XSF Discussion - 2011-06-14

let's see, the meeting starts in 1 minute?

once again I neglected to add it to the calendar :(

No minutes I think.

yup.. now

here now ;-)

hi Alex!

Hi, all.

hi @all

hi all

Hi (only lurking)

Evening

Hola!

ok lets start

you can see teh Agenda here: http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/meeting-minutes/xsf-member-meeting-2011-06-14/

1) Call for Quorum

36 members voted via memberbot, so we acheved a last minute quorum ;-)

we have 66 members

ha ha.. lazy us (members)..

whew, we barely made it

This is becoming a recurring issue...

maybe some people skipped 3 voting opportunities... ;-)

Can we name and shame those that didn't vote?

2) Items Subject to a Vote

they should be broadcasted some IM spam ;-)

I'm tempted to rewrite memberbot so it sends annoying IM messages to remind you about voting :)

new and returning members, and bylaw changes

you can see all applicants here: http://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Membership_Applications_April_2011

3) Opportunity for XSF Members to Vote in the Meeting

anybody wants to vote in teh meeting?

if not I start preparing the results

prepare away

go go

ok

ok reload the page: http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/meeting-minutes/xsf-member-meeting-2011-06-14/

4) Announcement of Voting Results

auch a lot of no's..

all new and returning members were accepted, also the proposed bylaw changes

Steffen Larsen: yeah

Steffen Larsen: there were some very short applications

I guess some members want more info about the applicants

Alex: yup.. they got my no's as well..

5) Any Other Business?

what can we do to get more turnout?

Alex: I was wondering about the next tech review.. last time I proposed a meeting was in november/dec. 2010! :-)

Alex: I'm going to rewrite memberbot, as I said

stpeter: to pop up with the correct local UTC time?

unfortunately I need to go to another meeting right now, so I'll be AFK for a while

Steffen Larsen: that too

stpeter: If people aren't responding to the four? different mails that Alex is sending out to vote, I have to assume it's willful neglect, rather than a lack of awareness, and poking them by IM won't help.

stpeter: beautiful!

stpeter: I thought you were kidding, but a new memberbot would be great

stpeter: we made a wiki page with ideas for the new bot

stpeter: last year I think

Kev, actually, people seem to be struggling with inbox zero a lot (and don't proritise reading lists for some reason). I know one of the people who voted had to be reminded in person

Alex: I need to do some coding again :)

anyway, bbiab

what I see when running the votes is that the people who don't vote normally also don't reapply

Alex: good.. those we dont need

so our clause with the 3 missing votes doesn't really help, it only kicks them our 3 month earlier

Alex: is there a correlation between those people and the effort they put in their application?

maybe we need to remind our members that they have a 'no' button too :)

remko: yes there is

or add an extra feature to memberbot asking them something about an application before they can say 'yes'

stpeter: maybe a votingbot with dataforms?.. :-)

remko: like.. would you really, really vote yes…

no, like where does person X work

how long has he been member of the XSF

anyway, i'm semi joking :)

most of or "long time" members vote always, the others come and go

anyway, I don't think it helps when we remind them and they finish the voting with only yes votes or random votes when they don't care about it

I think we can A) raise more interest on the memberlist B) reduce the quorum in the bylaws C) Be more strict with our No votes

B isn't helpful.

Given it's just saying that we expect to have a majority of crappy members.

Kev: right

Kev: agreed.

D) Increase interest in XMPP ...

akockartz: don't you mean XSF?

akuckartz: I don't see much correlation there. More interest in the XSF, possibly.

akuckartz: when somebidy joins teh XSF he should be interested at XMPP

No, I mean XMPP

(But I am only lurking!)

Raising interest in XMPP would result in more interest in XSF membership

I assume XSF members all have interest in XMPP, or they wouldn't be members in the first place.

If 200 would apply and 100 would not get enought votes that would not be a problem.

The thing is that members have only one obligation, which is to vote, and for some reason even that seems to be a bit hard to do for a lot of them, given that we barely reached quorom.

You'd assume they have an interest in the one and only responsibility a member has, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

I suggest we modify the bylaws so any applicant in required to prove that they can spell XMPP before they're eligible.

LOL

This is probably enough effort to act as a barrier to entry for some people...

Memberbot can ask them 10 questions about XMPP, and they need at least 6 correct answers

anyway, lets close the official part and discuss this further

6) Formal Adjournment

I motion that we adjourn

seconded

thirded.

thanks

Thanks, Alex.

Thanks Alex (and others).

Alex: thanks for nice order..

no problem, you're welcome

Alex: can you fix the hyperlink to the XSF bylaws to point to a sane location, instead of a file on your local computer?

