ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
16 November 2013, 0:00 UTC
PRESENT: Andrea Horbinski, Cat Meier, Eylul Dogruel, Franzeska Dickson, Ira Gladkova, Kristen Murphy, Nikisha Sanders
GUESTS: Alison Watson, Enigel, james_, Lady Oscar, Sam Johnsson
ABSENT: none
DECISIONS TAKEN SINCE THE LAST MEETING
1. Approved 13 new staffers for Abuse.
OPEN SESSION
1. Update from Journal: Transformative Works & Cultures is being added to the MLA International Bibliography. This is a good thing because it will enable more authors to get “credit” toward promotion and tenure for publishing in TWC. Some academic institutions only give credit for articles published in certain vetted journals; the MLA International Bibliography is an index of such vetted journals.
2. Secretary update: A big batch of minutes has just gone up on the website and there will be more ready for voting next week.
3. Reminder to directors: please review the draft post about the in-person Board meeting.
4. Update on elections: Eylul is drafting a post per the discussion at the in-person meeting and will follow up with candidates for appointment.
5. Status update on Board Documentation Project. We sent out for review two document drafts that were approved during the in-person meeting.
6. Approved a request from Systems for $450 per month to add more licenses for the performance monitoring software used on the Archive of Our Own. (We had previously approved $400 per month; this vote was taken to accommodate a change in the quote.) This will allow us to use the software on more machines, including the test Archive and Fanlore.
7. Server update from Systems: The Archive database server is beginning to notice the load and has caused some issues; we have ideas about how to address that in the short term and the long term which will involve work from both AD&T and Systems. We will probably have to turn wrangling off on the weekends because of the strain on the database server. The first of the recently ordered new servers was installed on Wednesday and the first virtual machine was brought up on it tonight; there’s a lot of additional setup work yet to be done. Systems is getting a final set of quotes for the last set of new servers and will pass the information along to Board. Systems would like the Board to consider a budget for MySQL consultancy; the Board requested a written proposal for consideration.
8. Voted to approve a memorandum of understanding to be used by the Open Doors committee when working with the moderators of archives slated for importation.
9. Finance update:
19-Oct 15-Nov Difference
BoA 161,786.45 143,918.97 (17,867.48)
PayPal 10,418.73 13,577.41 3,158.68
CD 10,110.40 10,113.73 3.33
Total 182,315.58 167,610.11 (14,705.47)
Since the last Finance update, the biggest expense was just over $10,000 for the new server. There were also around $3,000 in expenses from the in-person Board meeting, including per diems and three hotel rooms for five nights. The other expenses for the month were routine ones, mainly for server hosting. We raised $320 in donations at the Meetup of Our Own in Berkeley.
10. Fanhackers is interested in possibly taking a semi-independent/editorially independent stance from the OTW, similar to that of the Journal committee from which it developed. This would probably not make a big difference from the way Fanhackers has already been operating, but it would be formalized and documented. They will prepare a proposal about this for the Board’s consideration.
CLOSED SESSION
1. Discussion of a confidential personnel issue.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:30 UTC.
Minutes approved by the Board on 21 December 2013.