Using Chat during a Zoom meeting

[Guest Jan]

Has anyone developed guidelines for using chat during meetings?  I can see where it would be helpful for items associated with the meeting--clarification on a motion, an email address for a speaker, etc., but I find in some meetings people are chatting back and forth on a personal basis and it is disruptive. 

[Guest Zev]

Why not get two chat rooms, one for the regular business and one for people that want to talk to each other during the business session?

[Guest Federal Farmer Jr.]

I attended an electronic meeting yesterday when an ex-officio member President of the University) sent the body a chat room message which had a chilling effect on conversation. In my opinion, the chat room feature where an individual  attending the meeting could 'message' the entire body without being recognized by the Chair should be disabled. Otherwise, the entire meeting could be 'hijacked' by the chat room features, and the powers of the Chair eviscerated. I realize Roberts has provided some model rules for Zoom meetings, though I doubt they will bore down to this important detail. 

[Richard Brown]

Guest Jan, I agree that the chat feature in zoom meetings can be very distracting. I’m not even aware of an option to stop the pop-ups on your screen during chat when you are trying to focus on the presentation and not even looking in the “chat room“.

I am not aware of any sample rules or guidelines for the use of chat but it may well be that some of our members know of such a guideline or sample rules.  

 I participate in many Zoom meetings where the chat feature is either disabled completely or is limited to very specific uses and the restriction is enforced by hosts with the power to expel people from the meeting if their warnings are ignored.

I am not at all in favor of having two chat rooms going during a meeting at Guest Zev suggested. If people do not want to participate in the meeting, they should not even be in it.  People who use the chat feature in a zoom meeting are disturbing everyone because of the pop-ups that appear on everyone’s computer screens every time someone types a message to “all” in the chat box. 

Perhaps some of our members with significant zoom meeting experience will respond with some suggestions.
 

[Weldon Merritt]

On 11/3/2021 at 3:30 PM, Richard Brown said:

Perhaps some of our members with significant zoom meeting experience will respond with some suggestions.

I think there is a way to disable chat except for going to a specific person, but I an not sure how to do it.

 

[Richard Brown]

On 11/3/2021 at 6:25 PM, Weldon Merritt said:

I think there is a way to disable chat except for going to a specific person, but I an not sure how to do it.

 

The host who sets up the meeting can limit the chat functions, but I don't know if that can be done during the meeting and I believe only the host or the person who set up the meeting can do that.  I've been in several meetings where either chat is disabled or we are limited to sending chat messages to only one or a few people, usually hosts and co-hosts.  The  option to send a chat message to "everyone" is frequently disabled.

If anyone knows how an individual meeting participant can stop the first few words of chat messages from popping up  on my screen in a small box, I would be most appreciative!!  It is terribly distracting and often covers up something I am trying to read on my screen.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 11/1/2021 at 10:09 PM, Guest Jan said:

Has anyone developed guidelines for using chat during meetings?  I can see where it would be helpful for items associated with the meeting--clarification on a motion, an email address for a speaker, etc., but I find in some meetings people are chatting back and forth on a personal basis and it is disruptive. 

It's up to the assembly to set its rules.  The usual method is motion, second, debate, vote.  

[Shmuel Gerber]

On 11/3/2021 at 7:38 PM, Richard Brown said:

If anyone knows how an individual meeting participant can stop the first few words of chat messages from popping up  on my screen in a small box, I would be most appreciative!!  It is terribly distracting and often covers up something I am trying to read on my screen.

Obviously not a question of parliamentary procedure, but …

You can open the chat window before anyone sends a message. Then you won't get the pop-up notification.

If you don't want to see the messages at all, you can do either of these things:

- Open the participants list as well, and then drag the divider to resize the chat portion of the window to be so small that no text is visible. (Don't use the "minimize" control, because that will cause the pop-up notifications to become active again.)

- Pop out the chat window and drag the title bar until the chat message area is hanging invisibly off the bottom of the screen.

[R.W.]

I would like to offer an alternative to Shmuel's dragging.

1) Open the Chat window and then open the ellipsis window at the bottom.

2) Select No Chat to not see any messages at all.  Select Hosts and Co-Hosts to only see the potentially important messages.

[Shmuel Gerber]

On 11/9/2021 at 4:28 PM, R.W. said:

I would like to offer an alternative to Shmuel's dragging.

1) Open the Chat window and then open the ellipsis window at the bottom.

2) Select No Chat to not see any messages at all.  Select Hosts and Co-Hosts to only see the potentially important messages.

That looks like what the host sees, not what an ordinary participant sees.

[Richard Brown]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:49 PM, Shmuel Gerber said:

That looks like what the host sees, not what an ordinary participant sees.

I agree. I have never seen those options as a meeting participant.  I will have a friend set up a two person zoom meeting so we can experiment, though.

[Steven Britton]

In meetings that I've chaired it is advisable to adopt Meeting Standing Rules at the begining of the meeting and to a rule concerning the use of the chat.

Concerning members abusing  the chat, the main concern that I see are when members at the meeting attempt to carry on debate or other conversations in the chat.

The chat function may be vital to process motions that interupt, or the processing of long worded motions. As such, I would not advise a group eliminate it.

However, in a association meeting I chaired last spring, after a member exhausted her/his two turns to speak in debate, s/he attempted to continue debating (that is, take a third turn) in the chat. As chair, at my first opportunity without interupting a speaker, I reminded the assembly that all debate needed to be addressed through receiving the chair's recognition, and further, if the member has exhausted his/her turns to address the assembly, the assembly itself needed to authorize her/his continued debate.  There were no other incidents of members abusing the chat function at this meeting.

Edited November 10, 2021 at 12:14 PM by Steven Britton