Have you considered IRC? It is free, it is very familiar to most wikimedians, channels can
be actively managed to allow only invited and digitally identified participants (including
the possibility of wikimedia.ca cloaks given out only by Wiki Canada Inc), allows
moderated or open discussion meeting formats, and is readily loggable (which means less
work for a secretary.) Most users have an IRC client, or there are a range of web-based
gateways which allows almost any user who has internet access to be involved. Of
particular benefit is the ability to use URLs to link discussions to relevant internet
resources.
As it is a purely text interface it does not allow as rich a communication stream, but at
the exact same time this improve decision-making speed by reducing digression tendencies.
IRC is extremely scalable as it is a very low bandwidth protocol. With Skype and similar
voice meeting software, unmoderated discussions will be punctuated with periods of dropped
sound when multiple people try to speak at once - this is an artifact of the high
bandwidth use and will unequally harm users who have lower bandwidth connections. IRC can
be too fast when many people are typing rapidly; screens can scroll too rapidly to be
fully read and understood.
Amgine
On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 16:31:21 -0700 (PDT)
Doc James <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hey All
Currently we have been using skype for voice meetings. It however is
somewhat limited in it abilities to handle conferencing between many
people. As the organization grows we may need to look at other
options.
WebEx was suggested here
http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada:Discussions_in_English#Online_meeā¦
While it does have some cost we may be able to apply for funding to
cover it from Wikimedia Inc. Alan Walker has been working on a
possible grant application
http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Budget/2011
Are there any other suggestions on how best we can run meetings / AGMs
so everyone can be easily involved?
James Heilman
(Doc James)
--
Amgine <amgine(a)wikimedians.ca>