Talk:Organizational Policies

Archived discussion

Proposed move

Tonight at the Horsham meeting, we agreed to take the following point out of the process of communication and add it to the end of the meetings section on this page:

• Any statement that breaks the rules is off the record and does not go into any official document. However, for meetings that are recorded (either by audio/video or transcript), both an original unedited version, and an official version will be kept.

This change will become official after 8 days, if there are no objections. Sylvia (talk) 21:28, 30 December 2013 (EST)

This change has become official. Sylvia (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2014 (EST)

Proposed Addition

Tonight at the West Philly meeting we proposed adding a new major section to the Organizational Policies page with two bullet points. We proposed calling this section Organizational Actions. This section will be added after the 8-day waiting period, if there are no objections.

Organizational Actions

• In order to carry out an action as Why This Way in ways not already specified in our organizational policies, a consensus must be reached at a meeting and a notice must be posted on the Organizational Actions page. The action can be carried out if there are no unresolved objections after an 8-day waiting period.
• Exceptions to the 8-day waiting period can occur when quicker action is needed. Before making a decision, obtain as broad of a consensus as possible given the situation.

Oh, this hasn't been signed. It would be good to have a record of the date added so that we know when to make the change. Sylvia 10:53, 1 March 2013 (CST)

This addition has become official! Sylvia 21:58, 9 March 2013 (CST)

Proposed Edit

Tonight at the West Philly meeting we agreed on the following change to the Core Beliefs and Practices section on the Organizational Policies page of the Wiki. We agreed to add one exception to the 8-day waiting period, the ability to change wiki formatting.

The sentence previously read "An exception to the 8-day waiting period can be made to correct errors and also to address ways in which the core beliefs and practices violate the rules of communication. These changes require consensus at a meeting but not a waiting period."

Our proposed wording is: "Exceptions to the 8-day waiting period can be made to correct errors, modify wiki linking and formatting, and to address ways in which the core beliefs and practices violate the rules of communication. These changes require consensus at a meeting but not a waiting period."

This will become official if there are no objections after 8 days. Kleclair 19:02, 17 January 2013 (CST)

These have become official! Cazort 11:43, 27 January 2013 (CST)

Proposed Deletion

Tonight at the West Philly meeting we agreed to delete the policy "Do not give gifts in response to giving money." under the "Fundraising" heading. We had a discussion about this policy and we all agreed that we had no problem with the practice of selling items to raise money, for a price greater than the cost of the item. We also agreed that we would be against giving unsolicited gifts in response to giving money.

Also, given that our spending is consensus-based I don't think there would be any actual risk of us giving gifts in response to receiving donations in ways that went against our values, and I don't feel a compelling need to keep this included in our organizational policies, especially as there was one person who objected to this rule at the meeting, and no one felt strongly about the need to keep it.

If there are no objections within 8 days, this rule will be removed.Cazort 22:08, 10 January 2013 (CST)

This change has become official. Sylvia 21:35, 28 January 2013 (CST)

New Addition

We are proposing an exception to this policy about an 8-day waiting period:

• The core beliefs and practices reflect the consensus of our group, and can only be modified by consensus at a meeting. To ensure consensus between meetings in different locations, any proposed modifications to the core beliefs and practices must be posted on the Wiki's talk page, and will become official if there are no unresolved objections for a duration of eight days after the consensus was reached at a meeting. After eight days, the modifications will become official as soon as all objections are resolved.

• An exception to the 8-day waiting period can be made to correct errors and also to address ways in which the core beliefs and practices violate the rules of communication. These changes require consensus at a meeting but not a waiting period.

Sylvia 20:17, 6 December 2012 (CST)

There have been no objections for 8 days so these have become official. Cazort 10:45, 16 December 2012 (CST)

New addition: Meetings

Tonight in West Philly, we agreed on scrapping the old proposed additions, and instead adding a new addition to this page. It would still be called "Meetings" and be in the same position, after "Core Beliefs and Practices" and before "Finances". It would contain the following two points:

• In order to be an official meeting, at least three participants must be present.
• At official meetings, we follow the process and rules of communication.

These will become official if there are no objections in 8 days.

There were multiple concerns about the other points (given below) so we did not include them. We also agreed to create a new page on the wiki, Meetings, where we can describe our current practices about meetings in more depth. In the discussion last night, it seemed to me that our feelings about what it meant for meetings to be public were subtle, and we also had some concerns about spontaneous meetings that were hard to put into a concise, simple rule, so we can explain more on that page. Cazort 08:30, 16 November 2012 (CST)

There have been no objections for well over 8 days, so these have become official. Cazort 21:17, 26 November 2012 (CST)

New addition: Meetings

This is an old discussion and this proposal has been abandoned. The newly proposed changes can be found above.

