Not to mention that they are often interrupted by someone having to work, eat or go to the bathroom or some such nonsense.

You can try and hold it.

What we have to realize is that the time issue is mostly beyond our control.

It is agreed that life is what it is and no one is doing this full time. It is difficult to squeeze more things done out of a given day.

1. Planned meetings.
   These we know about at least a day in advance. In my option the person who called the meeting and/or presides over it should start a wiki document or something that shortly lists points he thinks should be discussed.
   Then other people taking part of the meeting will add their ideas to the wishlist. There is a deadline on this. After the deadline and before the meeting, the presiding member will go over the list and prioritize the points.

Unless it is a very large meeting, usually this can be done just minutes before the meeting. 10 mins. before the meeting should be fine for a cutoff. Still, I wouldn't throw out a good idea for a bullet point just because they didn't meet the deadline. We shouldn't plan 1/2 the meeting this way, but the occasional item here and there can be forgiven.

We should set an amount of time that we will allow discussion on a given topic. This will help prevent needless chit chat and wandering from the subject going too far. The presiding member can extend conversations at the expense of other agenda items if most everyone agrees that it is important enough.

1. Impromtu meetings.
   For these there should always be a list of issues that need discussion..preferably prioritized to some extent.
   Of course usually the meeting is called with a purpose, so the purpose goes to the top of the list.
   Otherwise the process is the same as for planned meetings.

There needs to be an agreement about who will transcribe the outcome on to the Wiki. These types of meetings would preferrably occur on IRC, and the contents / decisions should go in the Wiki. A mention of the meeting should go in a News item, so people who didn't happen to be around at the time can still read and comment / debate the decision. Even if you think no one would be interested in the meeting, it could be useful for historical purposes and for noobs sniffing around asking, "How / why was this decided?" Go read the Wiki and / or the logs you insufferable newb!

Communication...a big problem in an inter-timezone project like ours. Again I think it is rather imporant to realize that we can not overcome the need for sleep (not for long anyway), hence some things are certainly complicated. Here are my musings on communication issues and what we should think about.

The most important thing is - how do we deal with show stopping issues?
Everyone has different times when they are free to work on WW. However interdependencies can not and should not be elliminated - just coordinated more.
So let's take some examples.

1. I get up in the morning and decide to work on WW. Say I have 3 hours of time. After 20 mins I run into a problem - a UC lists 2 contradicting conditions. Which is true? I do not know enough about the subject and can not make a decision. So I can't work on it. Now everyone else is asleep at this time so my only possibility would be to mail the person who could answer the question or a list.
   A few things can be done to alleviate this situation:
   • Have other things to work on besides this, so the available 2.6 hours are not wasted.
   • Have me understand the subject well, so I can make the decision myself
   • Have the other people answer the mail asap..since our time difference is 7h, the shortest time limit we can set is 7h..but usually it can be answered quicker and should be, just in case I have some more time available right at that moment or something like that.
2. I am working on something during the time that others are awake. I run into a show stopping issue. But noone is around on IRC. How should I contact people? IRC lag can go as high as 1.5h..people can time out or even not answer the question at all. Mail...I have had mails not answered at all..or answered in several days time..not very nice in such a situation. Blogs are even worse than mail in this regard..also private matters are not suitable for blogging for sure. So what is the solution?
3. I am working on something and know that in 2 days I will get to a certain point in development where I need component X. I have no clue about component X and how it would be made. Someone else has to make it. How do I notify them that it should be done by that time? How do we make sure it does get done?

Post your own scenarios and of course ideas for solutions.