Sudo Room

Mesh/15 January 2019

People's Open Network Weekly Meeting - 15 January 2019 7:30pm-9pm

Agenda

  • Introductions and Meeting Roles (10 mins)
  • Check in on previous action items (5 mins)
  • Updates & Reportbacks (20 mins)
  • Next Sunday (5 mins)
  • Proposal: Fiscally Sponsor Laptops For All & Stipend Allocation (15 mins)
  • Discussion: Project Proposals (15 mins)
  • Discussion Z (15 mins)
  • Action Items (5 mins)
  • Breakout Groups

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Preferred Pronoun; Icebreaker Response; BRIEF Announcements

  • Icebreaker question: What's your favorite thing to do when it rains?
  • jenny - she/her - mostly nothing. reading. using it as an excuse for everything being shutdown in the bay area.
  • benny - he/him - reading, being outside in the rain (if properly insulated). gazing upon bodies of water being rained upon :P
  • pam - she/zyr - pop popcorn, smoke spliff, drink wine and watch documentary
  • null - he/him - like to run in the rain, splash through puddles
  • tyler - he/him - sometimes its fun to get soaked. cat videos and bong rips are for the rainy days.
  • seth - he/they - read stuff on the internet, maybe a book
  • dig - they/them - old ninentend games
  • robb - he/him - popcorn movies
  • (eenblam: remote, available for questions re: proposal if needed)
  • mai-remote - she/they - read
  • lesley - pronoun agnostic - watch tutorial video
    • pam: what are you watching?
    • lesley: (fast ai, deep learning, computational linear alg)
    • jenny: how to automate the boring stuff with python

Meeting Roles

Check in on previous action items

Check previous meeting minutes at https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Minutes and past action items below:

  • fix hurricane electric server
  • ping chuck and poke around MJ&T connection issue (mai)
    • mai: will ping chuck tonight!
  • e-mail Jonah about installing servers at internet archive on the 19th/20th and how are those cables doing? (benny/pam)
    • benny: will do tomorrow!
    • null: still need to get a UPS (added to breakout groups)
  • change/update language re: the meeting (mai)
    • mai: didn't get done. Am sick with a cold and got behind on things :( feel better soon mai! <3 <3
  • meet up to talk through bounty/project proposals (benny, eenblam) (pam and sierk and mai are interested too)
  • Develop at least 3 and at most 5 projects to propose for pay at next meeting (this happened)
    • include proposal for jenny admin
    • consider sourcing ideas from trellos
      • examples: go fix HE, fix Chuck/MJ+T, Paxio, Internet Archive, finances etc.
  • action item complainer (Friday morning) bot (eenblam)
    • I'm out sick tonight, but I'll have a look at this presently

Older actions items from December

  • apply to APC (jenny)
  • follow up with all power labs - scott
  • upload marina photos - jenny
  • buy more WD mynet routers - marc/jenny

Announcement: Free accountability buddy

  • Benny: If you're working on a project and you want someone to gently bug you about how it's going, let me know! I am happy and willing to be anyone's accountability buddy.
  • Benny: I also created a trello board to keep track of PON projects that I want to prioritize: https://trello.com/b/wBKTQKDs/active-projects. Feel free to use it for your own projects, but please only add projects that you are working on actively and want to be bugged about. Whatever shows up on this board, I'm going to try to keep it moving (by pinging the people involved), or toss if it gets stale.
  • Mai: I am also willing to be an accountability buddy but for now only up to ~2 and I might be choosy on which ones :P+1
    • jnny: great! example of healthy boundaries! :D


Updates & Reportbacks

Bugs/Technical

Priority bugs we need help with are located at: http://peoplesopen.net/helpwanted - For a high-level overview of recent Github activity, see the Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/r9l5ouQ4/3b2eecd83bb9e7a57a339cf1ee038288/sudo-mesh-github-repos

  • lesley: did the 60Ghz antennas get here?
    • jenny: check w/ marc?

Node Mounts & Outreach

Node Mounts Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/DtzngKaM/49e1c21fc9da199fcdeceb8623b5117a/node-mounts

  • holiday siesta

Communications & Events

Comms Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/f3ugMPNU/94033ee6c2cef93fc1b1637b727c902a/sudo-mesh-communications // Events Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/Y3XfDK85/2b6fcb4fa92788609692a53a96fb4614/peoples-open-events

  • Julia is doing reporting work for al jazeera and wants to do a story on peoplesopen. Is only in the bay for a little bit. Might invite her to the next meeting or sunday. She does awesome reporting work internationally. More on the human rights angle.
  • Should plan next BYOI - tentative date discussed at last meeting? End of March?
  • Eve sent an email on the 9th - social media shutdown in Iran
  • jenny: SELC event that mai mentioned might be hosted at the omni! TBD. nonprofit democracy network. Mar 27-29.

Internal Logistics / Finance

Internal Logistics & Bureaucracy Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/LzVQlW3X/1bb8bd543c8633688175365d2554c2c2/internal-logistics-bureaucracy-brainstorms

  • Our half-price trial of Quickbooks Online Plus has expired, kicking up the rate to $60/mo. Suggest we transfer our data to a new QBO account administered by Jenny's Accountant account, which would score us a lifetime half-price discount ($30/month. Plus includes payroll/1099s)
    • ya do it!
  • Benny: want to write a proposal for accounting + legal work / maintenance, but need help from jenny I think +1
    • jenny: i actually have a proposal ive been writing for omni. can adapt to sudo.
  • jehan sent stuff to insurance proper!
    • mai: WOOHOO!

