Nico Williams wrote:
Yes, but a record that a concall or other interim meeting took place, and who attended, even if there are incomplete or missing minutes, is important for IPR reasons. Ensuring that such meetings are NOTE WELL meetings is (should be) a priority, and that includes ensuring that a record of that much exists. Ideally the concalls and other interims would be recorded.
I agree completely. My point was that meeting records (including minutes) will inevitably be incomplete, or possibly inaccurate, and that relying on the mailing list as an authoritative record is more effective.
Of course it is disappointing that we can't meaningfully translate voice discussions into text, in the minutes or in mailing list threads. If there were some magic tool e.g. that took better minutes then I'd be happy to use it. But otherwise, I think we just have to trust chairs to manage WG collaboration in whatever way is most effective for their WG's collaborators.
This will inevitably be suboptimal for some part of the population. (For instance, I've never been able to find an interim meeting time that fits the schedules of all attendees.) But if they (we) always revert to the mailing list for decision making then I suspect our work can remain open and transparent.
Cheers, -Benson