Board meeting Minutes/28 November 2005

Prior: 21 November 2005

Board meeting Minutes

Next: 4 December 2005

Minutes approved: 4 December 2005

Present

Subject to verification Tom Perrine (chair), Trey Harris, Doug Hughes, Andrew Hume, Chris Palmer, David Parter, Stephen Potter, Pat Wilson, Sam Albrecht (note taker)

Opened

20:05 Eastern Time

Closed

22:19 Eastern Time

Consent Agenda

• Approve minutes of 21 November 2005
  • Wilson requests hold for redaction of 21 November minutes
• Acknowledge email vote:

  MOTION: To adopt the policy on Hosted mailing lists:

Approved text: Hosted mailing lists policy Purpose and scope To advance the mission of the Association, LOPSA shall offer its members hosting services for electronic mailing lists of interest to the system administration community. Such lists are offered in order to to further LOPSA's mission to serve the public; advance the state of the profession of system administration; increase LOPSA's visibility in the system administration community. This policy applies only to mailing lists created under the guidelines of this policy. This policy does not apply to official LOPSA mailing lists, including Board mailing lists. List creation Any LOPSA member in good standing may apply for a hosted mailing list. The application shall be made available to members on the LOPSA website. Applications The application for a hosted mailing list shall require the applicant to supply the following characteristics of the mailing list, as described elsewhere in this policy: Requested address Moderator addresses Descriptive name Purpose Subscription policy Moderation policy Archival policy The application shall also require the applicant to agree to the obligations and responsibilities of moderating a hosted list (the Terms of Agreement), as outlined in this policy. Applications must be approved by one of: the President; any individual invested by the Board with the power to approve such applications; or the Board acting as a whole. The approver may modify parts of the application to conform with LOPSA policies, naming conventions, or for other purposes. The applicant may decline to proceed with the creation of a list under a modified application, or may appeal such modification to the Board. If an application is denied, it may be appealed to the Board. In no case shall an application's modification or denial be appealed to any person or body other than the Board. Address The application shall specify the address requested for the mailing list. Addresses shall be in the domain @lists.lopsa.org. In order for the application to be approved, the address must be unique (i.e., not in use by an existing LOPSA hosted mailing list) and descriptive of the list's purpose. Use of the characters lopsa in the left-hand-side of a mailing list's requested address must be reasonably justified in the application. Moderator addresses The applicant shall supply the addresses of at least two LOPSA members (including him or herself) to serve as moderators of the list. All moderators must agree to abide by the Terms of Agreement. Descriptive name The application shall specify a descriptive name for the hosted mailing list. This name shall briefly describe the purpose of the mailing list in a manner understandable to the casual reader. Mailing list purpose The application shall describe the purpose of the mailing list. The purpose should serve to justify the need for the list, explain how the list furthers LOPSA's mission, and describe to potential subscribers the likely content of the list. Subscription policy The application shall specify one of the following subscription policies: Open The mailing list is visible in the directory, and anyone can subscribe. Members-only The mailing list is visible in the directory to LOPSA members, and only LOPSA members can subscribe. Private The mailing list is not visible in the directory, and requires moderator approval of subscriptions. The applicant must justify requests for private lists, and specify the criteria that will be used for approving subscriptions. Applications for private lists will not be approved without reasonable justification and objective criteria. For example, a list consisting of the maintainers of a software project or the attendees of a meeting are reasonable candidates for a private list. Self-governing subscription policies, for example subscribers voting on new list invitations, may also be acceptable with reasonable justification. In no case shall the applicant exercise arbitrary control over a subscriber list. An Open or Members-only subscription policy shall not be construed to deny the moderator the right to ban subscribers who abuse list policy. Moderation policy The application shall specify whether the list allows for open posting or is moderated. Requests for moderated lists must be reasonably justified. An open-posting policy shall not be construed to deny the moderator the right to moderate posts from non-subscribers, or to moderate posts from subscribers who have abused list policy. Archival policy The application shall specify whether archives of list posts are requested, and whether the public or just subscribers should have access to the archives. Archives may be expired on a schedule as necessary. List moderators shall be given prior notice of such expiry. Oversight LOPSA is in no way responsible for the content of hosted mailing lists. It is the responsibility of the list moderator(s) to ensure that hosted lists are not used for illegitimate purposes. LOPSA reserves the right to take action if made aware of improper conduct on hosted lists. Termination A hosted list may be terminated under any of the following circumstances: The moderators cease performing list maintenance duties; The moderators are no longer LOPSA members in good standing; In the determination of the Executive Director (appealable to the Board), the list is no longer serving its approved purpose; or The list traffic becomes too great for LOPSA's resources. LOPSA shall work with the subscribers of such lists to prevent termination if possible (for example, by transferring moderation to other members in good standing) or to transition lists gracefully to a more appropriate service. Mailings from LOPSA From time to time, LOPSA may send mail about LOPSA activities to hosted mailing list subscribers. Such mail may be sent via the mailing lists, or directly to list subscribers. LOPSA may from time to time send mail to hosted mailing list subscribers on behalf of third parties. Such mail will be sent directly to list subscribers, and subscribers will be provided with a means of opting out of such third-party mailings. Footers Posts to hosted mailing lists may have a LOPSA-approved footer appended of no more than four 77-character lines. This footer shall only be used to publicize LOPSA and LOPSA activities. Privacy LOPSA or its members shall not share the subscriber list of any hosted mailing list or any addresses contained therein with any third party. The subscriber list of a hosted mailing list shall not be made available to the public without permission; at the moderator's option, the subscriber list may be made available to other subscribers or to LOPSA members. Moderators must agree not to share the subscriber list or any addresses contained therein with any third party. For lists in which the subscriber list is visible to other subscribers, subscribers must be notified at the time of subscription (e.g., via the list's welcome message) that they must not share the subscriber list or any addresses contained therein with any third party. Terms of Agreement This policy shall be used as the basis for Terms of Agreement, to be provided to hosted list moderators at time of application, any time the Terms change, and on request.

