Increasing inclusiveness at the community group meetings

[binji]

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@dtig, @jgravelle-google and I had a discussion this morning about the CG meetings. We all agreed that they are working well, but it may be difficult for folks to speak up if they have questions or comments, since the meetings are very technical and require a lot of context.

We were thinking of ways to improve this, and a few ideas popped up:

• Take some time during the meeting to remind people that we value all input.
• Add an agenda item to some meetings allowing people to ask questions, rather than any particular topic.
• Provide an easier environment for this type of discussion: a mailing list, slack, discord, etc.
• Provide other avenues where new people can contribute, such as a "good-first-bug" list, improving documentation, writing examples and tests, etc.

Any thoughts or other ideas?

[xtuc]

Provide an easier environment for this type of discussion: a mailing list, slack, discord, etc.

https://github.com/WebAssembly/meetings/issues/236

Take some time during the meeting to remind people that we value all input.

When presenting a subject, I would suggest to write a small presentation (Google slides or similar) to introduce the problem, explaining the context etc. Ideally they are publicly distributed.

[binji]

#236

Thanks!

When presenting a subject, I would suggest to write a small presentation (Google slides or similar) to introduce the problem, explaining the context etc. Ideally they are publicly distributed.

Yes, we sometimes do this, but we should try to do this more often. That said, I don't want to make it too burdensome for people to present at the meeting, so there may need to be a balance here.

[chicoxyzzy]

I think we should create official chat, for example in Gitter or Spectrum chat (both allow to enter via GH/Twitter accounts, provide web interface) which will be connected to WebAssembly organization on GitHub. Discord could be a good alternative also. Russian WebAssembly Community group in Telegram (I believe that it's the biggest and most active wasm chat existing based on some research I made year ago) is continuously growing and we even have non-russian speaking members already. It seems that people can't find similar place in English.

Also we can create a repo with links to local meetup groups. There are meetups in SF, Munich, Paris. We are going to start wasm meetups in Moscow very soon. Repo with meetups can help to find speakers, discuss other meetup-related topics, etc. etc. via issues. Issues are better than chats for such cases because it'd be easier to find info any time later.

WDYT?

[chicoxyzzy]

I'm going to do short presentation on April 2 or April 16 CG call depending if I'll have enough time to finish it tomorrow. I'll add it to agenda later.

[binji]

Thanks, @chicoxyzzy. This conversation hasn't made much progress in the past, but I think it's useful to bring up again. Let's try to get something in for the April 16 CG meeting.

[chicoxyzzy]

Unfortunately I had to miss today's meeting, so yes, I'm going to add an agenda item to April 16 agenda soon

[munrocket]

@chicoxyzzy @binji you can try to create community group like in blender https://blender.community/

[eriktrom]

perhaps there is a new issue or pr that was merged for this -- if not -- re-escalating it -- it would be very nice, at the least, to have the meetings broadcasted after the fact in the worst case (like via youtube). This would allow interested parties whom are looking to get further involved a place to observe before they hop in.

If there is such a medium for this atm, forgive this newb comment. Link to it though if u can! thanks!

[ttraenkler]

I asked @tlively the same question and he mentioned that the meetings are intentionally not recorded. I assume this is to provide a "safer space" and lower the barrier for speaking up. On the other hand I agree it would definitely be quite helpful if you could watch a recording after the meeting - be it because you could not attend or because you do not have enough time to follow all the meetings but are only interested in a particular topic. Note there is however a transcript of the discussion that is published after the meeting and usually a deck of slides if there was a presentation.