Open to the public, San Francisco, 12:00 PM Pacific Time, December 1, 2001
Please email board@onlinepolicy.org for specific location if you wish to attend.
Board Meeting Action Item Summary
Action Item: Roger will change billing for Verio and Earthlink accounts to Online Policy Group.
Action Item: Will to check if we can receive checks under the names QueerNet and CCCP at the bank and also through fictitious business names with the state.
Action Item: Paul volunteered to send out an OPG fundraising appeal to the Flock list, and will suggest some other lists.
Action Item: Biella suggested she could ask Praveen if there are lists where he may be able to send out a fundraising appeal.
Action Item: Roger to add $500 to OpenSRS account at beginning of January (Note from after meeting: perhaps Roger could have Will do this directly with the OPG credit card)
Action Item: Biella to set up a joint CCCP and OPG project meeting on the Task Tracking Tool.
Action Item: Biella to add Roger and Paul to project-forum list.
Action Item: David W. will contact David Ulovitch to
see if he can provide info about Scoop for the project and will
contact Thai Tran who worked at Yahoo about the project.
Action Item: Will to go to Verio to get handprint done so he can enter cage when needed.
Action Item: Roger to set up domain name servers ns1.onlinepolicy.net and ns2.onlinepolicy.net.
Action Item: Roger to construct home page for groups.onlinepolicy.net, the top-level serving Online Policy Group hosted lists.
Action Item: Roger to do alert explaining why people should leave Yahoo and Topica
Action Item: Roger to do alert explaining AOL's hidden blocking of email from OPG/QN
Action Item: Will to check if in-kind equipment donations will negatively impact OPG's nonprofit status.
Action Item: Will to check what financial incentive corporations have to make cash or equipment donations to nonprofit organizations, or if it simply done because it is a way to help support the community and get good PR.
Action Item: Will to update TOS based on Special Board Meeting
discussion and distribute to participants in anticipation
of further work on the policies.
Board Meeting Agenda
1. Welcome and Board Responsibilities
2. Financial Report
- Status
- Forecast
- Donor thank you notes
- 990 and 199 Filing by December 15, 2001
- Bank and brokerage account
- Fundraising strategy brainstorm
- Board fundraising commitments
3. Online Services
- Services: Email list hosting, Website hosting, Domain registrations
- Task Tracking tool
- Online Community tool
- Upgrades
- Downtime procedure
- Retiring PLUSnet
4. Research
- Overall: need to recruit volunteers/interns and prioritize projects
- OSPA
- School & Library
- Online oddities & atrocities museum
5. Outreach
- Web site status
- Logo design, web site design, business cards, letterhead, brochure, reply card
6. Action
- Action alert updates
- Legislative updates
7. Network
- Application to NCAC
- Web and email list hosting excellent way to expand networking
- Networking brainstorm
8. Media
- Media coverage
9. Office Space
- EFF
- LGBT Community Center
10. California Community Colocation Project Proposal
- Proposal by David Weekly
- Financial implications
- Policy implications
- Written agreement
- Other discussion
11. Human Resources
- Board, advisory board, and committee recruitment
- Volunteer recruitment
- Intern recruitment
12. Vacation and travel schedules
13. Public Comment Period
14. Next meeting(s):
- 12 noon, Saturday, March 2, 2002
- 12 noon, Saturday, June 1, 2002
- 12 noon, Saturday, September 7, 2002
- 12 noon, Saturday, December 7, 2002
-end-
Board Meeting Minutes
1. Welcome and Board Responsibilities
Paul Dale, CCCP, Network Analyst, Tellme Networks, Unix programmer
David Weekly, CCCP Director
Biella Coleman, EFF Intern, working on OPG and EFF projects, anthropologist
Will Doherty, OPG Executive Director
David Gudelunas, OPG Board, PhD candidate at University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School of Communications
Roger Klorese, OPG Board (arrived at beginning of financial report)
Will asked for approval of the agenda with two additional
items, that is, discussion of privacy policy of TOS policy. Agenda approved by Board as amended.
Will talked about responsibilities of Board members.
2. Financial Report
- Status (reviewed)
- Forecast (reviewed with some changes mentioned)
Will proposed Online Policy Group Financial Procedures (available through link) which the Board passed with the addition of amendment.
Action Item: Roger will change billing for Verio and Earthlink accounts to Online Policy Group.
- Donor thank you notes
Will accepted blame for not getting thank-you notes out to donors reliably. He proposed having a meeting on a regular basis, perhaps monthly, to deal with thank you notes, finances, project status. Although the group was in favor of such meetings, except possibly for Roger wanting to make sure that they would be held only as needed, the group could not agree on a regular time for the meetings.
