BoD minutes from 2012-12-12

Hello,

attached are the board meeting minutes from the BoD phone meeting on December 12th.

This message is to be archived by the BoD and its deputies.

Florian

Minutes 12.12.2012
The Document Foundation
  Board of Directors Meeting
  Call Minutes

Location: Phone Conference Room

Session chair: Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board)
Keeper of the minutes: Italo Vignoli (Board of Directors)
In the call: Thorsten Behrens, Olivier Hallot, Michael Meeks, Bjoern
Michaelsen, Charles-H. Schulz, Italo Vignoli
Representation: Bjoern Michaelsen for Florian Effenberger

Deputy Chairman of the Board is in the call. One of the Chairman or
Deputy is
required to be present or represented for having a quorate call.

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders
without deputies. In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of
the Board of Directors members, which gives 4. A total of 6 Board of
Directors members are attending the call, one of them being represented
by a deputy.

The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in
the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and
invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.

The call is quorate.

From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.

The meeting commences at 16:05 UTC.

1. LibreOffice Conference 2013: Italo Vignoli tells the board that Milan
proposal is on his way, as only the final details are missing.
2. Money investment: Thorsten Behrens proposes to invest the capital
stock of 50.000 Euros in the account at Volksbank, at the variable
interest rate of 1%. Result of the vote: 6 approvals, 0 disapprovals, 0
neutral.
3. Budget planning for 2013: the budget has not been prepared so far,
and this is a good time for the directors to request a budget for 2013
activities. The board should be able to file proposals to spend money
according to TDF charitable objectives. Final discussion on budget
planning is postponed to the next call in early 2013.
4. Deadline for tax exemption is approaching. Thorsten Behrens will poke
tax advisors to check actions to be done for tax exemption renewal.
5. ESC position about QA: Bjoern Michaelsen reports about Joel Madero
asking if the ESC must take a position about QA issues, or if the issues
can be discussed within the QA group...
6. QA/Triage: Bjoern Michaelsen suggests to find a budget to support the
triage effort, by donating a netbook to people in order to have a second
platform for their activity or by having several small amounts as
prizes. This item is going into the funding wishlist.
7. Forums: the board discusses about the forums, if they are a
duplication of efforts with reference to Ask, or if TDF should launch
the forums. The problem is that there are only a few moderators,
although the situation is still in progress.

End of agenda, no additions.
Attending at the end of the meeting: Thorsten Behrens, Olivier Hallot,
Michael Meeks, Bjoern Michaelsen, Charles-H. Schulz, Italo Vignoli

The meeting adjournes at 16:35 UTC.

Meeting minutes approved:

Italo Vignoli, Keeper of the minutes
Thorsten Behrens, Session chair

Regarding this particular item. Here is the information missing in your discussion of this topic:

====================

The search for moderators is ongoing, however all forums, except for 2, already have assigned moderators ready for the unveiling of the LibreOffice Forums[1]. If these two are not filled by opening day, the coordinators will assume a moderator function until moderators are found.

The search for additional moderators will continue after the opening of the forums and as sections get busier or when necessity for additional forums moderators require. At this point, the moderating function is only that of an administrative function and not that of providing answers to posts. The role of the moderator is defined on our wiki page[2]. The coordinators at the start will play a large role in moderating the forums, we are 5. However we expect more people to join as moderators once the forums is open. Even if were were to not gain any more moderators, at this point all topics will be covered.

As the forums are filled with additional moderators, the coordinators, who may be acting as moderators, will cede their place to these new moderators.

====================

Are the forums a duplication of Ask? IMO, they are not. When Ask was started, the opinion at that time was not to start the forums to try to get the community to get used to the new system.

However, one of the on-going complaints of users is the lack of a traditional forums for the project, this, still after having Ask at work for some time. Whereas Ask may be great at building a bank of answers, Forums has the same ability, however, we (the members of the TDF/LibreOffice) have the opportunity to instill a feeling of a greater LibreOffice community through personal contact with our forums users and working this into a continued plan of LibreOffice community growth.

As well, right from the start, we (the coordinators) have viewed the Forums as a catalyst to bringing in our committed users into the contributor fold. The forums is a great place for the initial contact/invite of users to our contributor lists. As we are all aware, we are in dire need of more contributors.

Strategically speaking, Ask does not provide our project any kind of opportunity for community growth, nor does it provide any opportunity for contributor growth. Most internet users are familiar to working on Forums and I expect we will hear a concerted sigh of relief from users at the unveiling of the LibreOffice Forums.

====================

You may see our "sandbox" version of the Forums on our sandbox site[3], as well, you may read more details of the coordinator progress of the Forums building on our wiki page[4].

Feel free to ping me should you need more information.

Cheers,

Marc

[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Forum-planning#LibreOffice_Forums_Categories

[2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Forum-planning#LibreOffice_Forums_Moderator_Role

[3] http://forum.libreoffice.org/jforum-test/forums/list.page

[4] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Forum-planning#Coordinator.28s.29