Re: [ga] Listen-only ports

["Roberto Gaetano" <ploki_xyz@hotmail.com>]

Andy Gardner wrote:

>
>"Attendance" is realtime. If one is due to "attend" a board meeting and an
>observer, but misses the bus, turns up late and only gets to listen to a
>recording of the meeting, that person would be marked as "not in
>attendance" in the minutes.
>
>"Attendance" is being there. "Participating" is being there and having your
>voice heard.
>
>We may not have the right to "participate", but we have the right to
>"attend". Listening to MP3 after the event is not "attending" and is not
>even an unsubstancial equivalent.
>


I have mixed feelings about the matter.

While Andy is right on the difference between "attending" and 
"participating", the concept of "attending" in itself has to be stretched if 
attendence is not "in person", but via electronic media.
To me "attending" means "to be there in time and space". I am attending a 
football match if I go to the stadium, not if I watch it on television. In 
the example of the person missing the bus, if he/she was sick and saw the 
live broadcast of the event in real time on television, he/she would be 
marked as absent anyhow.

But this is theory. In practice, as Bret is pointing out, there is a 
cost-benefit analysis that we should carry on before making a decision.
For me, but this is just my personal view, I don't see any advantage in 
"listening to" (because this is the real thing that is going to happen, in 
either case) in real-time over the phone versus listening to the recording 
over the web, given the fact that I have no way to react in real-time, like 
for instance sending comments via e-mail. In other words, for me it makes 
little difference to listen to the event when it happens or a couple of 
hours later.
Of course, I might be biased from the fact that there is a substantial cost 
from my part in making a phone call to the US from over here.
Maybe my mileage would vary if I had a substantially lower cost, like for 
instance if I were in North America, or the number to call would be in 
Austria, or if somebody would pay for the call. But since none of these 
conditions are likely to apply, I stay with the current system.

It is a little bit like watching sports events on television: I can live 
with the recorded tape, as long as I don't know the results in advance.
Now this might bring up another subject, but let's leave it there for the 
time being...

Regards
Roberto


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