- 990 and 199 Filing by December 15, 2001
Will explained
need for info on all revenue and expenses so that these forms
required by the federal and state government can be completed
in time.
- Bank and brokerage account
Action Item: Will to check if we can receive checks under the names QueerNet and CCCP at the bank and also through fictitious business names with the state.
- Fundraising strategy brainstorm
Will mentioned doing an end-of-year appeal to current donors and to list-owners and Roger spoke in favor.
- Board fundraising commitments
Action Item: Paul volunteered to send out an OPG fundraising appeal to the Flock list, and will suggest some other lists.
Action Item: Biella suggested she could ask Praveen if there are lists where he may be able to send out a fundraising appeal.
3. Online Services
- Services: Email list hosting, Website hosting, Domain registrations
Will pointed out that we still need better documentation for newbie end users to be able to use the system. Biella and Will talked with a potential volunteer named William Abernathy and David W. mentioned that he can do writing as well.
Roger proposed adding $500 to OpenSRS account at beginning of January 2002. All Board members agreed to the expense.
Action Item: Roger to add $500 to OpenSRS account at beginning of January (Note from after meeting: perhaps Roger could have Will do this directly with the OPG credit card)
Roger brought up the question of whether or not we should add other top-level domains. OpenSRS can support other TLDs. Roger suggested that .ca and .uk could be useful and can add it to the domain registration form.
- Task Tracking Tool
David W. mentioned the need for tracking requests for the CCCP using a trouble ticket system or task tracking tool. Every request should be assigned an identifier and sent out to pool of people who can address the problem. The system could set up a collective knowledge base. There are Open Source systems available called Bugzilla, Gnats, and Bluebird. Will requested a separate meeting for the project. David W. mentioned some programmers are available from CCCP to help with it.
Action Item: Biella to set up a joint CCCP and OPG project meeting on the Task Tracking Tool.
- Online Community Forum
Biella spoke about the projects she coordinates at OPG and EFF and the web pages that are available to help organize the projects. She explained the purpose of the Online Community Forum project and some details of the project. Roger explained that user and subscription management by moderators and list owners can be an issue with the programs. Roger pointed out that the project should probably produce something similar to Yahoo! Groups and designed for three audiences: organizations that want to provided branded online community services, community hosts (list owners), and subscribers.
Action Item: Biella to add Roger and Paul to project-forum list.
Action Item: David W. will contact David Ulovitch to
see if he can provide info about Scoop for the project and will
contact Thai Tran who worked at Yahoo about the project.
- Upgrades (nothing)
- Downtime procedure
Action Item: Will to go to Verio to get handprint done so he can enter cage when needed.
- Retiring PLUSnet
Roger explained that PLUSnet, which was started as a place that didn't want to be openly queer-identified, was retired about a month ago, since the PLUSnet activities can be done under the Online Policy Group name instead.
PLUSnet retirement will permit conversion of little PC into onlinepolicy.net name server at Verio, which would permit use of multiple domain name servers. David mentioned option of using EveryDNS.net, which may become a part of CCCP and therefore possibly part of OPG eventually.
Action Item: Roger to set up domain name servers ns1.onlinepolicy.net and ns2.onlinepolicy.net.
Action Item: Roger to construct home page for groups.onlinepolicy.net, the top-level serving Online Policy Group hosted lists.
4. Research
- Overall
Need to recruit volunteers/interns
- OSPA
Intern Jeremy Keeton is normalizing the data and will send data to David G. once it is ready.
- School & Library
Intern Jeremy Keeton is working on the project.
- Online Oddities & Atrocities Museum
OPG still needs to build a separate graphical identity for the project perhaps similar to "Ripley's Believe It or Not". Will requested a graphics volunteer to handle that part of site.
5. Outreach
- Web site status
Coming along well... graphics nearly done. Will roll out the new site design starting this coming week.
- Logo design, business cards, letterhead, brochure, reply card
All but logo design still need to be done.
6. Action
- Action alert updates
Action Item: Roger to do alert explaining why people should leave Yahoo and Topica
Action Item: Roger to do alert explaining AOL's hidden blocking of email from OPG/QN
- Legislative updates
Will gave very brief update on COPA, COPPA, CHIPA, DMCA, and USAP, and explained filing an "Interim Designation of Agent to Receive Notification of Claimed Infringement" with the Registrar of Copyrights so that OPG and its projects are covered under safe harbor provisions of the DMCA as soon as OPG lists notices on the various sites that are part of the organization. The Board discussed briefly how to handle any potential request from the government for installing Carnivore or similar devices.
