Hello,
I am also not a native English speaker, and need to always concentrate on the language. Sometimes I can't understand the person who has just spoken, in this case I am trying to clarify for example by asking "do I understand you correctly, do you mean ABCXYZ?". Also I remember a few times when I noticed you were frowning and not saying anything, I asked you "Nico what do you think? Do you agree?" etc.
There is also a Raise Hand button, you can click when someone is talking and you don't want to interrupt. People always pay attention to raised hands, they are never lost.
In any case, if you have any other suggestions/strategies, please share! We will use them. I just looked, for all the meetings we got to the time, native English speakers are less than a half of attendees. So any concrete suggestions on how to improve experience for all of us, very welcome.
By the way,
give them an inch and they'll take an ell
I don't understand this (maybe because I am non-native English). I see this is a metaphor, but I don't understand how to map it into the reality of flashrom project. Who "gives"? Who are "them"? What do you mean by "inch" and what do you mean by "ell"?
Also, in your statement "Here's how things look like when we don't compromise"
There are two things that I don't understand.
First of all, who are "we"?
Secondly, compromise with what? You provided a list of things you won't do, you said "I'll not" 4 times. But what do you do? What is your suggestion for the decision making process, can you describe the complete process?
Just to be clear, my suggestion for decision making process:
#1 Discuss things on the mailing list first (it could be ongoing for months, not a problem - so that everyone interested has time to read and respond) #2 When/if the discussion seems to be settled and people are in agreement, the item can be added to the agenda of the meeting. #3 At the meeting the item can be discussed again, and a decision can be made (or not made, if people disagree). #4 After the meeting we send an email with meeting notes and “Decisions summary” on the top of the email. #5 Since stuff never gets done immediately, there always be some time to react on #4
And I am really interested in what other people think about the suggestion!
Also I am thinking: decisions from all previous meetings were fine, you never protested before. We had 5 meetings already, each one made at least one decision. The number of decisions per meeting: 1, 4, 3, 1, 4. And now you are protesting, when we decided to go ahead with your idea? Your own good idea, which solves real issues on the project, the issues that you regularly complain about? I don't understand your behavior. Can you please explain why you behave like this?
If you have concerns and the software we are currently using, you are welcome to organise a video call with any other software that you prefer. Create a meeting room, write instructions for people how to join, and we will start using it. I am happy to help spread the word and tell everyone when you set up new software, and when everything is ready to switch from current one into a new thing. I set up the software that I am familiar with. Me and Felix spent a lot of time making sure all the use cases work, so that no one needs to spend time troubleshooting during the actual meeting. So my reason for this choice was: I know how it works, I know the features, where are the buttons etc.
Mailing list and IRC channel have been here since forever, they are good for discussions but don’t work for making decisions.
Please, elaborate on this.
Please explain how the decision making process would work on the mailing list. And, specifically, please define the criteria to detect when a decision is "done". Please give an example, a link to a flashrom mailing list thread where the decision was made. Good thing we have archives, so even a thread from some time ago can be linked.
I don't see a realistic way for flashrom to make decisions on the mailing list, and I have never seen that happen. What I see is that issues keep repeating again and again for years, and questions are not answered.
For example, a question that was added to the agenda of the first meeting (which was >2months ago): "how do people get commit rights on flashrom?" No one has an answer. Gerrit groups were created in 2017, which is 5 years ago, and yet for all the years flashrom has no rules and no criteria on how people get commit rights! Mailing list was functioning for all the time, so why the question haven't been answered in 5 years?
Finally, I noticed some statements that can be misleading. Surely not intentional, but I want things to be very very clear.
I feared people could use the meeting to force decisions at some point.
I don't know what you meant to say, but this statement may look as if you are suggesting that decisions are forced at the meeting. This is not true. All the items are discussed and decisions made when all people agree.
It's not a true random selection. It's biased, of course. Based on people's experience with the meeting (i.e. what is usually discussed and if that's worth their time), the date/time of course, how well they speak the language, if they are paid for it etc.
Why "it's biased"? and especially why "of course"? I don't know what you meant to say, but this statement may look as if you are suggesting that the meeting is targeting/preferring some people over the others. This is not true. Meeting is as open as possible, all information is public, everyone can join and no account is needed. Meeting agenda for future and notes from the past are public. I regularly remind people about the meeting both on the mailing list and IRC channel.
Speaking about that: next meeting is this Thursday, 19th May 2022, 6:00 - 7:00 am UTC+0 Everyone interested is very welcome! Please don't forget to convert to your local time. Meeting doc link https://docs.google.com/document/d/18qKvEbfPszjsJJGJhwi8kRVDUG3GZkADzQSH6WFs...