Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Membership Meeting plans

Logs of first AMA Membership2 meeting
You may view the log of the first meeting on the following two pages: AMA IRC Meeting log (1-23-05) (first hour) and AMA IRC Meeting log (1-23-05) Pt II (remainder of meeting). If you are interested in commenting on the agenda of the meeting please do so here:AMA Meeting (suggested topics). The second AMA IRC Membership meetingwas held on Sunday January 30, 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode.net IRC channel #AMA. Attending were Wally, Metasquares, Anthere, Sam Spade, and alex756 (coordinator). The log of the second meeting can be found here: AMA IRC Meeting log (1-30-05).

UPCOMING AMA MEETING NOTICE
"The third AMA Membership meeting will be held on Saturday February 12, 2005 at 17:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 12:00 Noon Eastern NA Time, 9 AM Pacific NA Time, and 6 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend.

If you are not a member, please join before attending. Thank you. User:Alex756:The Coordinator 21:17, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Suggested Topics and Specific Proposals

 * MEMBERS PLEASE REVIEW


 * Suggestions for topics/proposals and agenda to be discussed at the next meeting are to be found at: AMA Meeting (suggested topics). All members are requested to make proposals there and respond to proposals on the talk page there before the beginning of the next meeting so discussion can be held forthwith concerning such proposals. Thank you, your Coordinator.

Introduction
This page is for input from members (and if you would like to joing just go to our main page for more information) for an annual or first meeting of the membership of the Association of Members' Advocates which was founded in 2004. This page is for proposals and discussion having started this page as elected Coordinator to see if there is a consensus about having a "meeting" of some kind where we can discuss our work as advocates over the past year and decide where our organization can go in the future. The main issues I see are,
 * 1) Should we have a meeting?
 * 2) How will we have the meeting?
 * 3) What will be the structure of the meeting (agenda, discussion, report from the coordinator, etc.)?
 * 4) When will the meeting occur?
 * 5) Should we come up with some organizational document (i.e. a charter, constitution, rules and regulations, plan of action for 2005)?
 * 6) Will there be a result from the meeting (nominations of new officers for upcoming election, some kind of planned conference, some kind of text that documents our work statistically or qualitatively)?
 * 7) Can a survey be conducted prior to the meeting with results announced there and on Wikipedia demonstrating the efficacy (or lack thereof) of volunteer efforts with a view towards improving the delivery of those volunteer services?

These are just the suggestions that I have come up with to date and they are not meant to limit or stymie any discussion about this topic. Please leave your comments below. I will check back and try to factor them into the points above once enough members have expressed themselves here (hopefully before January 17, 2005 or thereabouts). Thank you, your AMA Coordinator. &#8212; &copy;   Alex756

Replies
Yes, I think we should have a meeting. I think said meeting should center its focus on how we might be more proactive in our work here, and how our organization will become more effective. If creating new offices, producing more rules or beurocracy, or arranging elections great or small need done, we can begin that process. I think a real-time meeting would be most effective (IRC, or some such) but am of course open minded to what we do and when, so long as the end result is progress. Cheers, 20:54, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes to the meeting, IRC would be the best form. Agenda should open with a coordinator report and suggestions, and then the floor should be opened for alternate suggestions, which should be well-organized and -presented; uninterrupted speech should be the rule. Whether or not some sort of official charter is necessary can be there decided. Hopefully, it will have a result. :) Wally 21:12, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The AMA seems to be pretty quiet, and I never remember to check the requests for advocacy. I think that Sam's suggestion to be more proactive is vital. I don't want to join a discussion on rules and bureaucracy; but I'll happily go to the trouble of figuring out IRC if it means that I can join a discussion on how we will get the AMA out there to help Wikipedians and Wikipedia. (Wally's suggestion of prepared speeches is also good.) -- Toby Bartels 23:22, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * what Toby said above goes for me Pedant 01:30, 2005 Jan 6 (UTC)

