When I first joined DMS, I applied to join almost all the committees. I noticed that the level of sophistication and responsiveness between committees varies considerably, implying that they are all independently designed and implemented. I think it might help members navigate them if they were uniform.
A few committees never replied to my request to join, so I forgot about them. I did add myself to the committees on the wiki, where I could. Some committees are more attentive than others are.
FWIW, Iāve never been able to get a good hold on Google Groups or Google+. I cannot find groups or individuals or messages when I look for them; they have to find me. Besides that, Google analyzes all messages that go through their system. Even if I didnāt care that they would turn it over to the NSA with little fuss, I donāt like having companies using my messages to decide how to make money off me.
I did not know Nick was running for chair?! Andrew was certainly inviting anyone who was interested, to participate in the committee. Where most of us went wrong, was not getting onto the committee in the proper manner in time. I thought I was a member and was not. Ended being labeled āNot Excellentā and having my āTrue Personalityā exposed.
Most committees have you add your name to the wiki and magically you are a member. For electronics we invite anyone to our meetings. If they are interested in joining we add them right then. But we are not a group that has some built up contentions about past events or disagreements about future processes.
In getting some time to think about this. It seems that Ops has a very difficult challenge in that they need the ability to run the space without input on every little thing. We do not need to vote on the toilet paper (yes please)! But they donāt interact much with general members outside of their Google Hangout. Which is where I believe the appearance of transparency issues stem from. Aside from having to deal with personal/member matters, it may behoove them to have some of their discussions on talk. It may be read-only for non-committee members but it would go a long way to sooth the conspiracy flame fanners.
As committee chair, I was interested in joining because thought it would be in our interest to participate more in overall space issues. I want to mount a lot of shelves to the east wall of the electronics room. I thought it probably better run that by Ops/Facilities before putting lots of wall anchors in.
Thanks @LisaSelk, Iām fairly OK with the wiki but did not attempt to add myself to the Ops Members list. I had not completed the request process. Sure I thought I did but I get distracted easily- squirrel! So it must have fallen off my radar.
When this meeting was originally scheduled, Andrew said
The next Operations & Facilities Meeting will be held on Thursday, April 2nd at 6pm. As with our previous meetings it will be held via google hangout chat.
Brandon said
Holding a meeting with half of the people online and half in person proxying through one account is not a good idea
Nick said
Being on the side of the in person single account, simple conversations in the room would mess up tracking the conversation.
Lampy said
It is obvious that a mixed in person and online chat meeting has challenges. Especially when several people are participating through one account.
The initial post clearly says this meeting will be held via Google hangouts, and the previous meetings have also been held via hangouts. This was even clarified for Nick 3 hours prior to the meeting. For anyone to claim otherwise goes against everything stated in this thread and even the chat transcript.
Starting on line 60
Nick Sainz Ā 3:08 PM
So Iām confused when is the meeting? Are most of you going to be around the space during the meeting?
Andrew LeCody Ā 3:12 PM
weāre doing it via this hangout at 6pm
not everyone can be on site at the same time
Guys, this is not productive. Itās clear that some members were confused on how to access the chat, so I have scheduled another meeting and Ops is available to assist anyone through the process of joining the chat. If you have any questions about how to join the committee or chat, please email [email protected] or respond in the following thread:
I remember the days you could vote thru someone else because you couldnāt
attend meetings in person. I remember the days when someone wanted to use
Hangout because that person could never make it to a meeting because of
work.
What I see now, is people realize they canāt live at the space anymore and
hangout is easier, but what I donāt understand is how you can have a
hangout meeting and no meeting at the space if people would like one.
Why canāt someone host the meeting at the space with hangout? Maybe
meetings should be hosted by the chair in person at the space (schedule
conflicts wouldnt be an issue as they sat the date) and joined by others
thru hangout that canāt attend. People should still be able to attend an
actual meeting at the space of desired.
Also, it would be interesting to see all other transcripts from prior
meetings. Interesting to see that this one needed to be made public.
BTW I donāt have have a Facebook account (example other than google
account) and wouldnāt want to sign up for Facebook (oh its free too) just
to join something.
Weāve tried combination online/offline meetings in the past, it only leads to confusion as everyoneās voice canāt be heard equally. Previous meetings were much more informal, itās been requested that Ops be more transparent so going forward I have decided to post the meeting transcripts online. I regret to say that we donāt have transcripts from previous meetings because we did not think to record them.
I originally pushed for IRC based meetings, but it was determined that creating a google account was far easier for the majority of people. Creating a Google account is simple and does not require any personal information. You can sign up without giving a phone number, previous e-mail or even a real name.
You would have to do it with voice if you did it. If you do it without voice, someone is then either relaying all the chat messages happening to the people not on the chat or everyone at the physical meeting also has to be online reading the messages. Also the people physically there have to have what they say relayed to chat.
Doing it with voice kinda sucks too IMO. Itās as bad as conference calls normally are. Random personās dog starts barking, people stepping over each other etc. Random person goes on diatribe and itās hard to interrupt them.
I try to stay away from the politics on the forums but there has been a lot of discussion and I want to ask if you join Ops that you actually join it for the right reasons. Help with the day to day operations and such, not to just vote once every 6th months.
If you donāt have time or are willing to meet with plumbers, get bids from electricians, take out trash, sign people up, clean up someone elseās sad attempt to clean up something, troubleshoot network issues, make signage, run cable or many of the other countless jobs there are, if youāre not willing to take that on, donāt join ops.
Its not a glamorous committee, so I ask, please donāt join just to make things harder for people that do stuff around the space. Please be honest with yourself and with the members of the space.
As my name seems to be one of the most used in this thread I guess Iāll post my point of view.
Iām not running for head of OPS, the race is between Allen and Andrew.
I also didnāt plan to be the single account that would serve as a portal for members at the space, Allen asked if he could have access to the meeting via me pulling up the chat on a computer.
When I pulled up the chat, many members gathered around the computer to be involved.
When the vote started, I went and grabbed Ken as he asked to be in for the vote.
In the past and currently in some committees, members of DMS have been able to add themselves to a committee at the meeting of the committee
In the past members of committees where not required to do the grunt work of the committee to be involved in the committee.
Iām striving for more transparency in the space, and having meetings that are not publicly audit-able is not transparent. Also, the requirement of being on a committee to see the meeting is not transparent. Andrew posted that he will post all ops meeting transcripts in the future, Iām sure if this is followed it will bring much more transparency to the OPS committee and hopefully cut down on the discontent growing in the space over rules enforced by OPS.
Last note, we all are volunteers and are much more powerful and productive in support of each other than in fighting. If you are upset about the meeting, please remember today is a new day. Lets keep as much of the positive as we can and learn and change from the negative. Iām still excited to work with you all and hope I can mend the bridge that have been trampled.
Interesting how people can say it wonāt work. I host meetings at my job
over the phone, chat, and live at the same time with no issues on a regular
basis. The last meeting I had was even a training class with several techs,
with several location, and with the manufacturer as the instructor. All
video, chat, and conversation was seen by all with no chat translator
needed. So how can it not work for DMS?
Also, wanted to add that transcripts are always available unless all
members on chat deleted it. I still have all my emails, chats, and
anything related for the past 15 years including my work emails. Google is
all about saving stuff. My company also keeps track of all deleted stuff.