Meeting:Committee (2009 February 15)

Start time: 16:20 AEDT.

Attendance: John, Brianna (chair), Brian, Nathan, Liam (minutes)

Apologies: Sarah, Andrew

Agenda:

Confirmation of minutes

1. Meeting:Committee (2009 January 15) minutes

Proposed by Brianna, 2nd by Nathan. Carried without dissent.

2. Meeting:Committee (2009 February 08) minutes

Proposed by Brianna, seconded by Liam. Carried without dissent.

2.1. Matter Arising: Noted that agenda item 1. (regarding Wikimedia Australia's 50th member) should be listed as deferred to a specific time - agreed that this should be within 2 months time (April).

Proposed by John, seconded by Brian. Carried without dissent.

Agree on Passing resolutions by wiki

At present, all Wikimedia Australia committee resolutions must be made at a real-time meeting (usually by IRC). This proposal seeks to facilitate better discussion and less mailbox overflow through the allowing of resolutions to be passed in another format - on-wiki.

Discussion ensued as to the role/proper usage of the committee's mailing list if resolutions are proposed, altered, discussed on the wiki. The point is made that the process needs to be clear so as to avoid changing the wording of a resolution midway through voting. The debate must be had in one place (not on list and wiki simultaneously) therefore all debates on alterations should be had on wiki and mailing list used to notify people of those debates. Expressed was a desire to respect the first place of discussion and keep the discussion in that place as far as practicable.

Motion: Allow resolutions to be proposed, passed and failed by the method of wiki-based discussion and voting. The procedure for determining a valid resolution as follows:

A page should be started for each topic.

A committee member puts a resolution forward for voting by creating a section on the page with the heading including the word "Resolution:". They must announce it to the other committee members by including the tag "PROPOSED RESOLUTION" in the subject line, and a link in the body of an email to the committee mailing list. A minimum of quorum members must formally respond (vote aye, nay or abstain) within five working days for the resolution to be formally recorded. Once voting has begun, the wording of a resolution may not be changed. Additional resolutions on the same topic may instead be proposed.

If two or more members use the tag "DEFER TO MEETING" in their comments, resolutions on the topic may not be passed by the wiki method, and must be brought to a real-time committee meeting. Comments tagged "PUBLIC" will be publishable. Votes and "DEFER" remarks are also publishable. All other comments will not be publishable.

Resolutions that have a quorum of responses within the five working days should be recorded as passed/failed at Wiki resolutions by the member who moved the resolution. As the first item of business after approval of the minutes at every committee meeting, there will a formal motion to minute all wiki resolutions, whether passed or failed. Details of passed and failed resolutions (wording, proposer,seconder, votes, result, date, defer remarks, public comments) should be published by the secretary at the end of the calendar month.

Proposed by Brianna, seconded by Nathan. Carried without dissent.

Relationship of WM-AU communication methods

1. Official-wiki to WM-AU on Meta

Discussion on the role that the pages about Wikimedia Australia on MetaWiki should have, now the chapter is set up and has its own wiki. It was agreed that the meta page should be almost exclusively used for introduction and contact details and not for discussions/regular updates. The WM-AU wiki should be used for all updates, discussions, event planning etc. Content from the pages on Meta should be moved across to the WM-AU wiki and depreciated on Meta. (refer to the practice of other established chapters as examples)

2. Various mailing lists

Discussion on the role of various mailing lists associated with us: the "Australia list", the chapter "member's list", the "announce" list, the "committee" list. Raised was the possibility of somehow combining the first two so as not to only allow financial members of Wikimedia Australia the chance to discuss (as the "members list" is member's only). It was pointed out that the two serve different purposes and only have partially overlapping subscription-membership. Many people are interested in Australian articles on Wikipedia but not Chapter activities and vice versa. However this differentiation is possibly not made generally clear.

It was decided that cross-posting of information should be done more often. Also, this needs to be revisited in a bit to see if the mailing lists are being used properly and people are receiving all the relevant information.

Wikipedia Loves Art update, possible alternative option

The Art Gallery of NSW pulled out of WLA, after briefly being listed as a participant, after a face-to-face meeting with gallery representatives. This was due to a requirement of the Gallery's that photos of their collection have non-commercial licenses. This would contravene "General Qualification Note 1. of the event: "Shots submitted must be licensed with the correct creative commons license required by Wikipedia."[1]

Nevertheless, a positive outcome of the meeting was a discussion for potentially mounting a photography exhibition based on the work selected in Wikimedia Commons: Picture of the Year. When the 2009 PotY event is completed a more official exhibition "pitch" will be made to the Gallery.

Discussions deferred

1. Policy and Practice of contacting the members list

1.1. Changes to the membership form?

1.2. Policy on what contact/frequency of contact is acceptable.

Meeting adjourned

Finishing time: 20:10 AEDT

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