Meeting Minutes: As-Was or As-Is?

Considering that "making a record of what happened" is core to so many PM processes, it is always surprising to see how many PM-related meetings go by with no record.

There are a least four schools of thought with regard to minutes:

1. Minutes should be in sufficient detail that key stakeholders who could not attend can still get a good sense of what happened and why
2. Minutes should be very abbreviated, conveying little more than a listing of what topics were discussed and a record of whatever decisions were made
3. Minutes should reflect for future generations what was eventually arrived at and not why. Therefore, not only should they be abbreviated, but meeting members should be free to amend (and if necessary reverse themselves) after the fact 
4. Minutes are just another waste of time.  If anything really important happens, w can put it on an action-items list. 

Items 1 and 2 are the mainstream options, with Item 2 bring (in my experience) what most people do

Personally I believe in Item 1, consistent with my corporate slogan, "It does matter how decisions get made". More importantly, for future stability, it is also important to understand why a decision was reached and the points of view that the "no" votes might have offered.  Not so that later on we can point fingers and say "I told you so", but rather so that much later yet, another PM reviewing the record has the insight to avoid going down a particular path for the right reasons.

Reasonably detailed minutes have the following advantages:
(a) Most of the people in the meeting won't write anything down. No wonder actions don't get followed up on; why should they? Nobody remembers what they were ... until the next meeting, when they remember things rather differently from what they did agree to and everyone else already starting acting accordingly.
(b) One of the key people will likely not be there. Life is that way. Decent meeting notes will let them know where everybody moved to while they were out.
(c) At some point in the future there will be turnover. A quick read through of the notes of actual meetings, even of 50+ weekly meetings, will bring a person up to speed much faster than poring over dense and probably unused policy manuals.

In addition to the detail, check out Greg McKeown's post on the 30-second retrospective. And make sure you add whatever action is required to move forward on the the important point to your calendar.

It would be so tempting to dismiss Item 4 out of hand this line of thinking -- but it seems to be so prevalent. In fact, we'll spend another whole post on why so many people disagree with this ... and then do it anyway.

Item # 3 may seem facetious, but my very respected colleague Vic Rosenberg, a former CXO in a major company and executive coach, tells me that it is quite frequent, especially in (oddly) more mature organizations.  Since the formal meetings are somewhat pro forma (you don't go to them hoping to get approval, but to ratify what everyone already agree to), does it really matter who voted for what when, as long as the record is that "it was agreed" to do X?

What has your experience been on this?  Is Option 3 really all that prevalent?