Thanks for letting me lurk

http://xmpp.org/xsf/docs/bylaws.shtml

I don't have file:///D:/Daten/My%20Web%20Sites/Radfalk/xsf/docs/bylaws.shtml

Although on that topic, we only need 22 people out of 66 for quorum, don't we?

Intosi: yes, fixing now

I agree, having just looked exactly that up.

Kev: I always thought 50%, but lemme check the bylaws

1/3.

So 36 out of 66 voted.

Intosi: fixed

TA

Kev: you are right section 3.8 :-$

Still, 30 out of 66 couldn't be bothered with voting...

Impressive, I think.

I wonder what would happen if we were to add a "Would you like to give up your XSF membership? Please vote Yes or No" as the last question of the memberbot :)

(Given the propensity for voting Yes to everything)

Hmm, you might fool a few people.

Oh. See, I looked at the calendar and thought I'd read 2000Z, hence now...

dwd, join the club ;)

Hey, you both voted. Welcome to the elite 50% of the club.

Heh

We could make t-shirts ;)

Intosi, Hopefully not like the last lot.

"I voted for no change."

"I paid with a 20"

dwd: better not let Will make them, then.

Intosi, Mmmmm.... Green....

Puke, the lost colour!

I like Kev's suggestion for a final question, though.

dwd: Flawed because the people we really need to eject won't be voting anyway.

dwd: Not including the list of non-voters in your mail? I'm disappointed.

Kev, won't they be ejected anyway after three votes or so

Tobias: Yes, but that does mean they only have to type ~=12 words a year to maintain their membership.

Kev, I was tempted, but I can't find an up to date list of the members.

Well, there is a list on the site, is it not current?

Tobias, If you miss 3 votes, it's in time to reapply the next time.

(http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/xsf-member-list/ )

Tobias, Hard to see what you lose out on.

MattJ, waqas, what did you assume my T-7 meant :)

Kev, Ah, I'd looked at the date on the bottom.

That was last updated 2011-02-01, which suggests it's current.

Florob, which T-7? :)

MattJ, prosody@ about 7 min before the meating...

Florob, oh, it was short and shortly succeeded by a long question from a user, didn't even notice it

dwd: apathy, or perhaps because people didn't see it as a problem, yet.

is this the members meeting?

That was 75mins ago.

bear, And yes, you're not the only one confused by the time.

Christopher Zorn is Tofu, isn't he?

yeah

Zooldk?

I think so. I can never remember which way around the Zornados are.

I'm trying to work out who didn't vote.

It looks at the moment like we even have Council and Board members failing to vote.

ahh..are we getting a pillory on the xmpp.org frontpage? :D

I did notice that, but I wasn't 100% sure, and the problems of naming and shaming and then being wrong are not worth considering, I think.

dwd, did you ever each with the wrong name at dinner? If not, I win :)

*address each

MattJ, I avoid talking to them for that precise reason. :-)

The problem is, they explained to me, and I couldn't swear I wouldn't do it again

Kev: I missed the vote. I'd like to apologize for that. I was hoping to vote in the meeting, but joined as it had just ended.

waqas: that's why you're not kicked off as a member if you miss only one vote. Accidents happen.

not as long as dwd's not in charge

Then accidents won't happen?

It always looks like an accident if you missed a vote with dwd :D

I have a list of 32 people not matched up to emails that voted, and 2 emails that I couldn't match, so it's close.

If I was more confident I'd not made a mistake, I'd name/shame :)

I'd be +1 to naming and shaming, particularly repeat offenders, as this is the one thing we are supposed to do as members.

Just having a vote count would be enough. Then members have the information when it comes to reapplying.

By the way, there's one thing about voting that annoys me: I feel that my voting no to anything would never make any difference, as most would vote yes to everything.

BTW, I've not looked at the results, but I assume the membership voted yes to everything and everyone?

dwd: Pretty much, yes.

waqas, Heh. Exactly as I implied, yes.

Kev, Only "pretty much"?

Well, someone voted against me ):

Kev, That was me.

Boo.

Actually, I voted when the bot came up, so I can't honestly remember who was standing, let alone how I voted.

I voted first!

At least, I think the lists Alex sends out are reverse chronological.

I used to think so, but something once made me not so sure, my entry appeared where it oughtn't have

Maybe it's not, then.

MattJ, As the bishop said to the actress.

Oh, I miscounted.

*Two* Council and one Board didn't vote.

Wow.

Any repeated offenders there?

dwd: re: voting yes - I earlier suggested having a "Would you like to give up your membership? Please vote Yes/No" as the last question on memberbot.

