Re: Meetecho for interims?

[Fred Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Jul 31, 2020, at 1:22 PM, John Scudder <jgs=[e-mail]> wrote:
> Has there already been discussion about using Meetecho instead of WebEx for interims? After the experience of chairing our session today, I would be all in. It has some rough edges, but many fewer than WebEx.
> 
> The one thing I would hate to lose, though, would be the ability to self-schedule.

That would be my concern. MeetEcho is a good tool, but has the appearance of a labor-intensive back-end. I have been known to use the webex tool for purposes other than interim meetings...

In other fora, I find myself using zoom, and I'm not sure I could detail the differences between zoom-with-a-password and Webex-with-a-password. The security issues I have herd about seem to be largely resolved by requiring a password and perhaps letting someone be a gatekeeper for entry, regardless of tool.

There are two things I would ask for in any such tool. One is the ability for a participant to request the floor; in Zoom that is done by "raise hand", and I'm not sure how it is done in either webex or MeetEcho. The zoom capability keeps track of the order in which hands were raised, and makes that available on the "participants" window. It has the awkward quirk that the chair can't raise his/her hand; folks find themselves saying in the chat that they are inserting themselves into the queue.

The other thing is that all three tools seem to be very sure that there are three windows - the presenter's display, the chat window, and the participant list. Mumble. I find myself, for example, wanting to watch the presentation AND read the document. Folks in this forum seem to say "I have two laptops". Doable, but it seems unnecessary. It would be nice if the user could specify the user interface.