[PDB Data Ownership-TF] Discussion on the mailing list vs Google Doc updates

[Filiz Yilmaz]

Dear all,


I would like to follow-up on a point that came up during the recent discussions:

We have the following medium available for us to have our discussions and then document the resulting policies we will hopefully agree upon: 

- Mailing list

- Online meetings that happen every other week 

- A Google Document which we decided to draft as the Policy Document 



We have called for an action to contribute in the Policy Document as you may remember. However this assumed this would be done reflecting the points discussed priorly. Now if it is done in isolation or without a prior discussion on the points that get noted on the document or at least without some kind of collective agreement or acknowledgement regarding these points, having a focused document and a discussion seem to become more and more challenging. 

Unfortunately, not all of us find the opportunity to attend every meeting due to various reasons from time to time. So I understand it is not easy to follow-up all discussions, especially if these discussions only happen during the meetings. 

Accordingly I would like to propose that we make edits on the document only after a discussion and an ack from others on the mailing list from now on.
So if you are to add a new bit/wording/section on the document, please start a thread about it. We can then discuss it on the mailing list and if necessary re-visit it during the next meeting. After the discussion concludes we can put the wording in the document. 

Also, if such a discussion took place during a meeting and there was consensus to have some text on the document as a reflection of the agreement, pls listen to the recordings first and start a discussion on the mailing list if you do not agree with what is written or even decided. 

Google document allows some commenting but that functionality does not provide a coherent and powerful discussion environment for a group of this size. 
Also just deleting bits of previously existing text is not easy to track with the revision history of Google docs. We better make these deletions consciously after a proper discussion on the mailing list if there are especially fundamentally different point of views. 

By no means, I am suggesting we stop contributing to the Google Document, but I am merely suggesting allowing and having proper discussions prior to wording point of views. Lets first try to have agreements and then reflect them on the Google doc. And best medium we have to have these discussions and agreements on seem to the mailing list simple (because not everyone are able to attend the online meetings).   

Can we agree on this moving forward? 

If you have concerns pls raise on the mailing list so we can have a discussion in this thread. 

As I noted during the last meeting, I am taking next week off. I will catch up with discussions from 20 Jan onwards. 

Kind regards 

Filiz