Kev, This I saw.

haha

Kev, And agreed with.

+1 to that ^^

Ah, did you? I missed that.

Kev, I *think* it'd even be possible to place on the voting tally, I need to examine the bylaws.

I was thinking more of inserting a fake applicant (HAL, but then I do think HAL an XSF member...), but this works too ^^

*do think HAL should be

Oh, I'm fairly sure he'd get in

waqas, I discussed putting in a joke application a year or so ago.

waqas, But I decided it was self-defeating as a way to make people take it more seriously.

I wonder if I could persuade my wife to apply.

MattJ: and we could make him vote and reapply automatically, as well, so he wouldn't be kicked off due to a technicality ;)

Simply put "I'm Kev's wife" in her application and see what happens.

Intosi, :P

Well, she would get in, simply because she's a woman.

Intosi: And once you can code that, perhaps you could start on a wetware version.

Kev: the perfect member :P

That sounds even worse when I read it back.

I was just thinking that.

Context, gentlemen!

waqas: I'm looking at the list at http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/meeting-minutes/xsf-member-meeting-2011-03-16/ and can see you did vote there, so we believe you about it being an accident :D

There are a number of repeat offenders, though.

Kev: I think this was the first time I missed it :)

I don't think I've missed one yet, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point. I'm insufficiently organised for it not to.

dito

I've missed one, I think. And I'm sure people do, from time to time. It's just that 30 people can't all be missing it in good faith.

wow, I see you guys have been busy :)

I think it's that kind of an evening. :-)

Indeed.

I had my share of beer this weekend, so I'll grab a glass of water instead.

By the way, who do I poke to get memberbot sources?

one quarter of an iced coffee is more caffeine than I typically consume in a month

waqas: memberbot sources are jealously guarded because they are so icky

stpeter: I would like to have a look. I promise not to rant about it in public.

waqas: really I should put it into git

stpeter, Do they still contain your code?

I've been asked a number of times for an XMPP based voting thingy by random people. I was thinking of writing one with both an XMPP and HTTP frontend. Just thought I should look at memberbot to see all that it does.

waqas, Well, the memberbot code is simpler because it doesn't need to handle the "no" case.

waqas: memberbot is a big hack

dwd: yes, I think so, although it's been rewritten somewhat

stpeter was struck by lightning one day, sat at a computer, typed a lot of code, and memberbot was born

...or that's how I heard it

Sounds about right.

stpeter: I was just thinking I'd make my implementation have all the memberbot features at a minumum, and suggest using that the next time voting happened.

I'm off. Good $PART_OF_DAY to you all.

gosh I wrote memberbot so long ago I can't even remember

Intosi: tot ziens!

MattJ: The way I heard it, Peter wrote memberbot and then was struck by lightning as punishment. YMMV.

waqas: I'd prefer to use x:data than all these texty messages, although the latter is easier for (some) humans

[Disclaimer: I've never seen the code, AFAIK]

before releasing any code I need to check a few things with Alex, who has been running the code for the last few years

I haven't been the Secretary for some years now

but really the code should be open-source for transparent voting :)

ok, Alex is offline so I've emailed him about it

Thanks

but I will try to get memberbot into a git repository this week

then we can start working on memberbot2 :)

in Lua, naturally ;-)

^^

i was going to say that :)

Swiftob!

yeah, use Lua on Swiften, and everyone's happy ;-)

:P

I added last meeting on http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/meeting-minutes/

Thanks.

yes, thanks Neustradamus

Right. Nighty-night, all.

Kev, stpeter :)

I have a liittle request, it is possible to see for a "system" for post messages on jabber/xmpp/xsf identi.ca accounts and maybe twitter one day?

what kind of system?

I poked the iteam about setting up a bot for that, but maybe I can work on that bot, too, while I'm working on the new memberbot :)

brb

stpeter: It will be excellent ;)

after, about the website, I have 2 requests again, if one person can be do this :) Kev ? about the XSF image (http://xmpp.org/images/xmpp.png) it is possible to add this on the theme pages ? example: http://xmpp.org/ at right under: "The XSF relies on voluntary donations from members and the help of our sponsors to continue to promote XMPP, please visit our sponsor pages and/or click on the Donate button to help support the XSF." example: http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/ at right under: "The XMPP Standards Foundation is an independent, nonprofit standards development organization whose primary mission is to define open protocols for presence, instant messaging, and real-time communication and collaboration on top of the IETF’s Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP)."

At the bottom: We can add: Copyright © 2001/2007-2011 XMPP Standards Foundation Why not jabber.org too (not same). I think this when I visited http://gnu.org/ (there is a ©)