Archive:2006-09-17

This general meeting is scheduled for Sunday September 17, 2006 at 5pm EDT. Please add to the agenda below!

How to get involved in the national org

 * Get a job

Attendance
These people announced themselves:
 * Steve McLaughlin from UPenn
 * Steven Chabot from Toronto
 * Anthony Patarini from University of Alaska Fairbanks
 * Dave Riordan from Hamilton College
 * Asheesh Laroia from jhu.edu (chapterlessly)
 * Nelson Pavlosky from, um, Swarthmore
 * Scott Shawcroft from the University of Washington in Seattle
 * Ben DeRogatis from Franklin and Marshall
 * Karen Rustad -- president-in-exile from Claremont.
 * Janet Hawtin - non-student from Australia

FCo blogging
These people want to help out with freeculture.org (inter)national blogging: If you want to help out, you should go to http://freeculture.org/blog/wp-admin/ and register. After the meeting, talk to skyfaller for permissions.
 * Steven Chabot
 * Dave Riordan
 * Ben DeRogatis

Steven thinks we can push out a post a day if we get enough people blogging. Asheesh thinks we should aim for twice a week, once during the week and once on the weekend. Nelson doesn't think that a certain number of posts per day is a necessary goal.

Ok, so that should be a stated desire for improvement from this meeting: More blog posts, from more people.

Nelson declares that everyone who wants to blog should be on the blogteam@freeculture mailing list, and that news items that people think should be blogged should be posted there. That way, people have ideas to draw from "and we can discuss how to cover the news if it is politically sensitive."

Web team hackery

 * cwilkin is the leader, in theory, but has been missing for a while; Asheesh has been filling in a little.

These people can help out with web team hackery:
 * e1presidente


 * Asheesh might look into OpenID-enabling our WordPress install.

Non-profit updates
Non-profit is stalled while we wait for a pro bono lawyer

FC.o channel on Democracy Player
This idea got widespread approval in theory. Nelson likes it "provided it doesn't take significant resources from other areas of the organization...".

we can take care of the channel at the web team meeting on Weds, or on our own time

This could be tied into the Anti-DRM video project, points out David.

Non-student presence

 * Janet asked if a non-campus-based chapter would be possible; Asheesh suggested "an affialiated organization" might be possible instead.

How can the national org help chapters?

 * Anthony asks FC.o to make software patents illegal
 * Scott asks FC.o to announce the new chapters and then try to publicize them
 * Nelson agrees it's a good first task for blog team members
 * Anthony points out Cory on BoingBoing might be interested in posting it

Membership

 * Steven, Anthony, and David all agree, "The biggest issue with my chapter is finding a membership base"
 * Steve McLaughlin thinks his chapter will work this out when they have a solid board running the club
 * Steve McLaughlin had the advantage that the whole Freshman class had to read Free Cultureso got some 50 signups at the activities fair
 * Asheesh suggests, "One way FC.o might be able to help is with canned posters and promotional materials." He's working on a ccHost install for FC.o....

Other chatter

 * Nelsons asks people "who did something vaguely FC-related over the summer to blog about that"
 * That includes Asheesh's work at Creative Commons and even Anthony's switching to GNU/Linux and Scott's Open Road Trip
 * Anthony mentions, "CEO of Project Gutenberg is an employee of UAF, anyone looking to get in contact with him can try through me"
 * Scott points out he's building a p2p "media distribution system" without DRM and designed to help indie artists sell their work
 * http://students.washington.edu/scotts4/commedia/
 * MoveDigital (formerly Prodigtem) is apparently patenting "volumetric network access", which worries Nelson
 * Janet wants more FC people to work on e.g. local community TV channels
 * Janet suggests we can get people talking by discussing the WIPO Broadcast Treaty
 * ipjustice.org has more info on that; Janet suggests inviting Robin Gross from there to talk about it
 * Anthony thinks it's not a good introductory topic to the Free Culture movement, but agrees the treaty is a major problem
 * Nelson suggests writing an op-ed in the student newspaper for issues like these, pointing to Steve McLaughtlin's at stevemcl http://www.firstcallmagazine.com/Archives/0701/070101_McLaughlin.html as a good example
 * Janet also points to the Barenaked Ladies' call to get fans involved with remixing and otherwise re-using BNL music
 * Nelson wants campus chapters to work on promoting the Down with DRM Video Contest
 * Asheesh asks if there's a flyer for it he can hand out, and Nelson says there isn't and that's something they should remedy
 * Karen puts that on her to-do list

Software Freedom Day

 * Janet suggests that FC.o partner with FOSS groups because they seem happy to promote Free Culture based on her experience with Software Freedom Day 2006 (Sat. Sept. 16).
 * She linked us to her "card game to model copyright and copyleft publishing", still in development

Log
2006-09-17/raw log