Tonight at the West Philly meeting we agreed on an addition to the organizational policies. We proposed a new section, after the "Core Beliefs and Practices" section and before the "Finances" section. It would be called "Meetings" and would contain the following points:

• Meetings are open to the public.
• In order to be an official meeting:

• At least three participants must be present.
• Unless the meeting is regularly occurring, the meeting must be publicized at least two days in advance.

Our group as a whole has already been following these practices, and we were just writing them down. We did not want to specify how the meeting must be publicized, because this might change over time and it might be different for different meetings, but for now, we understand this to be interpreted as the way we have been publicizing meetings, through the Facebook group and Facebook events, and through contacting people individually. Cazort 21:52, 8 November 2012 (CST)

I'd like to call an objection to the policy on publicizing two days in advance. I want to know more about why the rule was added, and why we don't want to have spontaneous meetings. There might be instances where people who really want to be involved in meetings are only free or in town on short notice, so the 2-day thing would make it inconvenient to include everyone who wanted to participate. We can always continue to have scheduled meetings as well. Sylvia 22:05, 8 November 2012 (CST)

I feel like having a spontaneous meeting would also make it inconvenient to include everyone who wants to participate. I don't like the idea of spontaneous meetings because I want the option available to attend and feel as though it is most convenient to know ahead of time if a meeting is going to occur. I believe that notice is important so that all people who want to attend can adjust their schedule to do so. Notice also means that there is more time to adjust the date or hour of the meeting if need be. Do you think it would be reasonable to have at least a 1 day notice for a meeting? I believe 1 day is more than enough time to publicize the meeting so that people can be given the opportunity to attend and that 1 day seems like a reasonable amount of time to cover those who may want to have a meeting on short notice. Anything beyond that seems unreasonable to me. While I realize that it may be important to hear others' views who can't attend meetings under normal circumstances, I still don't like the idea of being able to call a meeting at any particular time of the day, whenever one wishes. This seems, to me, to have the potential to rule out more people in the group and create exclusivity, which I personally dislike more than the thought that there is one person who may live out of town that can't attend. ~ Kelsey PS... Have we ever thought of someone skyping into a meeting? Or phoning?

I'd like to talk about this more in person. But it seems that there's not a consensus currently and this needs more discussion. I also think I object to the inclusion of this one point (not the others, they are fine with me), for now, after having thought about Sylvia's objection. Cazort 09:48, 10 November 2012 (CST)

I was thinking, do we really need to have a 3-participant requirement? I don't have a problem with it, but I would think 2 would be enough, especially with a meeting of 4 or 5 people. I think with more people, a 3-participant requirement would make sense. I'd like to talk about it more, and if there are good reasons to have a 3-participant requirement, then I'd be fine with it. Also, maybe we could add a point about everyone in the meeting being familiar with the rules of communication (and if new people aren't, then going over them) and actively trying to follow them. And of course there could be meetings where that doesn't happen, but they wouldn't be official meetings. Sylvia 12:06, 11 November 2012 (CST)

Haha, okay, I realized I also want to clarify the idea of meetings being open to the public, because we talked before about dealing with potential people who keep coming to meetings but don't seem to be willing to follow the rules, and we don't want meetings to be open to them, right? Maybe by "the public" we could specify anyone who is willing to follow the rules and process. Sylvia 12:06, 11 November 2012 (CST)

Hmm, okay, I'm starting to think that all these policies need more discussion / consideration. I was thinking also about the notion of meetings being open to the public and I think that could be interpreted in ways that conflict with what we have been doing, for example, many of our meetings have been in private homes, only some of them in public spaces. So I think upon further reflection I'm also going to object to all of these additions, and say we need to discuss this more. Cazort 13:59, 11 November 2012 (CST)

Well, considering that we wrote them down in 5 minutes after the meeting was closed, yeah, I agree it might be good to talk about them a little more to fine tune them! :) I still like the idea of having some sort of statement that all meetings are open to anyone who would like to attend - maybe public was a little too vague? Anyway, I'd be open to discussing them more - I still don't object to the idea of them fully, but I'm not 100% on board with them as they stand - of course my opinion may change once we talk about them more :) ~ Kelsey