One of the things I regret about the MC is it slowliness to jump on cases, and hence to help before things build up too much. It would be nice indeed that the AMA is on the contrary very bold and do not hesitate to propose help instead of waiting. IRC is a terrible thing and a great as well. I would highly recommand joining it. Live discussion is sometimes very helpful :-) SweetLittleFluffyThing


 * This association is failing in its internal communication. I'd like to make this. About the prepared speeches, It's a good way for showing what we think. --Neigel von Teighen 17:17, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree Neigel, this is why I am suggesting a meeting. Hardly any advocates have contacted me or left me any messages at the Coordinator's desk since I was elected. I have tried to leave messages on talk pages, but as there are more members it takes me a while to start posting messages on every members talk page, this can get to be a big job if the coordinator is going to have to contact everyone anytime someone wants to find an advocate. Also, I don't feel that it is the job of the Coordinator to "run" the association like a President, because it is supposed to be a voluntary association, i.e. the members decide what to do together. If individual advocates had more responsibilities I think that would be good, i.e. filing a report with the coordinator every time they start working with someone or making a final report after they are finished. These could create a very useful knowledge base and it would be something that the coordinator could work on to present to the advocate members as a group; I'd like a way we could discuss these things together, as members, in an interactive format, that could help motivate the members to communicate with each other (maybe we could have a few committee activities as well) and with the Coordinator.  &#8212; &copy;    Alex756   05:31, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think that we should have a meeting. IRC seems to be the best way of doing this. We need to discuss issues such as the role and activity of the AMA, as well as the need for a coordinator (due to Alex756's argument on the election poll). We can begin with the coordinator discussing where we are now and what we'll try to get accomplished during the meeting, then we can open up the floor for group discussion. As for when it'll occur, I'm open to just about any date and time, so long as I know in advance when it will be. Yes, we should come up with a constitution. No, there doesn't have to be a result coming out of the meeting, so long as we come to a resolution on some outstanding issues. Yes, a survey can be done, though I don't know how useful the results will be. Metasquares 15:22, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that if there is going to be a meeting, it should not be IRC only, but incorporate Wiki discussion as well. I'm not sure there is a proven need for a real-time meeting to discuss the topics listed above. None of them are emergencies. The topics listed can be fleshed out here. Forcing the discussion into an IRC meeting will exclude those who can't make the meeting, and limit the discussion to the timeframe. If we wanted one, we could flesh out a new charter here (in the Wiki way!).

There are other problems involved before we can even have a meeting or an election IMO. So far only 10 of our 30+ members have responded to the poll on whether or not to have an election, and it's been up over a week. So 20+ of listed advocates are not watching the AMA page.

Look. I'm not going to wait for a meeting. Here's a few things I think the coordinator should be doing:
 * Watching the requests for assistance page and helping to steer unanswered complaints (within resonable time) to an advocate (if it is valid for advocacy) or sending the complaint to a more appropriate direction (e.g. RfC, VfD) when advocacy is not valid.
 * Keeping in occasional touch with each advocate, even if just to look at their talk page or the pages of the issues they are involved in, to at very least gauge their level of activity.
 * Driving a system to keep track of advocates' involvement in disputes, both currently and historically.
 * Coordinating efforts to promote and get the word out about the AMA as a dispute resolution resource.

All these suggestions about surveys and what not are meaningless if we can't even track our own work ourselves. We shouldn't be asking other people how we are doing until we can figure out for ourselves what we are doing.

Note that coordinator means someone who helps people work together on projects. It doesn't mean preside, own, manage, or command. It is a completely appropriate title for the position.

