Meeting Notes 2023-09-20

Attendees

Icebreaker question: would i go to space if given a chance ?

• PROLOGUE: jake introduces himself to some new people in the space and starts explaining the meeting, then gets into the main agenda item without going through the agenda process
  • yar says "jake, if you want us to talk, start the agenda, if you want to be the only one talking then keep going"
  • in response, Jake said "Yar, if you're going to be a dick, you should leave the meeting."

• • Jake says he is facilitating because no one else said they wanted to

• andy he/him: yes
• yar she/her: i have covid otherwise i would be there. Icebreaker answer is that it depends on the circumstances very much, i would have a lot of questions about the spaceship before i get into it
• four guests arrive from another hackerspace
• jake (any): the only home for us is here on earth, we need to take care of it. and don't want the health complications that would likely result from even a short trip in space
  • agreement with both jake and william shatner
• muiren she/her: new member to sudo & omni. really learning. spending more time listening than talking.
• Ed & Karl the dog: only posthumously like Scotty did. I don't want to think about the environmental impact of lifting my mass into orbit (karl says nothing)
• paige (they/them) - maybe
• sierk (any): zero interest in leaving the planet
• anonymous oyster: sudoroom member. not wooster. not yar.
• angl3a (they/them): "i find a spaceship and i get in" - qveen herby
• eric: "absolutely not. I saw what it did to william shatner when he went to space, and all of the ice cream and other stuff that i like is here on earth"
• thomas: "i already did this thing zeroG flight where they simulate weightlessness, they take you up and drop so I got to float around for a few minutes, it was really cool and i would love to go to space"

