[uf-discuss] IRC Meetups?

[Brian Suda]

On 7/9/06, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Brian,
>
> Consider starting by volunteering your own "office hours".

--- unfortunatly, i can commit to a set time each week. My 9-5 job
doesn't really allow me to take a chunk out of my day to work on other
non-client related projects. Then my nights and weekends are littered
with other projects, so the best i can do at the moment is be
available as much as i can when i can steal a few minutes away between
tasks. If i committed to a set time, i think i wouldn't be online more
then i would, so just being available as often as possible is the best
i can do at the moment - and i think others might be in similar
situtations.

> I have a feeling that if we reach a critical mass of overlapping "office
> hours", each set by the individual for themselves, that sufficient overlap
> will allow for adhoc/impromptu IRC meet-ups to take place.

--- i agree, we've seen this happen already. For those of you who
aren't using IRC i would certainly recommend jumping on. My only issue
is the impormptu portion, sometime people who give "constructive
critisims" or have something to offer are not available and thus their
voice is not heard from - not to say scheduling something would make
it more or less likely they would attend, but atleast the community
atlarge had a change to be aware of any decissions that would be made.

> I don't know about other folks, but I for one have found it difficult to
> keep up with the propose/repropose meeting arrangement cycle as well as
> unable make it to *any* of the IRC meet-ups, despite being on #microformats
> A LOT.

--- I'm sure there are alot of other people saying the same thing... I
know everyone is busy, so having a set time to meet-up on a specific
topic actually can same time, rather than trying to gather some sort
of critical mass online waiting until all the right people's office
hours line-up and they are available to disucuss an idea.

> That being said, if I have to pick something, I prefer the organic
> decentralized emergent meetup model to the top-down organized model.

--- these little meet-ups can be decentralized, it doesn't have to be
a top-down model where we layout the adgenda. People could use the
wiki and propose topics about what is to be discussed. It can be very
flexible in it's approach.

The main reason i brought this up, was because several months ago
Tantek took part in the Wordpress IRC meetup and found it very
helpful. I too have held IRC meetups for hCalendar and the citation
microformats and much was accomplished. Some of the people who took
part came specifically for the meetup, they don't have the time to sit
in IRC 24/7 waiting for a issue to arrise that needed their attention,
but a short, well-focused discussion was something they could be apart
of. Also, many people who want to contribute are on opposite sides of
the globe, so being online at the same time is sometimes difficult,
but a planned meetup on a topic of their interest might be worth
staying-up late, or getting-up early for.

If the community atlarge is not interested, then that's ok we can drop
this idea. So far there hasn't been any feedback either way. My
thoughts are that this is just another tool in our arsenal to help
microformats move forward.

-brian

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk