Meeting 10

22 Feb 2021 15:00 GMT, 10:00 EST Present: Kate, Angeline, Alexa, Mack, Melissa, and John

Discussed Governing Documents

Mack had put together an initial draft of the governing documents, and asked to discuss, specifically, the processes for adding and removing people from the board of directors.

• We discussed the diversity goals of the board. Angeline expressed a desire to have a minimum of one woman, one person who isn't white, and two nationalities represented on the board. John brought up the need for representation of a disabled person, too. Alexa agreed that the desire is a good one, but how should we go about it, and would it unnecessarily burden the people who are already overloaded with service requirements? All decided to put in a statement saying that the board should be diverse (listing gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and able/disabled as categories to consider). John and Angeline discussed what disabled means (with respect to mental disabilities and invisible diseases), and concluded that the current board at least has passing privileges in an ableist culture. In the future it would be good to provide example letters for someone who does not have this privilege.
• We discussed term limits for board members and the voting body. Mack stated that there should be term limits because after about 10 years, anyone's ideas become a bit stale or entrenched and it is less easy to relate to those who are at earlier stages in their career. Angeline brought up the desire to be able to pick up ELSP again at some point in the future if the current board is faltering and needs a bit of support. John brought up the idea of allowing anyone to run for a maximum of two consecutive terms, which requires that people step away, but allows them to come back if they and the community want them to. We discussed who should be allowed to vote, and decided that it should be members of the board and reviewers in good standing.
• Mack wanted to know where this document should live. Angeline suggested creating another repository whose purpose is to hold documents that are useful internally, but not needed for the webpage. All agreed.
• Kate brought up the need to have a plan for dealing with board members who aren't pulling their weight. We added wording that action could be taken in such a case, which would consist of a warning and then removal.

Reviewed Release Branch

Melissa presented the updates she had made to the webpage, including making a forward-facing page for the submission and reviewer guidelines and the code of conduct. Angeline brought up the two outstanding comments that required group input: the mission statement and wording of the "contact us" page.

• John had broken up the mission statement into bullet points in a previous comment to improve legibility and clarify the message, but agreed that a single statement, in this instance, was more appropriate. Alexa had brought up the importance of having a lower reading level. Angeline expressed chagrin that "meritocracy" is not considered an everyday word. We also discussed the appropriateness of including "international" in the mission statement, as we only offer English-language resources. John brought up the importance of not taking a colonialist approach to this endevour. All agreed that the best way forward was to remove the word "international", and cross the bridge of resources in other languages at a later date. In the meantime, it was deemed beneficial to recruit reviewers from many countries. A new mission statement was drafted and agreed upon by everyone.
• John had brought up that the tagline on the "contact us" was a bit abrasive. All contributed to making the statement welcoming and active.
• There are current outstanding issues (broken links and some odd characters) that Melissa will deal with in the coming fortnight. When the initial release is ready, she will re-request reviews from everyone.

Targeted Role out Date

Our new targeted role out date is 8 March 2021, International Women's Day.

Tasks for next meeting (6 Mar 2021 11:00 EST):

• Angeline - arrange next meeting, write up minutes, provide GitHub support, create a new repository for documents, Review pull requests and documents when tagged.
• Alexa - Review pull requests and governing documents when tagged.
• Kate - Review pull requests and governing documents when tagged.
• Mack - Draft governing documents and review pull requests when tagged.
• Mel - Address comments on the release branch.
• John - Review pull requests and governing documents when tagged.