Meetings and records

Meetings concentrate discussion; they do not replace the persistent working record. Members should be able to prepare beforehand, contribute without attending live and inspect what happened afterwards.

Before a meeting

• Read the agenda, candidate version, questions and evidence references named in the notice.
• Add a Teams reply or website comment early when clarification would help everyone prepare.
• Declare relevant affiliation, conflicts or material interests.
• Do not circulate a private meeting link or invitation beyond the approved group.
• Tell the organiser about accessibility needs or if asynchronous participation is required.

What meetings should focus on

Useful meeting time is spent on scope, evidence, contested meaning, examples, counterexamples, open questions and review of visible candidate changes. Formal modelling can happen between meetings; participants are not expected to edit RDF, OWL, SKOS or SHACL in the session.

Recording and transcription

• Recording or transcription must be announced and follow the agreed consent, access and retention conditions.
• A transcript should record its date, context and speakers where known.
• Sensitive or restricted discussion must not be copied into a public review surface.
• Audio and video files are not accepted as source-intake submissions; provide an authorised transcript instead.

After a meeting

1. Publish or circulate the permitted notes, transcript and action record.
2. Link each substantive point to the relevant persistent question or review thread.
3. State whether a point is evidence, a proposal, an unresolved issue or an agreed action.
4. Give people who could not attend a clear asynchronous route and deadline for feedback.
5. Carry only reviewed and recorded outcomes into the next candidate.

Meeting attendance is not authority

Attendance, silence, reactions and message volume do not by themselves establish consensus. ADR-0068 proposes a canonical issue record, asynchronous confirmation, consensus calls and ratification stages, but ADR-0068 remains proposed. Until OPDA adopts that lifecycle, pages must not present its exact thresholds or time windows as operative rules.

The safe working principle is narrower: a decision discussed live should be posted with its rationale and affected candidate so absent members can inspect it, and no meeting-only statement should silently change the model.