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Add a short summary of Stack, why Stack, and how to take Stack on Zoom
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Especially as we are now all increasingly online, this includes a guide
on best practices for how to run a meeting online using Stack.

I'm uncertain of where best to link to it (index? individual local
pages?), but this should at least be linkable once up.
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ethulhu committed May 10, 2020
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---
layout: page
title: Progressive Stack
permalink: /stack/
---
# Stack

Many TWC chapter meetings using a technique called [Progressive
Stack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_stack) to manage the order of
who speaks during a discussion. Below is a brief summary of why and how it
works.

## Principles

Stack is intended to make group discussions more equitable to prevent a small
group from dominating a discussion. A person, the _stack-taker_, manages the
stack and is in charge of deciding the order of who speaks next. In particular,

- Prefer to hear first from people who haven't spoken yet, or don't often
speak.
- Prefer to hear first from marginalized people who may otherwise be silenced,
ignored, or discouraged by "they who shout loudest" or "first come first
served" orderings.

Relatedly, registering a desire to speak should be a low-friction one-time
action. For example, briefly raising a hand and attracting the attention of the
stack-taker, rather than needing to hold a hand up until the current speaker
has finished, which may not be possible for some people.

In addition to a facilitator and minute-taker, we recommend having a third
person to manage the stack.

## In-person

For in-person meetings, a person registers their desire to speak by raising a
hand. If they want to interject or talk about a current point, they can raise
both hands. When someone finishes speaking, the stack-taker chooses the next
person to speak, returning to the facilitator if the stack is empty.

## Remote meetings

Taking stack has challenges in remote meetings, as not every participant will
have video, it's hard to keep track of everyone's videos at once, and so on.
Below are some procedures and tips we've found helpful managing the stack for
specific remote meeting tools.

### Zoom

A person can "raise a hand" by:

- Raising their hand if they are on video. This is not possible for people
without video, and may be infeasible for large meetings.
- Using the `Raise Hand` feature in Zoom.
- NOTE: Meeting hosts cannot use the `Raise Hand` feature, so will have to
use some other mechanism to raise their hand.
- Using one of the 👏 or 👍 emoji overlays.
- Posting in the chat that they would like to speak.

The person taking stack should then post changes to the stack in the chat. For example,

```
*person A raises hand*
stack-taker: "stack: A"
*person B raises hand*
stack-taker: "stack: A, B"
*person A talks*
stack-taker: "stack: B"
*person B talks*
stack-taker: "stack:"
```

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