I agree with Kerry that computer text offers a narrow pipe through which we can barely come to know and trust other. That is why in developing Extreme Programming (a kind of Agile) we asked that the whole team, including clients and management, meet daily in person, preferably working together in the same room. I didn't believe it was strictly required but it sure did simplify other changes we were making.
As I've come to know more about successful open-source communities I'm struck by how similar our basic values are (read the code, for example) while our attitude towards physical presence couldn't be more opposite. Do not, I was told, ever make a decision while meeting in person. To do so would disenfranchise most of the earth. Even when one came to some insight in a personal conversation they have the obligation to recapitulate the discussion online in text. Wow. That's real work. The agile and open source movements now share many practices. One commonly repeated observation is that distributed teams work, even for agile, but remote workers trying to keep up with a co-located team doesn't. I suspect that a fruitful inquiry into editor retention and meetups will need to analyze the nature of decisions made during meetups and the degree that this disenfranchises new and remote contributors. Aside: When I ran off-site retrospectives I made 10-minute videos which I sent to the team members who couldn't be present. At every break I asked a different person to say in a minute or two what had been discussed and what decisions made. I tightened these up over night and sent out video the next morning. I had no way to assess the value to our remote teams but I will say that we really enjoyed watching the videos together with our new employees at subsequent retrospective. On Nov 19, 2012, at 2:31 PM, Kerry Raymond wrote: > In WP, you are denied just about every clue that you rely on in interacting > with other people, so very piece of “emotional intelligence” goes out the > window.
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