- Keith D. Tyler  [ flame ]  20:31, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll be clear: we're not in the right path (though we're not in the wrong yet). We're discussing now the role of the coordinator, which has been elected 9 months ago. Then, while the last election, no one of you (I became a Wikipedia member two months after that election, thus I didn't voted) knew clearly what were you voting! The AMA needs a new image and a kind of propaganda punch to make it more visible than it is now. If we don't do something, people will request informal advocacy (this already occurred; see User:Maurreen_vs._unknown). At this time, I would contact the Mediation and Arbitration Comitee to make the AMA the only official place to search an advocate, as a preventual action against informal advocacy. --Neigel von Teighen 21:28, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we're all getting a bit too testy here. Keith, while I agree with him on most points, should be quite willing to wait for a meeting to present his ideas if he feels them so important &mdash; just because discussion can be had here does not mean it can't be done faster there, and of course the meeting time must be set-up to the best benefit of all involved. Board debate such as this is slow, prone to excessive and stultifying disputes, and doesn't lend itself to the Alexandrian speed that a live discussion does. If a member cannot make the meeting, they can post here, and it's not anyones' job to keep each and every person who signs up involved (this is voluntary, after all). If it's important, they can get there, or entrust their thoughts to another member, OR post here. I also think that Neigel perhaps shouldn't be so quick &mdash; surely knowing what one votes for is important, but we're not trying to create a definition for the Coordinator position or even completely redefine it, but rather to narrow, streamline and concentrate it to specific duties rather than general areas of responsibility.


 * Speaking of the meeting, we need a time and an IRC channel. I think that for the meeting Sunday midday would be the best time (say 1400 (2 PM) US Eastern/2100 (7 PM) Greenwich Mean/1100 (11 AM) US Pacific). Hopefully, a time like this will put all concerned into the daylight hours. We can do it on the 16th or the 23rd, perhaps? Wally 22:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some key points:


 * I sternly oppose any suggestion of preventing informal advocacy. Monopolies are bad, and we surely don't deserve to be one. Most of my advocacy is informal, and I was an advocate long before the group began. More advocacy is good.


 * I agree with Keith D. Tyler about the format. We should discuss as much as possible on the wiki name space, say @ Wikipedia_talk:Association_of_Members%27_Advocates. This should not in any way suggest that we should not discuss matters on IRC or elsewhere as well. We should communicate early and often, in every way necessary, and there is no reason to wait in order to do so. Lack of communication is our key failing, IMO.


 * The times suggested by Wally for IRC would be fine w me. I can't plan that far in advance, but that shouldn't rule them out. Having more than one time period would be better, and regular meetings would be optimal.

02:05, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Meeting time
Trying to combine and utilize all the above very valuable thoughts perhaps we might have an initial IRC meeting on the 16th to see if it is working as per Wally's suggestion and then, maybe as Sam suggests we can come up with a meeting schedule and somehow coordinate creating notes on some Wikipages created for that purpose. However we need to set up the IRC channel and inform everyone how they can participate; I'm not sure if everyone knows the mechanics of such an operation. If anyone wants to take the bull by the horn and get this going that would be a good idea. I'll check back here tomorrow to see if any progress is being made on that front. It also might be a good idea to start some pages that deal with organizational topics, like a AMA Constitution (under construction) page and a refactoring of some of the stuff above on the AMA Meeting (suggested topics) page that could be put together in outline form. &#8212; &copy;   Alex756   02:37, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Meeting
I am currently having a meeting @ #AMA, and so far we have a working consensus on crowning me Imperator. 13:15, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am also @ #AMA, we are still planning on staying online until we have a few more members show up. &#8212; &copy;   Alex756   17:44, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Replies to Official Meeting Notice for January 23
Unfortunately, my schedule will not allow me to participate at that time, even if I did set things up to start using IRC, which I haven't yet. I think the meeting is a good idea, though, and encourage everyone interested and available to participate in it. --Michael Snow 23:34, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll try to be there. I'll tell you, if I can or not (which is the most probable). --Neigel von Teighen 17:20, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll be there. Wally 20:08, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * It's official: Saddly, I can't be there... --Neigel von Teighen 21:06, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Meeting Starts in Twenty!
Anyone headed for today's meeting, it begins in less than a half-hour! Use IRC to connect to irc.freenode.net, and then join channel #ama. Hope to see you there!

30 Jan Meeting In Progress!
Any member who can make it, we're in the usual channel. Please get here ASAP! Wally 19:10, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)