I am writing an email to someone to have a meeting over skype in the future. Which of the two sentences are correct?
Would you mind if the conversation was conducted over skype, as the reception is clearer?
vs
Would you mind if the conversation is conducted over skype, as the reception is clearer?
Regards
Neither. The correct question would be, Would you mind if the conversation were conducted over Skype?
As others have already stated, the correct verb is were, a common use of the subjunctive mood.
Requests of the sort you are writing to your friend are generally made in the subjunctive mood.
@HalosGhost, I must respectfully disagree with you. Just because there is an if in the sentence doesn't make it a hypothetical. I am assuming that that is the reason you're calling it a hypothetical; please forgive me if I am wrong about that. The reason the sentence needs the subjunctive is that it is making a request. For example, you can easily change the wording to this:
Would you mind that the conversation be conducted over Skype as the reception is clearer?
Notice I have removed the if, replacing it with a that and changed the verb to the subjunctive be. This sentence is equivalent to the original, but no one would claim it's a hypothetical.
But even if one were to rearrange the sentence to make it into a hypothetical, he still wouldn't use the subjunctive here. The reason is that not only the statement must be a hypothetical, but also the writer must believe that the stated hypothetical is either impossible or extremely unlikely, neither of which seem to apply here.
