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@norske: 
@1stepforward: @1stepforward has joined the channel
@Wade_Striebel: @norske I think you were a little early 
@Tim_Kaye: Welcome, everyone! Time to get started! I am hoping that the meeting will be fairly quick!
The first item is to decide the period during which people should be able to cast their votes for the new Management Committee, which will take up its role on January 1st, 2020.
I think the big issue here is whether we want to do this before or after Thanksgiving.
@Wade_Striebel: And to confirm, the period is 7 days long, right?
@raygulick: Can we establish that we have a quorum first?
@Tim_Kaye: Well, that’s part of what we need to decide.
@Wade_Striebel: 7 days makes sense, it limits who can become a level 2 user within that time period
@Tim_Kaye: I agree, Wade.
@invisnet: which time zone are we going to use?
@Tim_Kaye: Lol!
@Wade_Striebel: UTC probably makes the most sense :man-shrugging:
@Tim_Kaye: Yes, everyone can work from that.
@invisnet: least possibility of confusion
@Tim_Kaye: OK, so UTC with a period of 7 days.
Starting when?
@Wade_Striebel: Probably sometime after American Thanksgiving (us Canadians have already had ours)
If we do it before/during it is going to cause confusion
@1stepforward: When is Thanksgiving?
@Wade_Striebel: And before doesn’t really give us a ton of time
@Tim_Kaye: So that means doing it at the beginning of December?
@Wade_Striebel: The 28th is American Thanksgiving, right?
@Tim_Kaye: Yes.
From December 2 or from December 9 then?
They are both Mondays.
@invisnet: that only works if we run noon-noon
@1stepforward: Is Thanksgiving a genuine obstacle (forgive me…I’m British)
@Tim_Kaye: @1stepforward So am I!
@invisnet: @Tim_Kaye yes, but you’re Over There
@1stepforward: @Tim_Kaye Yes I know 
@Wade_Striebel: I would think it is, at least a little bit - we don’t want people saying they forgot because they were with family
I think 2-9 makes sense, and @invisnet we can run noon to noon
@Tim_Kaye: Does anyone object to Wade’s suggestion?
Ok, we’ll go with that then.
Next is the method of voting.
I think several of us favor giving everyone 9 votes, one for each spot on the committee.
@Wade_Striebel: Yup, and using the built in forum polling: https://forums.classicpress.net/t/committee-meeting-october-23/1634/14?u=wadestriebel
@Tim_Kaye: Yes, that looks good to me.
So, Wade, are you happy to be the Returning Officer?
@Wade_Striebel: I am happy to be
One question I do have, I assume we are anonymously voting, correct?
@Tim_Kaye: If that’s possible and still gives you the ability to police it, then yes.
@invisnet: is that even possible?
@Tim_Kaye: That’s what I’m wondering.
@invisnet: if we’re restricting it to level 2+ we need some way to validate that
@Wade_Striebel: Well restricting to level 2 isn’t the issue
We can have a category where only level 2 users can enter (similar to the lounge)
@invisnet: but we need to ensure people only vote once, so we kinda need to know who they are
@Wade_Striebel: Well no, the forum takes care of that
If you go vote above, you can only vote once - you can change your vote but it still tracks your vote
@invisnet: ok, so the forum tracks who voted for what, so it’s not anonymous
@Wade_Striebel: Yes, but it is whether or not we make that public
@invisnet: different question - are the votes public vs are the votes anonymous
@Wade_Striebel: So the settings are “show who voted” or not
@invisnet: i think we show who voted but not what for
@Wade_Striebel: That isn’t a setting
@invisnet: great…
@Wade_Striebel: That is why I am asking - the screenshot is the settings
@Tim_Kaye: Well, we have already agreed to use this method, so we go with what we have.
@invisnet: ok,the solution is simple: don’t show anything, and when it’s over wade can extract the list of people who voted
@Wade_Striebel: So the settings:
- results visible once closed
- min = 1
- max = 9
- Automatically close poll
@1stepforward: Only Wade needs to know who voted and for whom right?
@Tim_Kaye: Yes.
@1stepforward: I’m Ok with that.
@Tim_Kaye: So am I.
@invisnet Do you also want a list of who voted to be published (but not for whom they voted)?
@invisnet: seems like a good idea
the whole point is transparency, so listing who voted is just the other side of the coin
@Tim_Kaye: @Wade_Striebel What are your thoughts?
@Wade_Striebel: Just testing the settings
I will post a link here in one second to test
@Tim_Kaye: OK.
@Wade_Striebel: Can everyone go vote here: https://forums.classicpress.net/t/testing-poll-will-be-removed/1674
@Tim_Kaye: Looks cool, at any rate!
@Wade_Striebel: I just want to make sure it is easy enough to pull who voted
@Tim_Kaye: Yes, I understand.
@Wade_Striebel: Can anyone else see the dropdowns after voting on the first one?
@Tim_Kaye: I don’t see any dropdowns.
@Wade_Striebel: Okay, so that works
So @norske you voted
@1stepforward: Nope
@Wade_Striebel: And I can see who you voted for
@Tim_Kaye: Great! OK, we’ll go with that and publish the names of those who voted, but not for whom they voted, after the voting period has finished.
So that leaves us with just one more item of business.
@invisnet: hang on
we need a minimum number of people to vote, surely?
@Tim_Kaye: Why?
@Wade_Striebel: So for the voting, we will use the following settings, just putting this here so everyone knows and it is official: poll type=multiple results=staff_only min=1 max=9 public=true
@invisnet: because if the only people who turn up are the existing committee there’s little point
@Tim_Kaye: Maybe, but it’s hardly invalid as a result.
It’s open to all Level 2+ members. Who chooses to vote is a matter for them.
