Archive:2005-06-26

Conference call on 7 p.m. EST, 26 June 2005.

Wiki Procedures
The board requests that everyone who attends a conference call or wants to be involved with FC.o administration / decision-making:
 * Create an account on the wiki
 * Learn how the wiki works
 * Make a user page on the wiki
 * Keep a public to-do list
 * Check out User:Gavinbaker and User:Skyfaller for examples

Hopefully this will have three effects:
 * 1) Centralize more information on the wiki
 * 2) Make the wiki less a ghetto (with many eyes, all ghettos are shallow)
 * 3) Make it easier to know who's doing what

Staff / titles
There was a discussion on the mailing list about people's titles / staff positions. We seemed to come to a tentative agreement, but it was a bit uneasy. Maybe we should just hold off on any titles or positions for now -- so there's no "executive director," no "treasurer," etc. People will continue to be responsible for whatever needs doing (somebody has to do it) but we'll wait to discuss officers / staff positions until after we talk about the board of directors.

Mission
The areas of FC.o's activities that we discussed last week:


 * 1) Providing resources to campus groups
 * 2) Outreach / recruiting
 * 3) Networking (among campus groups and with outside organizations)
 * 4) Activism / lobbying
 * 5) Research

Research was the least disccused, and the only activity that we haven't yet attempted. It also raised some doubts: How much do people trust paid research from a group with a stated, non-academic objective? Would sponsoring research be a better use of funds than sponsoring art or software?

So, I (Gavin) propose that we drop "Research" as a separate category. There's no reason that we couldn't do research, should the occasion arise, as part of providing resources (like EFF White Papers), networking (collaborating with outside groups on research), or lobbying (research targeted at decision-makers). By dropping it as a separate category, we retain the flexibility to do research if we want to, but we're not obligated to do it because it's in our mission statement.

My proposal for the official activities of FC.o, to be later expanded into a mission statement:


 * 1) Resources for students
 * 2) Outreach
 * 3) Networking
 * 4) Advocacy

Org Structure
Assuming we come to a decision on the mission, we should now be able to return to the organizational structure discussion. Nelson and I think we can do this in two weeks. Here's the plan:


 * 1) After today's call, everyone will leave with a task: either to research the organizational structure of a certain group, to look over our past discussions of org structure and pull anything important, or to draft the proposal.
 * 2) Throughout the week, we'll share what we come up with, and talk about it.
 * 3) On the 2005-07-03 call, we'll summarize and discuss the proposal. We'll flag any parts of the proposal that need work, keeping whatever is acceptable.
 * 4) We'll revise the flagged parts and aim to make a final decision on 2005-07-10.
 * 5) From that point, we'll
 * 6) need to turn our decisions into by-laws
 * 7) need to populate whatever bodies we created (e.g. fill the seats of the board of directors).

Groups to research
Who might we look at for possible structure models?
 * Debian Project
 * Student Global AIDS Thingie
 * LUGs / hobbyist groups
 * Fraternal / service organizations (e.g. Lions, Elk, 4-H, Jaycees)
 * College Democrats / Republicans, etc.
 * Labor unions

Let the guests speak
Hopefully we haven't left the guests waiting too long, because at this point I would like:
 * Jonathan Mendelson from CMU to talk about College Dems
 * Jake Wachman from Stanford to talk about the Roosevelt institution

Possible Fall Programing
Jimbo (Jimmy Wales) proposed that he would be willing to travel around doing a freeculture speech tour. Basically in exchange for travel money and some minimal payement.

CC Happy Birthday Song

 * Do we want to persue this matter any longer?
 * If we do, then what should we do?

Attendance

 * Nelson, Elizabeth, Eldo, Ben Li, Gavin, Mike, Andy
 * Guests: Jonathan (College Democrats, CMU), Jake Roosevelt Institution, Stanford), Matt Woodbury (Free Press, Swarthmore),

Week in Review

 * Mailing List discussions
 * Mission activities
 * T-Shirts, Banners, Merch
 * Gavin got us a PO Box
 * (Someone) accidentally deleted all the flags from the blogs
 * CC's birthday gift (haven't responded!)
 * Nelson & Asheesh chatted with Luis Brazil. Matt from the UK showed up too.
 * Matt was interested in starting a Wiki for all schools in Britain. Wants chapters to self organize. (more about that on my user page! MattL 12:20, 27 Jun 2005 (EDT))
 * Lots of FC activity down in Brazil
 * Possibly people from pirate radio station; at a university located in South Hollow;
 * There is interest among his friends, and wants to do FC video to drum up more interest (either in English or Portuguese)
 * People in Peru have talked about starting a group there, and Argentina
 * Not enough time for outreach to everyone, i.e. w/ other countries