Moved by Harris, seconded by Wilson. Harris, Wilson, Potter, Hume, Hughes vote aye. Motion passes on 22 November 2005.

Action Items

• Harris:
  • Migrate all 3 wikis (Board, Public, and Drupal) to new machine - in progress
  • Make changes/amendments to hosted mailing-list policy as discussed and present to Board in email motion - DONE

• Hume:
  • Review minutes and provide a list of redactions pertaining to SAGECom that may now be restored - not done

• Palmer:
  • Notify current membership of proposed bylaw change - in progress
  • Draft a proposal for overarching webiste content/editoral direction (with Potter) - not done
  • Draft a policy for formal member notifications and submit to Board by email - DONE; see below

• Parter:
  • Announce Amazon Associates link to the public - DONE

• Perrine:
  • Draft a business plan for LOPSA (with Wilson) - not done
  • Write another note to the Advisory Council - not done

• Potter:
  • Draft a proposal for overarching website content/editoral direction (with Palmer) - not done
  • Decide on sponsor plaque details (with Wilson) - DONE

• Wilson:
  • Draft a business plan for LOPSA (with Perrine) - not done
  • Finalize LISA ribbons - DONE
  • Decide on sponsor plaque details (with Potter) - DONE
  • Propose a bulk-membership for sponsors plan - see below
  • Work w/ Feen to come up with a proposal for Google - in progress
  • Draft a "sense of the board" message regarding LOPSA's position on the Usenix negotiations - DONE

• Albrecht:
  • Continue work on merchant account procurement - in progress
  • get CA business license for selling at LISA vendor show - DONE
  • Register for LISA - DONE
  • Get membership roll in order - not done
  • Recommendations on which of 3 AH options is best to pursue for us - in progress

Standing Report

• Treasurer's report
  • not much here - budget is in stasis pending new data
• Membership report
  • now 96 members, most of them Charter ones
• Online report
  • http/https working throughout site; the "lock" icon now does the right thing
  • our Volunteer coordinator is ready to coordinate volunteers
  • we'll look into setting up some URL monitoring for the web site

Business plan and Budget

Work on the business plan will commence ASAP; the budget will be revisited shortly.