@invisnet: and if we don’t fill all 9 seats?
@Tim_Kaye: That presupposes that fewer than 9 candidates will get at least one vote.
Possible, but unlikely.
Then we will have a vacancy.
We said at the last meeting that we would be open to reconsidering the number of spots on the committee in any event.
@Wade_Striebel: Separate question, how are we collecting nominations
@invisnet: and how are we presenting nominations?
i’m thinking this is a list of things for next time
@Tim_Kaye: Those together are the last item on the agenda, and what I was trying to get to!
@Wade_Striebel: Sorry
@invisnet: didn’t see those
@Tim_Kaye: No prob!
So let’s tackle them.
Should we have a forum post where people can declare themselves ready to stand/run?
Brits stand; Americans run. What do Canadians do?
@Wade_Striebel: Both
I would say yes, but from last time I would hesitate to allow people to nominate others publicly
So are we only allowing people to self declare
@Tim_Kaye: That does make it less embarrassing, I think.
@Wade_Striebel: I think so, and we don’t have like a ripple effect where people feel like they have to run because others nominated them
@Tim_Kaye: Yes, I agree.
@Wade_Striebel: Then, maybe a forum category where people can start a new thread to self declare, and also give a brief intro/why they are running?
@Tim_Kaye: Yes, I agree with that too.
@1stepforward: Could it be made into a kind of wiki so that everyone can see at a glance who is standing. Or running.
@Wade_Striebel: I would add that we should make the category silent as to not overwhelm the “lastest” section on the home page… That could get out of hand quickly
We can maybe have a post that I edit that has an overview
I wouldn’t want it to be a wiki, then people can add anyone to it
@1stepforward: That’s fine. just as long as there’s somewhere where people can quickly see who’s standing.
@Wade_Striebel: Makes sense
@invisnet: did we decide who can stand last time? (looking through the minutes, not found it yet)
@Tim_Kaye: Good point. We decided who could vote, but I don’t think we limited who could stand.
@Wade_Striebel: I would assume it would be the same, but we didn’t agree on that/discuss it
@Tim_Kaye: That does make sense to me, though.
@invisnet: level 2 seems like too low a bar
@Wade_Striebel: We only have 19 people above level 2
Level 3 is a tough level to break into at the best of time
@invisnet: is that really such a bad thing for a committee member?
@Wade_Striebel: Removing the current committee, there is only 10 people above level 2
@invisnet: yes, and this goes back to the previous discussion about community size
level 2 is easy to get, that’s why we picked it for voting
@Wade_Striebel: Yes, but a level 2 user can run, but that doesn’t mean they will get any votes
@invisnet: it means it’s trivial to stuff it!
@Wade_Striebel: unless they are active*
@norske: Just curious. A forum level can be lost due to inactivity. If a commitee member is active in Slack and Github, but not on forums, and he somehow looses his level 2, does this mean that he also looses a right to be a commitee member?
@Wade_Striebel: So they would lose their forum level for not being active on the forums
But a committee member is a committee member
For the current committee, I force held their level
@Tim_Kaye: My problem with limiting the candidate pool to those above Level 2 is that it seems to go against the spirit of the last meeting. If we think those at Level 2 have sufficient nous to vote, then why don’t they have sufficient nous to stand?
@invisnet: what are the requirements to get level 2?
@Wade_Striebel: Basic requirements:
Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially
Casting at least 1 like
Receiving at least 1 like
Replying to at least 3 different topics
Entering at least 20 topics
Reading at least 100 posts
Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts
but I think we adjusted some of those values a bit, I will need to double check
@invisnet: so then we need to change the cutoff for becoming level 2 for voting or that’s trivial to game
@Wade_Striebel: We spoke about this last time
@invisnet: yes, but we didn’t talk about it in terms of who can stand
@Wade_Striebel: Those values are from here: https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-trust-levels/
@Tim_Kaye: Whether it’s easy to game this time depends on what deadline we set for candidates to self-declare.
So when would be a good deadline, if voting begins on December 2?
@invisnet: 14 days from now
@Tim_Kaye: So November 20?
@invisnet: whatever it is - prevents people from signing up today to game the system - they need to have been involved before today
@Wade_Striebel: I would say November 20
But we can bump TL2 to 30 days
If we all agree on that
We have full flexibility on those values
@invisnet: but then that changes who can vote
@Tim_Kaye: I like the idea of bumping it for the future, but probably not for this time.
@Wade_Striebel: Okay, so November 20 to self declare
@Tim_Kaye: Yes, that sounds good to me.
@Wade_Striebel: And @invisnet I know you have concerns about stuffing, do we want to limit when a user has registered whether or not they can vote?
(idk if that made sense)
@invisnet: in future, yes, but i’m less concerned about the voting than the declaring
if both have the same level then a group can easily get their candidate elected
@Wade_Striebel: Okay, and I mean in the future we had discussed using a different system
Also, just adding, we block most throwaway emails now and have pretty good systems in place to track sockpuppets (all updates since the whole drama thing a while back). Not saying it isn’t impossible, but i would say we are in a much better place than a couple of months ago
@Tim_Kaye: I think we are probably in a decent place right now. Not perfect, sure, but not too bad either.
@Wade_Striebel: Anything else we want to discuss, it has been an hour
@Tim_Kaye: Just what I was going to ask!
@1stepforward: Yes, what was the “drama”? I missed it. Some other time maybe
@Tim_Kaye: Definitely not for now!
@Wade_Striebel: Definitely another time
@Tim_Kaye: OK, so that seems to be everything.
Thanks everyone for attending.
And particularly thanks to Wade for taking this on!
@Wade_Striebel: Happy to take it on I will also move this over to the forums now