why the note-taking is important.  Remember that
we have an obligation to each other as community members to keep each
other informed and give each other the opportunity to participate,
influence, and make decisions.

I would urge anyone who's going to use the phone for these meetings to
consider the factors above.  Please keep in mind that I'm *not* saying
any of our fellow Fedorans would want to circumvent the community with
their phone call ideas.  Sometimes we don't foresee or intend all our
effects so it's worth thinking ahead!

-- 
Paul W. Frields
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://paul.frields.org/   -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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