Board meeting at LISA

• when, where
  • Sunday Dev 4th, 9AM-6PM in "Pacific Salon 6" at the T&C
• suggested agenda items
  • agenda template is now available on the wiki
• publicly announce?
  • morning business meeting and brainstorming open to members (and Advisory Council members)
  • the strategy session in the afternoon will be closed (business sensitivity)

Google Ads

The general consensus was that it would not be in keeping with the professional image we're trying to project to sell ad space on the main page(s) of the website. Having LOPSA ads run from Google, on the other hand, sounds like a good idea if it can be done without cash outlay.

Individual Sponsor Conversion

• A member would like to give us money and convert individual sponsorship to consultant at the same level sometime later. Should such conversions be allowed?
  • Yes, such conversions should be possible.
• What is the distinction between the "consultant" and "corporate" categories?
  • It's not entirely clear; there's really no policy, only the level and benefits table

ACTION ITEM: Hughes to draft a response to member requesting potential sponsorship conversion

ACTION ITEM: Development Committee (Potter, Wilson) to draft more rigorous policy (including definitions)

Multi-member sponsor discount (Wilson)

By request, I propose the following:

• As an additional Corporate Sponsor benefit at the Silver level, the sponsor organization may enroll any number of its employees as members at the prevailing student rate (currently $25). Membership so granted may be renewed at the discounted rate as long as the sponsorship is in effect; should the sponorship lapse, employees may renew, but at the normal individual member rate

Discussion brought up the following points:

• the discount should not be tied to the student rate (soon to be 50% off of the non-student), but rather a smaller and fixed percentage (10-15%)
• other professional organizations should be investigated to see whether they offer such a discount, and if so how much

This issue has been tabled pending market investigation.

Lifetime membership

Tabled until 4 December 2005 meeting

Approval of Notifications policy (Palmer)

Approval of the Membership notification policy.

"Normal communication channels" for the publication of notices to the membership where required, such as bylaw amendments, election notices, and the like, shall consist of: *Publication of the notice on the main page of the LOPSA website *An email sent to the active members of LOPSA. The list of email addresses used for notification shall be no more than 10 days old at the time of sending, and generated from the current membership database. All such emails must be sent from a non-personal address, notify@lopsa.org. All such communications should contain clear instructions on how to respond with comments in such a way that all such comments are available to any director.

MOTION to amend to include a defined source email address (notify at lopsa dot org) by Palmer, seconded by Harris- passes.

MOTION to approve policy as amended by Palmer, seconded by Harris - passes

New Business

Hosted mailing lists amendment

MOTION: To amend the policy on Hosted mailing lists, by adding the following text to section 5 (Termination):

Lists may also be terminated at the moderators' request. Notice shall be sent to the mailing list warning of pending list termination. If other LOPSA members volunteer to be new moderators, LOPSA may work with such volunteers to preserve the mailing list.

Motioned by Harris, seconded by Potter - passes.

Sense of the Board Re: USENIX/LOPSA negotiations and future

MOTION: That it is the sense of the Board that until recently, the LOPSA Board has held back from significant work on its programs pending resolution of its negotiations with USENIX. It has become clear that there will not be a timely conclusion to the USENIX negotiations, and therefore the LOPSA Board has decided to go forward with our programs. LOPSA remains open to finding common ground with USENIX, but our main focus is now on our members, and our profession.

MOTION to amend by Harris, seconded by Hume - passes

Moved by Harris seconded by Hume - passes, two opposed (Parter, Potter)

Usenix Agreement Status (Hume)

It seems that Usenix is planning to keep the SAGE members, so there can be no outsourcing. Usenix's position might change if LOPSA gets the (c)3 status.

ACTION ITEM: Albrecht to call IRS about the application status.

Adjournment

MOTION to adjourn by Hume, seconded by Wilson - passes. Adjourned at 22:19 EST