Recurring TC Meeting

[sheplu]

Following the last TC meeting, I think it is important - and it was quickly discussed (#161 (comment)) - to setup a recurring meeting for the TC.

I am suggesting to follow the same schedule as other organization, so one meeting every two weeks, with an alternating timeslot as the TC is divided between Europe and USA.

As the TC meeting is live - and maybe be joined by contributors or spectators I am opening this issue to try to find the best time and to validate the schedule

Suggestion

• one meeting every two weeks
• alternating schedule every 2 weeks between US timezone and European timezone
• Setup automation if possible
• Keep tracts of all minutes
• Setup live youtube and recording (zoom?)

If all the @expressjs/express-tc is on board with that, I will open a doodle with multiple slots so we can choose what would be the two best time

[dougwilson]

Interesting proposal. It would be interesting to know who would attend each one, as if one of them does not actually have a majority of the TC members in it, it would seem no decisions could actually be made within that TC meeting, so it could only end up being a stand up of sorts without prediscussions and input from the non attendites before hand or delay the decisions to do the same after the fact to get majority.

[sheplu]

For me we should find time to have all the members, but with a 9h gap between US / Europe we can find some time that would not be at a desavantage for one side and alternate between a good time for the people in the US and a good time for the people in Europe.

Last meeting was at 1am for me, and that's not an issue if it is not too often. That way it would be only one meeting per month with a non optimal time for all (at worst)

[dougwilson]

No ya, I get it. It is certainly something to consider when wqnting to join the TC. My comment was just that whatever we do, we would probably need to decide (1) will both meetings actually regularly have a majority of the TC in order to actually make any decisions in it and (2) does missing one in your non time zone count against you for TC removal (it is currently codified thay it will -- so missing one meeting in your own time zone and not going to the other time time would then remove you from the TC).

[sheplu]

For me this would not change the rule, this is just a way to alternate the meeting between two schedules (and not have two meetings at the same time).
It would be

• week 1: slot 1
• week 2: nothing
• week 3: slot 2
• week 4: nothing
  And then we circle on that

But we can also have the meeting at the same slot, but anyway we need to find a good schedule - and maybe this is the one we used last time.
But at least we should validate that, and setup / schedule everything

[wesleytodd]

Yeah this is exactly my worry, with a larger TC it becomes easier to not have one meeting be a ghost town and the other be the only one which can reach quorum. For now, we are going to likely have to make some compromises to keep things going. If we think the scheduling might cause an otherwise active member to miss more of the TC meetings that was in our governance doc update, I say we change the doc to have looser requirements.

One other thing to keep in mind is the meeting itself is more just a way to unblock things and talk in person. The voting aspect is strictly if we cannot find a good compromise, so maybe we just say that any meeting with a vote called also needs a way for members who could not attend to vote remotely after (or before)?

[UlisesGascon]

For now, we are going to likely have to make some compromises to keep things going [...] One other thing to keep in mind is the meeting itself is more just a way to unblock things and talk in person

I Agree, the key of this meeting is to unblock things and solve things that are more complex offline. As the TC has just being reactivated, we need sometime to grease the wheels as a team and define our way of collaborating and working together.

Obviously this scenario can't be sustain over a long period of time, but we can try to keep one single session until we feel confident to split. I guess that there are some stuff to polish before that like meeting minutes, agenda, etc.. so it is easier to follow up and also how we make complex decisions as group that require voting, etc...

IMO, I think that voting to solve disputes should be conducted offline, because:

• We don't need to wait for the 2w circle
• We let more time to present ideas, convince others and personal research on the topics

[dougwilson]

Re the voting: I think the concern that the voting is ideally supposed to be a last resort that we only need to do rarely. But my concern is if there are regularly TC meetings without a majority of TC there due to them being split, simple consensus cannot be achieved and we would have to restort to voting on the regular to make decisions instead.

[dougwilson]

But I will add that this "concern" is really just reflecting the old TC -- if the new TC here wants to make everything a vote instead I guess that negates the concern anyway.

So the only last one is just a note so we can remember to discuss or vote on: if the TC is split apart into timezone meetings, I think there ahould be verbage that says either 3 meetings in your time zone or something for the step down.

[wesleytodd]

I think ideally we can reach consensus in issues. Frankly I think we should really strive for no votes being necessary as it has been historically. That said, we should not avoid it if something is in fact blocked and in that case I would hope we can just agree to find a time which enables meeting quorum (even if that needs an ad-hoc meeting) or just vote via an issue and record it during a meeting for the records keeping.

[sheplu]

I agree with most of the points about voting but the main idea behind this issue was mostly to have a regular meeting, with an agenda and critical topics to discuss.
Do we agree that we want to have a regular meeting with the TC, like most WG operate? If yes

• when? Same time as the previous one?
• which regularity?

[wesleytodd]

I think we need more often to start. Every other week? I am fine with that time, but it is super late for y'all and that doesn't seem ideal to me so I am for sure on board with the alternating schedule and then we can just make sure we don't use it to make concrete decisions without also backing that up in issues in case folks cannot attend.

Also a small aside: I opened a pr on the meeting agenda maker action which allows for specifying multiple repos. I was going to try and see if I can get that generating meetings across all three org's repos this week. I will update here when I give that a try.

[UlisesGascon]

Every other week?

I think that will work fine, regarding the best time. Maybe we can do a new doodle but oriented to regular slots (Monday to Friday?) and we can alternate between the two most popular slots. That way we cover a larger spectrum. Maybe I am overengineering this? 🤔

[wesleytodd]

Maybe I am overengineering this?

No, scheduling is harder than any of the software engineering we do.

Maybe we can do a new doodle but oriented to regular slots (Monday to Friday?) and we can alternate between the two most popular slots.

I think this is a great plan, whoever gets to it first can post the link here!