7. Network
- Application to NCAC
Still pending, they want membership fee which OPG does not have resources to pay.
- Web hosting, email list hosting, and domain registrations are an excellent way to expand networking
- Networking brainstorm
8. Media
- Media coverage
Will passed around a folder containing copies of OPG media coverage.
9. Office Space
- EFF
All is well with OPG sharing EFF's office space.
- LGBT Community Center
Roger said OPG can sign the MOU as is, since the Center is now planning to offer a telecom services package to the tenants.
10. California Community Colocation Project Proposal
- Proposal by David Weekly
David W. presented a written
California Community Colocation Project Proposal requesting that the Board approve the project become part of the Online Policy Group. The group intends to provide free or donation-based colocation services to non-for-profit entities. CCCP is proposing a community-based model for providing their services with lots of experienced volunteers donating their time to the project. They have explored connections for corporation donations from companies like Apple, Sun, and Network Appliance. CCCP has already received donations of some equipment and services. They have also explored at-cost network connectivity from Via.net. They propose a suggested donation model for colocation services of $50 per computer per month. They intend to be financially self-sufficient and to be able to provide services to OPG as well as making use of some services from OPG. David W. mentioned he has registered communitycolo.net and communitycolo.org domains for the use of the project.
Action Item: Will to check if in-kind equipment donations will negatively impact OPG's nonprofit status.
Action Item: Will to check what financial incentive corporations have to make cash or equipment donations to nonprofit organizations, or if it simply done because it is a way to help support the community and get good PR.
- Financial implications
Will suggested looking more carefully at the liability insurance and equipment maintenance costs listed in the CCCP budget proposal.
- Policy implications
Will listed some items he felt were missing from the decisionmaking
part of the proposal. Others on the Board agreed that some pieces were missing from the puzzle.
- Written agreement
David W. agreed to rework that part of the proposal and present it again to the Board.
- Other discussion
There was discussion about having another
Special Board Meeting
as soon as possible to discuss the amended proposal.
10.5. Policies
- Terms of Service
- Privacy Policy
Due to the late hour, the group felt discussion of the policies would be better at
another meeting.
11. Human Resources
- Board, advisory board, and committee recruitment
Will nominated Biella Coleman to the Board which was seconded by Roger and approved unanimously by the Board. On the matter of whether to add a Board member for the CCCP project, Roger expressed a concern about whether major projects should be represented as ex officio board members or as regular old board members. We discussed various structural models, including who decides which person would be a board member representing a project. Will mentioned his feeling that the Board must decide on any new Board members, not permit a project to assign a Board member themselves. Roger agreed. The Board planned to address this issue at a later special meeting, probably when the Board reconsiders adding CCCP as a project of OPG.
- Volunteer recruitment
Need a volunteer to handle volunteer recruitment more systematically.
- Intern recruitment
Need a volunteer to handle intern recruitment more systematically.
12. Vacation and travel schedules
David G. will be on vacation from Dec 18-28,
Biella from Dec 8 - Jan 4, and Will from Dec 23 - Jan 2.
13. Public Comment Period
No comment from those in attendance.
14. Next meeting(s):
- 12 noon, Saturday, March 2, 2002
- 12 noon, Saturday, June 1, 2002
- 12 noon, Saturday, September 7, 2002
- 12 noon, Saturday, December 7, 2002
-end-
Minutes of Special Board Meeting on December 2, 2001
This special Board meeting was called by unanimous
vote of the Online Policy Group Board to complete
discussion on the California Community Colocation
Project Proposal and to discuss the Terms of Service
and Privacy policies for the organization.
1. Welcome and Board Responsibilities
Paul Dale, CCCP, just started with Tellme Networks as a Network Analyst, does Unix programming
Biella Coleman, EFF Intern, working on OPG and EFF projects, anthropologist
Will Doherty, OPG Executive Director
Roger Klorese, OPG Board
1. Welcome and Board Responsibilities
Paul Dale, CCCP, Network Analyst, Tellme Networks, Unix programmer
David Weekly, CCCP
Biella Coleman, EFF Intern, working on OPG and EFF projects, anthropologist
Will Doherty, OPG Executive Director
David Gudelunas (only Board member not present)
2. California Community Colocation Project Proposal
Will moved that the Online Policy Group Board approve
the CCCP project proposal. Motion seconded by Roger.
Motion approved by unananimous vote of all present,
plus email vote of David Gudelunas.
3. Policies
3.1 Terms of Service Policy
3.2 Privacy Policy
There was considerable discussion of the Terms
of Service policy and the overall policy framework
for the organization.
Action Item: Will to update TOS based on meeting
discussion and distribute to participants in anticipation
of further work on the policies.
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