Agenda

TANC membership

• omni delegate meeting is tomorrow 7-9 https://meet.google.com/diw-hszw-msr
• Jake: Omni Commons has an emergency situation that needs to be addressed. [short abridged history of TANC proposal] see discussion emails here https://omnicommons.org/pipermail/consensus/2023-September/date.html
• yar: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Meetings
• Do we want to assert TANC is already a member collective?
  • yar: i think it's best to just assert it tomorrow rather than try and argue it retroactively
  • jake: i hear you in theory, but in practice it's a dangerous situation. bogss is not legitimate. their email asserted bogss has a vote, one person, not even having had a meeting. he's saying "i have a scepter, i'll just vote". he's claiming this [too fast] i think if they block tanc that'll kill omni spiritually and practically. i can't say how much i feel that way, it's a really big deal. our lawyer said the vote we took on sep 7 was decided that tanc is a member, that's already done. in that meeting it's recorded bogss abstained from the vote.
  • andy: how about at that meeting we just say bogss is inactive
  • jake: patrik suggested bogss' ability to vote should be curtailed unless certain things are met
  • ed: if i'm not mistaken, bogss is just a subset of CLP, aren't they the same folks?
  • Muiren: i think we should say, until bogss is reformed to be more inclusive and representative, they shouldn't have a vote on this specific issue
  • jake: Geraldo should be forced to recuse himself this issue because he's a CLP member
  • lots of fast talking
• andy talked to danielle from CLP today. they tentatively agreed about a good path forward, where CLP can remove their block in exchange for conditions or promises that can be made during that meeting
• Do we support adding TANC?
  • this was clearly resolved in previous sudoroom meetings. yes, sudoroom supports adding TANC.
• paige: asking clarification on andys proposal. It seems like no one knew consensus minus one was a thing until after the [delegates] vote (on 9/7) so bogss objects based on that
  • yar: our goal for tomorrow should be to remove ambiguity about TANC being a member collective, in the least controversial way that we can. Our delegate would need to have a flowchart saying, if they do this, i do that, which is hard to plan the day before
  • silver: BOGSS blocked in the previous 8/17 delegates meeting and CHANGED their vote to "abstain" for the 9/7 meeting after talking with TANC during that meeting and determining they didn't need to block, because during the meeting they
  • jake: they voted wrong
  • yar: well, we told them the rules wrong
  • jake: it doesn't matter that we told them the rules wrong
  • silver explains one purported reason for geraldo's vote
  • yar: if that was true, why wouldn't geraldo have just said his intented vote rather than being so cagey over email about whether they intend to block or not tomorrow?
  • jake: do you really not understand [the answer to your own question]?
  • yar: i wasn't talking to you.
  • jake: could someone explain to yar...
  • yar: i was saying the same thing as you, but in uptalk. i don't appreciate being talked down to for that
  • silver: CLP comes to meetings with a strategic organized way to get what they want, such as when they sent six CLP members to the TANC meeting to "vote" not to move to the omni (50 TANC members voted in favor, 6 CLP people against). Also, Geraldo told me in my BOGSS conflicts that all communications would be in confidence, and then they shared all our communications to the consensus list.
  • jake: would you say that bogss or geraldo attacked you?
  • silver: (to jake's question) yes, and "i've been very unwell for the past couple of days from that email"
  • yar: so who is going to be the sudoroom delegate tomorrow? jake answers "me"
  • muiren: these are people who dont do impulsive, they're strategic, the strategy you're talking about Jake is handing them a bone of contention where they can say they're being attacked, yar has a means of addressing this that doesnt hand them an opportunity to say they're the aggrieved party, a more conservative approach would ...find the least inflammatory way of neutralizing this conflict without giving CLP an opportunity to claim they're being treated unfairly. I don't know enough to have a better opinion than that but...these are intelligent strategic people clearly on a mission, you have a frontal assault which is handng them a platform that they can respond. we are nowhere near as cohesive or as focused as they are. Its unnecessary to accuse them of ill motives to achieve this, just make sure TANC gets into the family without accusing them of misdeeds or ill will or bad faith actions.
• jake: for context, i had a conflict with CLP after they joined. it's on the omni "discuss" list. https://omnicommons.org/pipermail/discuss/2022-April/007203.html
  • jake: i say inflammatory things, and i say things that make people uncomfortable. but i really care about this issue.
  • yar: at the end of the day, these are people.
  • muiren: regardless of if people are behaving badly, we must realize our common humanity. it's very frustrating to me.
  • jake: i dont want to "ask clp" again what their reasons are
  • muiren: i haven't seen CLP explain what logical reasons they have against TANC
  • ed & karl: i have seen a lot of bad faith arguments by CLP,
  • paige: ...do we consider BOGSS not a member and get consensus minus one...if we're just going on all these little things it's not getting us anywhere
  • yar: if CLP unblocks at the meeting tomorrow, perhaps after 5-10minutes of discussion, that's the ideal outcome. If they continue to block, the question moves to bogss. Ideally he (Geraldo) abstains or recuses himself, but if he decides to block, then we should assert that he's not a legit rep of bogss because he's not representing the bogss congress that voted last year, and at that point we have CLP making an unfortunate but valid block, and bogss making an illegitimate block, then we assert omni's consensus minus one and then TANC passes.
  • jake: my emails are very toned-down. i can be delegate tomorrow, i am very familiar with the issue. i understand why people think i would just flip out and yell and rage.
  • yar: worried you would veer off topic like removing CLP altogether. not something sudoroom has told you to do, and not something that would be productive.
  • jake: yes i have no intention of doing that. i said some things on the email list, not as delegate.

• • paige: so it still seems to be me we are not decided if we are asking for a new vote on tancs membership vs. declaring the last vote is already valid. which i support new vote at least, hoping bogss would abstain or vote in favor
  • yar: there's no way around a new vote, there's just no way around it
  • eric: why not?
  • yar: because delegates need to continue functioning ... every meeting has the power to override the previous one. we're not a large bureaucracy. it also just sets a bad and unnecessary precedent.
  • jake: i agree that the decision was already made but if the other delegates are not on-board then we won't be able to make it happen, and they have already hesitated to accept the fact that the vote was already passed. My worry is that the delegates will also choose to allow Geraldo to pair with CLP to block adding TANC.
• paige: we're talking about he vote where everyone voted and we thought it had to be consensus and then after we talked about how it could be consensus minus one so it doesn't seem like a good faith vote and people didn't know what the rules were, and it comes off bad and dirty. I don't know why we're re-talking about the vote because we're going back and talking about it again.
• yar: the bylaws weren't changed, but our interpretation of them changed
• eric: ok so ppl wrongly said how it operated at the meeting, which confused the delegates?
• yar: it is unnecessarily demeaning to tell someone they changed their mind about the vote... redoing vote or sticking to old vote are procedurally the same but socially different.
• jake: we can't allow geraldo to vote. he made up this email.

paige: wasn't it only after the fact that jake dug it up? (the bylaws)

