[Community] summary of last week's (3/28/2007) call

[Eugene Eric Kim]

Sorry I got this out so late.  Summary of this morning's call will
follow; for now, here's the summary of last week's call.  Thanks to the
participants: Kaliya Hamlin, Eugene Eric Kim, Brett McDowell, Joaquin
Miller, Dale Olds, Dan Perry, Drummond Reed, and Bill Washburn.

= ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION =

Dan produced a revised Articles of Incorporation based on mailing list
feedback, and we spent the call walking through it.  He'll post another
version on the Wiki, and he will version the documents so we can keep track.

Article IV now contains our Purpose verbatim.

Article V no longer contains the number of Stewards, as that will
fluctuate depending on the number of Working Groups.  Steward Council
also consists of only one representative from each Working Group.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing this article.  Key points:

  * One of the ongoing questions was whether something belonged in the
    Articles or the Bylaws.  Dan said that the Articles serves as the
    scaffolding for the organization, but contrary to what you might
    think, you do not necessarily change Bylaws more often than Articles.

  * Dan offered to start working on a rough draft of the Bylaws.  Eugene
    noted that most of our policies are captured on the mailing list or
    on the Wiki, and that we need to sync the two.

  * Working Groups decide for themselves the process for
    changing/removing their Stewards.  The only way the Stewards Council
    can remove a Steward is to decharter a Working Group.  Joaquin
    suggested we need a provision for removing a Steward in the articles.
    Bill suggested "replacing" is a better word than "removing."

Article VIII reinforced that technically, Identity Commons members
consist solely of Stewards.  This may need additional clarification.

Article X needs to be revised to note that our votes happen over email,
not in synchronous meetings.  We decided that 30 days advance notice is
an appropriate period of lead time to call a Stewards Council meeting.

We also spent several minutes discussing ties.  One suggestion was that
the Chair withholds voting unless there's a tie.  Several people objected
to this, because a Chair is also the sole representative of a Working
Group, and that withholding a vote doesn't necessarily allow them to be
represented.  Others noted that the Chair still has a vote, he or she
would only cast it if needed.

In the end, we agreed that a tie is equivalent to a loss.

= NEXT CALL =

Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 9am PDT / 12pm EDT (today).

=Eugene

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Eugene Eric Kim ................................... http://xri.net/=eekim
Blue Oxen Associates ........................... http://www.blueoxen.com/
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