On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 06:17:39PM +0000, Helen Faulkner wrote: > Point 6 from the link (having a mechanism whereby people raise their > hands to take it in turns to speak) is an interesting idea. I am not > sure whether I think it would work well for our meetings or not, bearing > in mind how long it took us to do a similar thing in the first meeting > (ie go around in order for people to introduce themselves). > I think the "raise your hand" idea might be worth a try, to see how it > works. Basically I think there might be some advantages, like getting a > discussion that is easier to follow, and some disadvantages, like losing > the "conversation" aspect of the meetings we've had so far. > Has anyone tried this in an IRC meeting of similar size and how did it > work? FWIW, although I understand the problem of trying to give slower typers/readers a chance at keeping up, you also have to consider that - typing is slower than talking anyway -- if you slow down the rate of discussion further by serializing the conversations, IRC meetings get to be verrrry looooong (if I had paused during the presentation on Sunday to ask for comments instead of continuing to type while people made them, we would easily have been there for two hours or longer) - most non-native speakers, particularly those who do spend a lot of time interacting on-line, have a much higher reading comprehension level than oral comprehension level, which means they're already at somewhat of an "advantage" in IRC discussions compared to face-to-face discussions. I agree that a conscious effort is needed to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak in such a setting without getting drowned out, but I don't think a straight take-turns-talking approach for the entire meeting is beneficial. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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