Special meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 24 August 2020, 16:00 UTC

Attending

• AllanDay

• FelipeBorges

• KatGerasimova

• PhilipChimento

• FedericoMenaQuintero

• ReginaAdejo

• RobMcQueen

• NeilMcGovern

• RosannaYuen

Regrets

Missing

Consent agenda (5 minutes)

To be approved as a block, by consent (no vote required).

• Appoint Molly de Blanc to the Code of Conduct committee (#180)
  • The board appoints Molly de Blanc to the Code of Conduct committee

Discussion agenda

• Communications infrastructure fragmentation (#143, #174)
• Agenda for next meeting (#179)

Minutes

• Consent agenda: appoint Molly de Blanc to the Code of Conduct committee (#180)
  • Molly's appointment to the Code of Conduct
• Communications infrastructure fragmentation (#143, #174)
  • Neil: prior discussions on moving to Discourse and a number of GNOME apps have moved over already, in some cases with more discussions on Discourse. chat.gnome.org usage increased post-GUADEC
  • Felipe: many core projects are already using Discourse, the chat issue is more challenging
  • Kat: We need to get community members on board with a switch
  • Philip: Agree with Kat, but we need to take a two pronged approach - get the community on board and also eventually discontinue the old channels
  • Philip: we also need to consider the moderation side - we should be able to stop harassment on our infra

  • Rob: the alternative to RocketChat would be to host our own Matrix server. An IRC gateway would not be a suitable option

  • Allan: we need to take the concerns of the community seriously and take that into account when we make the decision
  • Rob: how does the board feel that this sits in the Foundation priorities? A community that cannot communicate is not a good one
  • Allan: would be comfortable with contracting someone to do community management work on this.
  • Philip: the extent of fragmentation became clear during GUADEC when it became clear that I didn't know most of the engagement team - this is a high priority for me now.
  • Neil will talk to Allan about concerns, start on moving mailing lists to Discourse (starting with non-technical ones)
• Agenda for next meeting (#179)
  • Allan: next regular meeting is due to be a "policy" one. The rotating agenda is intended to be a guide for us. What should we discuss at the next meeting?
  • Board members to review ticket and comment - new ideas welcome.

Notices

Next meeting will be 14 September 2020, 15:00 - 17:00 UTC.