Wiki Procedures/Communications

 * Lets do more Wikiing rather than emailing!
 * All committee members are to get a wiki User Page and setup a public to-do list
 * So everyone can see what each other is doing, and have a better idea of whats going on
 * Tasks have been put out on the mailing list. Alot of talking, but little action.
 * Perhaps if we define the responsibilities for now, and set up preliminary list of positions/responsibilities on the wiki.
 * Everyone should leave the call with a task, maybe we can get more work done with specific assignments
 * Contact Information
 * We need to share contact info on FC core, like a facebook.
 * But some schools are not on facebook (in high school, or other countries.
 * May do a call for developers to help - perhaps thru downhill battle?
 * Using a private wiki might be a better, more immediate solution without depending on external help
 * Conference calls
 * Need to stay on target on the agenda
 * Maybe have a rotating meeting chair/facilitator to keep us on track?
 * Should we have more specialized meetings on specific topics?
 * IM Chats
 * Switch to Jabber? Its like email, you can setup your own server.
 * IRC chat on Wednesday - to be confirmed.

Jobs/Responsibilties

 * Wiki Page @ Jobs


 * Outreach
 * Eliz has volunteered to coordinate international outreach.
 * Eldo has volunteered to coordinate local outreach.
 * Both will have access to new groups email
 * Nelson & Gavin will forward relevant stuff from the freedom email
 * Gavin rename newgroups mailing list to outreach, and grant access for Eldo and Eliz
 * Need to outreach to conservatives/girls!
 * FC now primarily white liberal guys?
 * Also mentioned earlier: artists
 * Communications
 * Ben Li has volunteered to coordinate communications
 * Handle Agenda, minutes, etc
 * Eldo will also be helping out with mail moderation.

CC Birthday Gift
licenses. But they also wanted to make a point.
 * What should we do about the CC gift? How do we thank them?
 * There was an initial blog post about it. Maybe a thank you on our blog?
 * Well-intentioned, but possible criticisms about the money paid for the
 * We could post on blog (making it public), and sending it to them personally.
 * FreeCulture movement is a misnomer. Named that way for non-profit donations?
 * Elizabeth will talk to Fred.
 * Will also sort out birthday blog post - by wed. Gavin will inform her.
 * Should we do something for CC's birthday? Or for EFF?
 * Birthday song with other languages/nonsense lyrics
 * (alot of crazy talk)
 * CC's birthday: CC launched (july?) 2001, licenses released - dec 15, 2002
 * More info in Lessig blog?

Guests on call

 * Jonathan speaking about CDA and a possible organizational structure
 * Organizational manual, should getting this stuff going ASAP
 * Focusing on outreach before end of summer, get resources ready for the first two or three weeks of fall recruitment
 * Pointed us to College Democrats Organizing Manual


 * Matt working with Free Press on media reform
 * Concerned with big media, and media consolidation; want to make media support the public interest
 * Liberal organization, but more because its against media consolidation than an ideological standpoint
 * Supports PBS as a different voice that services democracy
 * Worked on expanding low power fm, municipal wireless
 * Invited us to their national conference on media reform
 * Gavin: reasons for opposing x / advocating y can reflect ideology
 * So we shld always relate everything back to free & participatory culture?

Mission & Org Structure

 * Mission Statement Wiki Page @ Mission Statement
 * Org Structure Wiki Page @ Organizational Structure
 * Debate over discussing org stucture vs. doing stuff about current issues like WIPO dev agenda, grokster, low-power fm, activist packet
 * We need to be able to handle everything at once, not just one first or the other
 * Gavin will dump mission statement stuff from the agenda on the mission Statement wiki
 * Everyone should leave their comments/proposals on wiki discussion page
 * Task for everyone: go research org structure of orgs listed in the agenda! (now also on Org structure wikipage. Link above.)

Misc

 * Copynight, post Grokster
 * Give a heads up to the discuss list?
 * Outside funding for summer interning
 * e.g. Harvard's public interest internship
 * Should look up others for next summer

Tabled

 * Mission
 * Research into other group's org structure
 * Possible Fall activities (Jimbo's 'tour')

--Xycodex 01:23, 27 Jun 2005 (EDT)