Sorry everyone but I am on my annual leave as of this Saturday. Have a good
one.

Konstantinos 


On 04/08/2009 11:02, "Norbert Klein" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks, Rebecca,
> 
> I am - in the NCUC group, probably the one who has almost always had
> problems - an sometimes I stay online (and can catch only some peices), and
> sometimes it is just oo bad and I drop out.
> 
> There were also mostly some nice people who tried to help me during the
> meeting - but when the next thick cloud is over Cambodia ("rain degradation
> in the Q-Band" or whatever, I am not part of the party again.
> 
> Of course it is nice to have a voice conversations program, with separate
> participants display - but if it excludes participants, it is bad.
> 
> So if we cannot use lower bandwidth software, to have a continuous running
> text summary, provided by a person with good connectivity, would be really
> helpful.
> 
> 
> Norbert
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, 4 August 2009 16:02:50 Rebecca MacKinnon wrote:
> 
>> Sorry I will be unable to make any meeting next week as I will be off the
>> grid.
>> I'd like to make one suggestion, however, as NCUC's membership grows to
>> include more and more people not living in Western developed
>> countries. Global Voices, which has regular online meetings with community
>> members and editors all over the world, has generally stuck to IRC because
>> holding meetings with anything that takes up more bandwith ended up acting
>> as a barrier to participation for people joining from slow or unreliable
>> connections in far-flung corners of the globe. The lesson that we have
>> taken from almost 5 years trying to run an international grassroots media
>> organization in as inclusive a manner as possible is that
> 
> ! ! !
> 
>> inclusiveness
>> requires defaulting to meeting technologies that are accessible to those
>> whose bandwith is lowest
> 
> ! ! !
> 
>> and who may be running old operating systems - or
>> not using MacOS or Windoze.
>> 
>> Some people tried to join last time but had problems: some because they
>> couldn't get the conferencing software to work, and others because their
>> Internet connections were not high speed enough to hear the audio
>> discussion clearly. Isaac Mao's connectivity that day in Shanghai was bad,
>> and he could only see the text chat- he couldn't make out anything that was
>> being said vocally, which meant he couldn't follow the discussion properly
>> or participate meaningfully. As we get more members who are joining from
>> places where Internet connectivity may not be as reliable as it is in North
>> America and Western Europe (where even some of us have been having bandwith
>> problems) I suggest that somebody should volunteer to post a continuous
>> running text summary of what's being said in the audio discussion into the
>> text chat box - so that people who can't hear can still participate. Either
>> that or switch to text-only if too many people are having problems with
>> your current system.
>> 
>> Best,
> 
>> Rebecca
> 
> --
> If you want to know what is going on in Cambodia, please visit
> The Mirror, a regular review of the Cambodian language press in English.
> 
> This is the latest weekly editorial:
> 
> Different Bits of Information ­ Questions for All to Consider ­ Sunday,
> 1.8.2009
> http://tinyurl.com/mlo4dp
> 
> (To read it, click on the line above.)
> 
> And here is something new every day:
> http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com

-- 
Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,
Lecturer in Law,
GigaNet Membership Chair,
University of Strathclyde,
The Lord Hope Building,
141 St. James Road,
Glasgow, G4 0LT,
UK
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
email: [log in to unmask]