Minute-taking app

[stvnrlly]

Here's an idea: what if we build a minute-taking app into the site? At the meeting, somebody just opens our site, clicks "New Minutes" or whatever, and starts filling in a form. Then, the app builds that into a nice, consistent, readable format, uploads it to the site, and provides a link to download it in multiple formats.

There are two issues I see with that approach, but I don't think they're big problems. First, how do we make sure that weirdos aren't submitting minutes, or that we don't end up with multiple minutes for one meeting? Requiring a login helps, but we can also do something with user permissions. For example, if your login email matches one of the emails listed in our spreadsheet, you receive minute-taking permissions for your ANC.

Second, these minutes would not be official, because they have not been approved by the commission. That might be something to work on later, but I think there's a huge benefit to having the minutes without a month's wait.

[JoshData]

So I wonder whether if a commissioner/secretary were using it to type up the minutes as the meeting was going, if, because it would be draft minutes, they wouldn't want it to be public until the draft is approved (next meeting presumably).

Or, if we just had a spot for them to enter a Live Meeting Summary, if that would make them less fearful to have it posted immediately.

[stvnrlly]

Yeah, something along those lines. The key feature of the app would be to improve issue tracking, I think, so it could even be something more basic like entering the date, commissioners present, and issues as they are discussed (with autocomplete if they've been discussed before)

[stvnrlly]

You know, we already have a place where minutes can be directly typed into the site. A user can use the "paste document text" version of uploading, and just type instead of pasting. This could be highlighted in some way if we want to encourage that.

[JoshData]

Right. That makes sense...