Re: [Xen-devel] X86 Community Call: Wed March 14, 15:00 - 16:00 UTC - Minutes

[George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/15/2018 02:54 PM, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>> On 15.03.18 at 14:48, <dunlapg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Advantages of IRC:
>> - No "talking over" each other: two people can type at the same time,
>> and it's naturally separated into different chunks
>> - Easier to understand different accensts
>>
>> Disadvantages of IRC:
>> - Have to type reasonably quickly
>> - "Anything else?" questions have to wait a lot longer
> 
> Context of almost every statement may need to be made explicit.
> Already with the (much less contended, because it's not a meeting)
> #xendevel (or our security channel) I often find it quite difficult to
> follow different (sub)threads.

Well an IRC meeting needs to be run with individual topics just like a
normal meeting.  It is slightly easier to get two "threads", because two
people can both write something which slightly "forks" the conversation;
but I think people know having multiple threads for more than a few
statements is bad, and will avoid it just like we avoid having "side
chats" at a normal meeting.

One of the reasons #xendevel is different because there's no expectation
that there will be only one conversation; so if 2 or 3 sets of people
need to talk about something at the same time, they just talk about it
in parallel.  At a meeting that would be against the protocol.

> Furthermore, why have a meeting on IRC when anyone wanting to
> discuss something there can already do so at any time (limited just
> by the other party/parties being around to read/reply)?

Why have a phone conference when you could just call someone up?  Having
a fixed time set aside where the key people are focused on a particular
discussion makes discussion happen much faster.  Having a "forum" where
you're specifically invited to ask questions or bring things up (rather
than feeling like you're "bothering" someone), or where there's a
"prompt" for you to bring up that thing you've been thinking about but
never got around to writing an e-mail for, helps issues get resolved
more quickly and with less friction.

And, the *other* reason the threads on #xendevel are all scattered and
confused is that people are online at different times.  So someone will
ask a question at 10am UK time, it will be answered by someone else at
7pm UK time, there's a short discussion between people who overlap, but
not everyone's there, so a question is asked and it's not answered until
the next morning.  People are talking "at the same time" because a
single thread of conversation lasts 48 hours.  Having a fixed time where
everyone talks about something at a specific time means that individual
topics *can* be discussed and finished before the next one comes up.

I'm not saying there aren't weird awkward bits about IRC meetings; but
I've found them in general to be less awkward than phone meetings,
particularly if there are lots of people and there's a long audio delay
(as we had this last time).

 -George

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