Alliance Meeting

[Jude Phailin]

building on what Mucco (Bob) said you have to remember that a lot of [LIFE] is Euro also just my thought

[Sciros]

Hehe, well, it would definitely be cool if we could hold the meeting every 3 hours kinda like the Mad King does so that all of our Allies could be accomodated Instead we have to figure out what single time will work best for the majority of Allies. And for sure, if 2 am GMT is not ideal for that then it should by all means be changed to what would be ideal.

I run into this issue in my own guild as well, as we have folks all over. I held our last meeting on a Friday so that our Australian members could finally attend. Their contributions were very much appreciated, but unfortunately it was at the cost of a smaller turnout than I would have liked. So, it's give-and-take and of course we can move times around for successive Alliance Meetings to diversify attendance.

[Lurker Wyrm]

I usually screen-cap and create logs for our meetings every month as I hold them, and I can probably do the same for this meeting.

Reading an entire log of chat, including off-topic stuff and ranting and all the greetings can get rather tedious, especially if it's all screen shots which take quite a bit longer to load than text. That's why I suggested a clerk, someone to take minutes of the important points brought up and write them down in a condensed format to save people time and sanity later on when they read them. Having the entire dialogue there for people who want to know every little detail is ok, but for the most part is impractical, especially when you don't have a search function (due to the screenshot nature of the logs).

Example: we spend about 15 minutes discussing the official alliance skill sorting option. Hawk thinks it should be by attribute, I think it should be by profession, you think it should be by energy cost, and Marauder thinks it should be by recharge time. We discuss, we argue, we rant and rave, we cry, we sigh. After all that time someone makes a motion that we adopt the attribute option. It gets voted on and passed unanimously. Rather than force people to read through all our ramblings, the clerk would just put down a note that "A motion was made by Sciros Darkblade to adopt the attribute sorting option for skills as the official alliance skill sorting option. It passed unanimously." Much simpler and easier to work with. All it really means is that someone tabs out to make some notes.

Besides, minutes sounds so much cooler than logs. We can be an alliance that has minutes.

As to that whole moderator thing, it's a well known fact that people go off topic if not edged to remain on it. Also, if we have something we need to vote on it's a lot easier to have one person calling for the vote after it's been motioned. If you want, think of the moderator as a glorified time keeper. I'm not saying that they can/should cut off discussions, just that if we start to go too far off topic they can say "hey, we're supposed to be discussing skill sorting options, not water bottles." Also, like it or not, you need someone to say stuff like "welcome to the alliance meeting" and to present topics for discussion so people know when things actually start. It's better to have one person stuck with that instead of a bunch of people twirling their thumbs waiting for something to happen. Can be someone different for each meeting, but really, it'll make the meetings go a lot smoother.

So, it's give-and-take and of course we can move times around for successive Alliance Meetings to diversify attendance.

Once we find a time that works we should stick with it. If we need to have multiple alliance meetings (i.e. US friendly time, Euro friendly time) then that's ok, but consistency is better in the long run. Also saves us from more "so when are we gonna meet this time" discussions. Running 2 meetings could get a bit tricky though, since if someone suggests something in the first meeting they might not be able to be around to defend it if it gets brought up during the second meeting.

[Uca Firewind]

What we do to avoid the silly banter we so often have is make guild chat ONLY official and the "all chat" be where we talk smack. That way when we post logs, it's not long at all.

And we can call them minutes if we want.

[Sciros]

I post chat logs as images; it's not bad at all, trust me. I get them under a meg in size without much difficulty. Considering how long they take to read (a few minutes) relative to how long they take to load (a few seconds), it's not a big deal at all ^_^

Let's hope we have the maturity to make the meetings as succinct as possible in the first place (and not argue for a long time about how to sort skills, haha). I think we do. I think you're assuming a lot more chaos than I've had to deal with, at least. What you're proposing is very reasonable, but a bit more work/organization that what I am proposing. Would it be ok if we tried my setup first, and if it wasn't that great, to go with yours for the next meeting? Either way I'm sure we'll meet our main goals of "discussing stuff" and "getting to know each other better" but this way we might save some folks valuable time.

I do like your suggestions. What you are proposing is the much more "standard" way to run meetings, and of course it's tried-and-true in its own right and I have no doubt it would work. But, I think if I were to ask my guildmates whether they'd prefer that I change our meeting format to including a clerk to record minutes and post them in the usual "condensed" format versus sticking with the full chat logs, the majority would choose to stick with the full logs.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Well, there are people that use dial-up or, as is semi-common outside the US, have bandwith limitations, so that's mostly what the text vs. images was about.

As to the "positions" or whatever, well, yeah, probably pointless atm, but I'm just thinking ahead. Better to set up a system now so that it doesn't turn into a big mess later on.

[Sciros]

Man, this is an MMORPG :-P if folks can't load a friggin really low quality jpg then idk how this arrangement has worked in the first place hahahah

The pasted screen-caps has worked well for now and made folks happy; let's give it a go and if there are any complaints at all then we'll totally consider going the condensed minutes route ^_^

[Lurker Wyrm]

Man, this is an MMORPG :-P if folks can't load a friggin really low quality jpg then idk how this arrangement has worked in the first place hahahah

Well, bear in mind that GW was optomized to be able to run on just about any internet connection, and not everyone wants to spend the $40+ for broadband if they're on a tight budget.

The pasted screen-caps has worked well for now and made folks happy; let's give it a go and if there are any complaints at all then we'll totally consider going the condensed minutes route ^_^

Ok.

Since no one's posted any actual objections to the time, I second the 9pm EST on Sept. 29 meeting. Yeah, we're leaving the people on the other side of the ocean(s) out, but it's probably better to just have a meeting with whoever's available so we can at least say we are doing something.

[Hawkmoon]

It all sounds good - the time, the screen caps, etc. Let's give it a try, and if we find problems, we can address them for next time.

We don't have to be perfect the first time around! There can be room for improvement. :D

[WarBlade]

Evidently one glaring detail marred this meeting before anyone even started talking.

Here are a couple of handy links that I'd recommend to anyone thinking of planning an alliance-wide event, meetings included:

Time and Date

Greenwich Mean Time