Nimbus - 2003 announces Chats!

[Gwen]

Greetings, HP Grownups!

It is with great pleasure that I invite you to
participate in a series of weekly chats that the
Nimbus - 2003 staff is holding to make the fans a
greater part of the planning process. Please feel free
to cross-post this message to lists with folks who
might be interested in participating.

The first of the Nimbus - 2003 chats will be held on
Friday, September 20, at 9 pm EDT, in the HPFGU chat
room (instructions are in the Humongous Bigfile!). The
topic will be a general Question and Answer session
with several staff members.

In an attempt to make it possible for folks all over
the world to participate in chats, we'll keep the same
topic for 2 weeks running, and the second chat for any
given topic will be at a rotating time.

For example, this week's chat is Q/A at 9 pm EDT. Next
week's chat, on September 27, will also be Q/A, but it
will be held at 9 pm Pacific Daylight Time. The
following week, October 4, we'll discuss Site
Logistics at 9 pm EDT, but the week after that
(October 11) will be Site Logistics II at 9 pm Central
European, or 9 am EDT.

We'll go on that way for a few weeks, including a
brief Q/A period at the beginning of each chat, at
least up until the beginning of November. A complete
schedule will be posted at the end of each chat
session and during the week before the next session.

For your convenience, I've appended a short list of
the chat rules we'll be using at the end of this
message.

Hope to see many people there, and in the future as
well!


Chat Rules:

First and foremost, the chats are NOT a determination
of policy for the Symposium. Chats are a method of
obtaining feedback and suggestions from the
population. We cannot promise to implement every
suggestion at chat, no matter how much excitement any
idea generates within the conversation. It is our hope
that chats will generate some ideas that can be passed
on to the symposium planning team, and if they can't
be used at Nimbus - 2003, perhaps they can be used at
a future symposium.

We'd like to keep some order to how things are done,
so here are some basic chat rules. Courtesy is a must.
No personal attacks or grossly off-topic conversation
will be allowed in the chat room, and those who engage
in either will be asked to leave. Please do not type
over and interrupt when others have the floor. The
moderator will give the floor to people by name in an
orderly fashion. To determine when a person is
finished speaking, we've decided to use the keystroke,
### or #### at the end of that person's last comment.

The first exception to interruption is that the
moderator for the chat will repeat the topic at hand
and the name of the person who has the floor whenever
anyone new enters the room (not including leaving and
immediately returning). 

The moderator will also only answer one question at a
time. If someone asks a question, please hold off
asking another one until the moderator has answered or
designated someone else to answer. #### will mark the
end of the answer, and then the next person may ask
the next question. If several people's questions pop
up at once, we'll answer them in the order they appear
on the screen.

The second exception to "waiting" for someone else to
finish is during a brainstorm session. Periodically we
will ask chatters to brainstorm, and during that time,
please feel free to type and send as many on-topic
suggestions as you wish. The timekeeper will count
down to the end of the brainstorming, at which point
please stop and go back to waiting for others to
finish. During brainstorming, no one may comment on,
especially to put down, someone else's idea--we will
review the suggestions at the end of the brainstorm
period. The person who suggested something gets to
evaluate it first, and then the moderator will ask for
additional comments. Again, wait until you see someone
use ### before you step in. If it gets too chaotic,
the moderator will call on each person in alphabetic
order to comment, and if you have no comment, simply
type #### so conversation can continue quickly.

Each chat will also include an informal section during
the last 15 minutes or so, where we encourage folks to
discuss the Symposium freely. Make additional
suggestions, discuss plans to travel, meet, share
rooms, or anything else you want to do while at Walt
Disney World, ask other questions--this is your time.
Off-topic conversation is not allowed, but general HP
discussion is allowed. If there is a staff person who
can stay past the prescribed amount of time, then chat
may continue. The chat will end when the last Nimbus -
2003 staff person has to leave the room. 

Transcripts of each chat will be uploaded to the
HPFGU-Convention files section.

The Nimbus - 2003 staff reserve the right to adjust
these chat rules if and when necessary.

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