Subject: Re: [87attendees] Jabber scribing

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 11:57:00 -0700

At 10:07 AM +0200 7/29/13, Scott Brim wrote:

>  +1.  I really appreciate chatty jabberers.

I do as well.  My experience has been that in years past, Jabber 
scribers really did try and capture a sense of what was going on, 
which was terrifically useful for people trying to follow, but that 
since audio has been widespread, Jabber scribers now do little more 
than say what the topic is and relay questions/comments from people 
via Jabber to the room and do not attempt to capture what is 
happening in the room.  And I speak as someone who used to volunteer 
to Jabber scribe, and always did my best to capture what was 
happening.  Frankly, I'm surprised to hear there are some who still 
do.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
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Few ideas are really bad.  Most are either pre- or post-mature.
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From: Paul Aitken <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:02:00 +0100

With sufficient jabber content, it wouldn't be necessary to take any 
other minutes.
(ie, the minute taker could just type into jabber.)

Isn't there a lot of overlap between jabber and etherpad?

P.

On 01/08/13 19:57, Randall Gellens wrote:
> via Jabber to the room and do not attempt to capture what is happening 
> in the room.  And I speak as someone who used to volunteer to Jabber 
> scribe, and always did my best to capture what was happening.  
> Frankly, I'm surprised to hear there are some who still do.

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 07:58:05 -0400

On 08/05/13 07:02, Paul Aitken allegedly wrote:
> other minutes. (ie, the minute taker could just type into jabber.)

Yes.

> Isn't there a lot of overlap between jabber and etherpad?

Yes.

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From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 10:21:42 -0300

IMO, there is some overlap, but they are different things with different
requirements.

For instance, there is no need for the minute taker to note each time a
slide is advanced, nor comment anything on each slide specifically, but
rather the goal should be capturing the high level discussion and note
either action items defined, feedback provided on the mic (and jabber)
and conclusions (if any). Minutes are drafted in situ but can also be
refined afterwards.

Jabber on the other side is a real-time thing, you need to note
specifically which slide is being presented, a short phrase of what is
being said for each one, feedback from the mic including names (always a
challenge). Jabber needs to be meaningful only for those following the
audio stream and the slides.

It's fine for a jabber transcript to look gibberish and completely
nonsensical a couple of weeks after the meeting in question. Just like
Perl code older than 6 months :D

regards

Carlos

On 8/5/13 8:02 AM, Paul Aitken wrote:
>> happening.  Frankly, I'm surprised to hear there are some who still do.
>
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> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/87attendees

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From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2013 10:18:51 -0700

At 12:02 PM +0100 8/5/13, Paul Aitken wrote:

>  With sufficient jabber content, it wouldn't be necessary to take 
> any other minutes.

That's the way we did it a few years back, when Jabber scribes were 
expected to take what were essentially meeting notes.  If we were 
able to have both a Jabber scribe and a note taker, then the chair 
would use both to produce the uploaded notes.

But it seems that now that audio streaming is widely used, Jabber 
scribes aren't expected to do more than relay questions and maybe 
note who is talking or when the topic changes.

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From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2013 10:20:44 -0700

At 10:21 AM -0300 8/5/13, Carlos M. Martinez wrote:

>  Jabber needs to be meaningful only for those following the

This is exactly what has changed with the wider availability of audio 
streaming.  It used to be that people could participate in one 
meeting via Jabber while physically in a second meeting.  That's no 
longer possible.

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happened or not.                                --Mark Twain

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From: CJ Aronson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2013 21:41:02 +0200

I never volunteer to jabber scribe because it is impossible for me to know
who is talking.  I can't see anyone's badges and they say their names so
quickly I can almost never make them out.  The folks I know are easy but
more and more I have no clue who is at the microphone.    I also was never
sure what exactly was expected of a jabber scribe.

----Cathy

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 7:18 PM, Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>wrote:

> expected to take what were essentially meeting notes.  If we were able to
> have both a Jabber scribe and a note taker, then the chair would use both
> to produce the uploaded notes.
>
> But it seems that now that audio streaming is widely used, Jabber scribes
> aren't expected to do more than relay questions and maybe note who is
> talking or when the topic changes.
>
> --
> Randall Gellens
> ______________________________**_________________
> 87attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/**listinfo/87attendees<https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/87attendees>
>

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From: Brian Dickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2013 16:06:08 -0400

How difficult would it be to combine the following (FTW):

(1) Bar codes (or QR codes) on name badges (not sure what is coded now, but
they already have bar codes on one side currently)
(2) Bar/QR code scanner with text-to-speech (for room) and text-to-jabber
(duh)
(3) Cut off mic until (2) completes saying the name (encourages folks to
facilitate (1) e.g. holding badge to reader)
(4) Maybe special self-recorded audio for (2), for those for whom
text-to-speech is likely to fail (badly)

It is low-tech, but still uses tech to improve meeting mic "protocol". :-)

Brian

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From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 Aug 2013 16:51:08 -0400

> text-to-speech is likely to fail (badly)

Sounds like kind of a fun thing to whip up with a raspberry pi, plus a 
camera, a way to splice the sound into the audio feed (remember that many 
of the mikes are wireless), and a wifi adapter.  Oh, and some sort of 
remote management so it talks to the right jabber room.  I wouldn't worry 
about (4), in the worst case send it to Google Translate and click the 
read aloud button which does a remarkably good job on Chinese.

It's certainly something that could be assembled from off the shelf parts, 
but it'd be a challenge to debug, build enough of them to put one by each 
mike, and then deploy and manage.

Perhaps we could just have a social convention that two claps or something 
means "please say who you are more clearly".

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

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From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2013 00:06:09 +0100

On 5 Aug 2013, at 21:51, "John R Levine" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Sounds like kind of a fun thing to whip up with a raspberry pi, plus a camera, a way to splice the sound into the audio feed (remember that many of the mikes are wireless), and a wifi adapter.  Oh, and some sort of remote management so it talks to the right jabber room.  I wouldn't worry about (4), in the worst case send it to Google Translate and click the read aloud button which does a remarkably good job on Chinese.

Having had some of our students do QR code recognition on a pi with a standard webcam the drawback is that it may take a few seconds for the recognition to happen/be acknowledged, so it might slow things up unless the speaker just held their badge to the camera while also acting as normal (the name going to jabber perhaps).

> It's certainly something that could be assembled from off the shelf parts, but it'd be a challenge to debug, build enough of them to put one by each mike, and then deploy and manage.

I suspect the problem would be mounting the device on the mic, given the mic isn't exactly a firm mounting point.

> Perhaps we could just have a social convention that two claps or something means "please say who you are more clearly".

It would be simpler if people just spoke their name slowly and clearly :)

Tim

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From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:27:16 -0700

>  It would be simpler if people just spoke their name slowly and clearly :)

I used to make a sort of joke out of it, saying my name very slowly 
and very clearly (exaggeratedly so).  I figured it helped people hear 
it, it seemed to amuse people in the room, and it helped remind me to 
do it.

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