Archive:2007-07-15

This is a chapters meeting to organize both our chapters and the (inter)national organization for the upcoming fall semester.

RSVP
If you think you can make it to this meeting, please RSVP here! Please list your chapter, and link to your userpage on the wiki if you like.

Planning to attend

 * Nelson Pavlosky, George Mason Law / Swarthmore College alumnus
 * Gavin Baker, University of Florida / alumnus
 * Fred Benenson, New York University
 * Nicholas L., Swarthmore College
 * Ben M., Swarthmore College
 * Parker P., Chadwick School
 * Nile / John Li, University of Florida (hi mom!)
 * Dave Riordan
 * Christina, Brown University
 * Brian Rowe, Seattle University (most likely attending)
 * Asheeesh Laroia, very likely attending
 * .hj barraza, Monterrey Tech - Mexico
 * Andy Scudder, University of Evansville
 * Conley, Virginia Tech

Unable to attend

 * Kevin, Georgetown University (Out of the country from July 14th-26th)

Agenda
We have a lot to cover, so we won't be going very in-depth on most subjects; instead, we'll introduce the topic and direct interested individuals to the appropriate place. Feel free to ask a question at any time, but we will need to stay on topic and move through the agenda; further discussion can take place on the wiki, mailing lists, or IRC channel, or at future meetings.

Update chapter roster &amp; contacts
We need to figure out (1) which of our chapters will still be around next semester, and (2) who will serve as the contact for the national org. Many of our chapter contacts are graduating, so they either need to give us a new contact for their chapter, or confirm that their chapter is shutting down. We will have an official, automated way to do this through our website within the next few weeks, but for now we can just take an unofficial headcount.

How FreeCulture.org can help chapters
Inform chapters of resources available and ask where help is needed.

FreeCulture.org can offer chapters:
 * A subdomain (yourschool.freeculture.org) to redirect to your chapter's Web site, blog, or wiki
 * Wiki hosting for your chapter
 * Mailing list(s) for your chapter
 * Swag shipped to your chapter
 * Advice and witty banter from FreeCulture.org chapters and friends

In the future, FreeCulture.org will be able to offer chapters:
 * Blog hosting
 * Single login across FC.o-hosted wikis and blogs
 * Is this correct? --Gavin 17:10, 12 July 2007 (JST)
 * Yes, we hope. We're planning on running an OpenID server which will be recognized by all of our web software, but this may require some serious hacking and will take some time to implement. --Nelson 21:14, 12 July 2007 (JST)
 * Shared address book
 * More and better swag shipped to your chapter

Where to go to get help and/or make friends:
 * IRC channel
 * Mailing lists
 * Planet
 * Conference: Coming to a campus near you in 2008

News from FreeCulture.org

 * Potential projects
 * DMCA/P2P concerts with Digital Freedom Campaign
 * Net neutrality concerts with Future of Music Coalition
 * Opensearch
 * Swapnotes
 * Survey of U.S. Presidential candidates

Future of the organization

 * Ratify bylaws
 * Populate elected positions (e.g. Board of directors)

How to get involved with FreeCulture.org

 * Web Team
 * Volunteer meetings
 * Hang out on IRC

Log
Log available at 2007-07-15/log

Attendance

 * Nelson Pavlosky, George Mason Law / Swarthmore College alumnus
 * Gavin Baker, University of Florida alumnus
 * Fred Benenson, New York University
 * Nicholas L., Swarthmore College
 * Ben M., Swarthmore College
 * Parker P., Chadwick School
 * Nile / John Li, University of Florida
 * Eldo Varghese, University of Florida
 * Christina, Brown University
 * Brian Rowe, Seattle University
 * Asheeesh Laroia
 * .hj barraza, Monterrey Tech - Mexico
 * Conley, Virginia Tech

Update chapter roster &amp; contacts

 * Chapter roster
 * Nelson kind of took care of a lot of that while calling people to remind them of the meeting
 * chapters that no longer exist include University of Oregon and Hampshire College
 * chapters that still theoretically exist but whom Nelson could not reach
 * well, their contact graduated, e.g. Emerson, UNC
 * Fred: why don't we make a category for them? like "Once Active, Now Possibly Defunct due to Graduation, etc."
 * We're in the process of overhauling our chapter database
 * Asheesh will have an ETA by mid-week
 * once the chapters database is overhauled, we're going to have to ask all of our chapters to re-register
 * Why
 * the old database is too crufty
 * full of out of date info
 * and it'll also help us tell who is active and who isn't
 * chapters that don't reregister after repeated e-mails, IMs, phone calls etc. can be considered dead
 * we need to get our chapters re-registered before the semester starts
 * need up-to-date shipping info for swag
 * swag from friends plus some stuff of our own!
 * But we have no XL T-shirts, and very few L
 * We need to better handle transitions of when people graduate, etc.