• jake: yes u r right. we are not going to say we already decided. i think we should but i hear that's the position of sudoroom.
• jake: ?? reads something involving legitimacy of bogss
• eric: idk if this is more socially acceptable but, a negative outcome...you revote and CLP and BOGSS both block and we assert that bogss' vote didn't count and the motion still passes on the C-1 premise.
• paige: start with bogss' vote doesn't count. bogss shouldn't be voting.
• yar: i'm thinking about that. reasons that bogss is illegit, including gender
• jake: agree w paige,address legitimacy of bogss before the vote
• yar: i see the point that we should discount bogss first thing, rather than after they try to vote
• paige: very supportive of having a group to resolve conflicts and things
• jake: their politics are apprehensible to me. i think we need to throw out BOGSS entirely and rewrite the concept from scratch. i think it was based on maoist struggle sessions.
• paige: if we're gonna say that bogss cannot vote, it would be nice to have the positive of saying that we need a new group that performs this function. we are not trying to send the message that we are silencing bipoc and people of oppressed genders.
• jake: i'm not saying bogss can't vote. I'm saying that geraldo/CLP can't vote as bogss
• yar: i don't feel confident that tomorrow won't be messy. it's going to require grace under fire to do this right tomorrow
• jake: don't fire at me during the meeting
• yar: bogss has lost its mandate to block during a meeting but still needs to serve its purpose

CLP membership

• Would we support removing CLP?
• yar: i think we should give groups a chance to resolve their issues before going there
• discussion about saying "no confidence" in CLP without saying why
  • eric: we should be able to suspend CLP with reason alone that they are no longer trusted.
  • muiren: my normal is that people dont trust you. must give reason other than "trust" for suspension
  • yar: it's a racial microagression at best
  • eric: vote of no confidence should come from experience of all other collectives
  • yar: now is not the time
  • paige: we would like to table
  • jake: i've been gone. i just heard that it might come up.
  • yar: can we just talk to patrick
  • jake: no, he's not willing, he's going home
  • patrick walks over willing to talk **
  • jake: CLP has it listed as their "project" to "revolutionize" omni, which is expressly in conflict with omni's survival, coupled with many legal threats listed in Rafiq's long email. I think we should eject them
• Jake: I would like for sudoroom to coalesce on a position in case the issue of ejecting CLP
  • Yar: abstain. i would have said block until i realized just how pro-iranian-regime they are, and how damaging this is to iranian americans in our community, especially women, nonbinary & LGBTQ iranians. most recently this https://medium.com/@PeoplesPrograms/the-legacy-of-the-iranian-revolution-2c7de74b3df8
  • Eric: if it comes up kick em out
  • Ed: agree. I dont see them as a benefit to the organization and i don't see them becoming one in the future
  • Paige: i'm worried about if we don't have our reasons fleshed out, disparate reasons, they should be compiled together, otherwise it will be framed as because they blocked on TANC, abstain
  • Yar: it wont be sudoroom to carry that conversation tomorrow, and it's not sudoroom's place, so mostly the delegate will just be asked to vote. i say abstain.
  • Jake: eject them, there has been plenty of evidence that they are actively opposed to omnis best interests
  • Sierk: in favor
  • anonymous oyster: abstain
  • jake: your vote doesn't count
  • paige: people who have personal conflicts should be able to have a voice. Rather than sudo room leading with attacks on CLP's political goals for omni
  • jake: i was personally attacked by rafiq in 2022

BOGSS

• Do we want to modify the rules of the BOGSS committee?
• patrik supplied some specific language to change in the BOGSS charter that he thinks should be uncontroversial. Can the delegate agree with Patrik's proposal

Yar: abstain Paige: ok with delegate deciding

jake: should we talk about these?

yes anonymous oyster would like to vote on the following agenda items now.**

anonymous oyster is writing in the jitsi chat

omni president

• Should we appoint Paige president?
• anonymous oyster: Jake is unfit for duty as president and should step down immediately. We should send a message out apologizing to the community for the bad example.

anonymous oyster: i was filibustered. i vote for jake to step down. everyone left. eric called me a sock puppet.

new sudo delegate

• anonymous oyster: jake is unfit for duty and should step down immediately. jake cannot be trusted to not use violent, inflammatory language. having jake as delegate would escalate the problem and be counter-productive. andy is willing to be delegate in the future.

(this note was deleted in the meeting notes, multiple times)(And it should continue to be deleted. This is an ad hominem)