Scheduled community meetings

Having everybody together in a chat room at one time makes everything a lot easier as we can all discuss and decide various decisions. The IRC chatroom exists, and it's fantastic, so let's use it! While there are some IRC regulars I think it'll be helpful to everyone if we had a regular meeting schedule where we'd all login to the chatroom at the same time and have some meaty discussions.

I understand that a lot of people work, and have school, etc so timing is extremely important. That's why I want to pick a time that'd work for most people. It's ok if you miss a meeting here and there, someone will write-up post meeting notes. The point being that if you miss a meeting, no problem, just come to the next one.

Here's my proposed schedule: One 2-hour meeting every 2 weeks. Held on Monday from 7PM-9PM.

I'lll try to make it.

I think it's a good idea. It's a good way to get people talking to each other in real time. The IRC channel has been really helpful in getting things sorted out quickly.

I'm flexible for time. Do you want to start next Monday?

Ill try to make it, just set the first date and ill do what I can to be there.

19:00-21:00 GMT?

@Tyrion: Now that you mention it, no time zone was put in Omar's suggestion. He was thinking 7-9p EDT (-5 GMT). That's not very convenient for people in Europe. Maybe we can do it a little earlier like 5p EDT (22:00 GMT)?

Timezones are always a big problem. Having it too early in one part of the world people are at work/school, having it too late in another part of the world people are sleeping! 7-9 definitely puts a strain on our brothers and sisters across the pond, so maybe a compromise? 5 or 6 to 7 or 8. Heck, even 7PM EST makes things difficult for people in PST since they're probably still at work.

Maybe a sunday? or saturday? Maybe it'll be once a month then :P

Saturday or Sunday are easier, I could stay up till 2/3 here on a Friday or Saturday night which wouldn't be too late for ye...

That's one of the nice things about doing things asynchronously on a forum like this since we can all respond when the time is convenient. But there's something to be said about the benefits of real-time communication.

Ok, after doing some more analysis I'm thinking that moving it to an earlier time is probably better. So probably monday, or wednesday between 5-7pm EST (-5 GMT). I think we have to accept the fact that this won't work for everyone, so to incorporate everyone we should publish the results of the meeting after it happens. Either a point form summary, the complete chat log, though probably both.

If everybody is cool with that setup, then I think we'll schedule the first meeting for early January to set some standards, etc for the new year.

Can't believe it's almost 2008!