Next Sunday

We host office hours every Sunday from 1-3pm in Sudo Room, and often arrange a rooftop node mount.

Proposal: Fiscally Sponsor Laptops For All & Stipend Allocation

  • via Jenny & Robb 15 Jan 2019
  • https://peoplesopen.net/pad/p/laptopsproposal
  • spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JTkNskP48oTs3St-bZahLRqlNnFIJmqwA70W31v8Grc/edit#gid=0
  • Formally fiscally sponsor Laptops For All as a project of Sudo Mesh, which iT has been informally to date. Highly congruent with Sudo Mesh's mission of internet access and education, the project has thus far has received 117 laptop donations, distributed over 60 laptops to marginalized folx and organizations (in particular POC, students, youth, activists and artists), and invested a great deal of time and energy into repairs, fundraising, and upgrades. Allocate 2 $500 stipends for Jenny and Robb to execute next phase of the project (which has already consumed uncountable hours of labor and is currently stalled).
  • Consenso?
    • mai: I totally think this is worth funding. I'd just like to make sure we stick to the process that we'd agreed to here: https://www.loomio.org/p/fYI1OUFW/project-proposal-process-v1 -- If this a proposal that we vote on by consensus at this meeting, that is then moved forward as a discussion thread/poll on Loomio for folx to comment/add input/vote on until next Tuesday then I vote yes.

Proposal: Educational Videos

  • pam: wants to make educational videos
    • robb: wants to help
    • pam: videos to supplement workshops, so people can do more learning on their own afterward. i made a proposal Going to post it.
    • robb & jenny made this one recently with davinci resolv: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BovorXNk8Ww&feature=youtu.be (located at peoplesopen.net/learn )
  • mai: I'd encourage using platforms for proposals that don't exclude folx that don't have a google account, and don't require giving full access privileges to all your drive files and folders to a 3rd party app
    • mai: deleted former comment since I don't have more context nor am I there to hear out the discussion!

educational project proposal overview:

  • scope: creating a series f educational materials - build education / trust in community and dev materials for future fundraising
  • timeline: now until end of March
  • budget: whatever educational budget was - $5-10K, hourly $25-30
  • requirements: accumulating research materials, storyboarding, filming, editing
  • risks: not achieving the goals
  • outcomes: new education / onboarding process, easy UI/UX experience. create a more inclusive experience for learning / presenting. present progress every 2 weeks
  • accountability buddy: stewards, benny?!

discussion

  • robb: how much experience do you have editing videos? any we could see?
  • pam: went to architecture school + art school
  • robb: seems like we'd be paying someone to learn about the mesh. why pay someone
  • misunderstanding where the money was intended to go -- not intended for pam alone
  • lesley: want to be inclusive. have been very ideologically volunteer only for a very long time. both robb and jenny have donated tons and tons of hours for making videos for this project. I think the budget is not realistic for the projjct--i think the priorities are more about installing nodes. if we had an unlimited budget
  • pam - My goal -- I really love what you all are doing -- my goal is to try to facilitate future fundraising - develop the story/narrative
  • lesley: definitely making onboarding easier for new folks and growing / maintaining the network are top goals
  • robb: my apologies, given our past income/expense streams, $5-10K was a shocker
  • pam: coming from background of trying to create a social impact fund (helped acquire the Handshake funds for sudomes) and worked for a project (Consensys) that had a $10K/month burn rate and didn't do _anything_
  • robb: thinking if we grew right now, we'd have a ton of problems--need to get a stronger backbone first before we can grow. i think if we get a bunch of people with nodes, they're not going to be happy.
  • lesley: i think reliability is a big thing
  • seth: I think there's still room for educational material though. Really important to make materials explaining to people what's going on. Mai mentioned making a pamphlet to hand to people. I think that's a reallly badass idea. I think making videos is a really good idea too. A lot of people still have a really hard time flashing a router. was under impression it was a collaborative proposal others could jump in on.
  • missed some notes--conclusion: pam + jenny + robb would meet to draft a smaller starting proposal together

Discussion: Project Proposals

  • https://peoplesopen.net/pad/p/proposal_brainstorm
  • A few of us got together during office hours to think of some proposals that we thought were high priority.
  • Benny: Proposal: Let's do this again. Six of us met last sunday and generated a bunch of ideas. It would be great to have input from everyone else too. Anyone at this meeting who missed last sunday interested in meeting next sunday, or some other time, to add more items to the list? I think it would be great if everyone who cares to be represented on the idea list has one or more ideas on there. Then I'll feel good if we turn that list into some kind of short or long-term plan for the quarter / year.
  • Benny will send an email re: next sunday
  • Jenny: We should look into this new org that's developing a model to fund open source software maintainers: https://tidelift.com

Action Items

  • apply to APC (jenny)
  • follow up with all power labs - scott
  • upload marina photos - jenny
  • buy more WD mynet routers - marc/jenny
  • ping chuck and poke around MJ&T connection issue (mai)
  • e-mail Jonah about installing servers on the 19th/20th and how are those cables doing? (benny)
  • change/update language re: the meeting (mai)
  • look into buying a UPS - robb/jnny/null
  • action item complainer (Friday morning) bot (eenblam)
  • check on deliveries (60Ghz antenna, mynet routers) - jenny
  • work with jenny on the accounting / legal proposal (benny)
  • asset tracking process for adding/removing items from cage (null)

Breakout Groups

At the end of the meeting, break out into small groups to hack on or discuss specific topics.

  • fix HE server (did not happen)
  • order UPS battery (null did research)

Last Meeting Notes

End of Meeting

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