How FreeCulture.org can help chapters
Currently, FreeCulture.org offers chapters:
 * A subdomain (yourschool.freeculture.org) to redirect to your chapter's Web site, blog, or wiki (hosted on your site or ours)
 * Wiki hosting for your chapter
 * Not blog hosting... but in the future, yes
 * Mailing list(s) for your chapter
 * Swag shipped to your chapter
 * Advice and witty banter from FreeCulture.org chapters and friends

Where to go to get help and/or make friends:
 * Mailing lists
 * In particular, ask questions on the Chapters list
 * Chapters meetings: re-starting?
 * Hang out in the IRC channel
 * Planet
 * Help populate Planet FreeCulture.org! Add your blog as a comment at this bug on Launchpad
 * Conference: Coming to a campus near you in 2008
 * Probably on the U.S. West Coast... it's sunny out there!

News from FreeCulture.org
This is a list of some projects FC.o has tentatively been involved with. Some initial planning has been done; to proceed, they need volunteers; on the other hand, it's not too late to back out on them. For now, decisions about what to work on will be made by (who?)


 * DMCA/P2P concerts with Digital Freedom Campaign
 * Net neutrality concerts with Future of Music Coalition
 * Opensearch
 * Swapnotes
 * Survey of U.S. Presidential candidates (with friendly orgs)

To get involved with any of these or to learn more, come to the first volunteer on 2007-07-22 (see below for more info).

Future of the organization

 * one problem that has plagued our organization is ... a lack of organization
 * we have no by-laws or constitution or any founding document
 * so it's unclear how decisions are made
 * a while ago a bunch of people appointed themselves to a Board of Directors
 * there were theoretically elections, but since all seats were uncontested we didn't even bother voting
 * and it's not clear how we would have conducted the election properly anyway
 * this is one of many examples of the evils of not having bylaws
 * it's important to know how the organization works and how decisions are made
 * and it's important to have an organizational structure, a system that can outlive any single personality
 * we have a draft of Bylaws that we have written up on the wiki
 * Nelson would like to officially open a comments period for these by-laws
 * Comment on the Discussion page
 * the Talk page the "official" forum for discussing the bylaws
 * Once we have collected comments, we should do a second "release candidate"
 * RC will be prepared by "consensus" at a meeting on 2007-07-29
 * That means everyone has 2 weeks to comment on the bylaws and hash out what we want in the RC
 * and then we should have the chapters ratify the bylaws
 * once the by-laws are ratified, we will have an official organizational structure
 * Goal deadline for end of voting on ratification: 2007-08-05
 * Each chapter can decide how that chapter's vote is decided (e.g. by unilateral decision of the president, by vote of the officers / executive board, by vote of the membership -- unless FC.o hears otherwise, it'll assume the president speaks for the chapter)
 * once we have the by-laws ratified, we'll know how to hold elections
 * and it's high time that we elected a new board of directors and got some new blood into the org
 * Nelson would like to get the elections finished before school starts
 * we'll have our new leadership ready before people get too busy
 * Goal deadline to open the polls for the Board of directors: 2007-08-12
 * Nominations are 2007-08-06 to 2007-08-11?
 * Close polls by 2007-08-19
 * Once the votes are counted, we'll have a new board!

How to get involved with FreeCulture.org

 * Existing volunteer opportunities
 * Web Team
 * See the list of bugs on Launchpad. Can you help with any of these (particularly high-priority ones)?
 * Join the mailing list
 * Hang out on IRC
 * Upcoming volunteer opportunities
 * Announcing weekly volunteer meetings! Next meeting: 2007-07-22 (Sunday), 8 pm EDT, in #freeculture (See IRC for help)
 * Announcing volunteers mailing list!
 * Join up! Tell your friends!
 * Hanging out on IRC is a good way to find out about stuff, too!

(For broader discussion, see the log starting at 23:06:43)