The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by elliot. In attendance were Voting members: elliot,kretch,hartmans, foley, mkgray, yonah, jfmurphy, harrisj, yak, pipa, amu, kcr, cat, yandros | jered, nygren, yonah Associate members: danw, warlord, aurora, sgw, ghudson, jewell, jemorris, mhpower, nocturne, shabby | nlgilman, jcb, mycroft, rei, mjbauer, srz, abbe, bert Non-voting members: Prospectives: tb, tap@cs.umb.edu, sepherke, lnemzer | gisele Guests: indiana@ihtfp.org Treasurer's Report: () Chairman's Report: pipa: I move to nominate sepherke for membership. [second] aurora: She has been around the office a lot; she is good at answering questions. kcr: She appears to be vacuuming up information at a very impressive rate. mkgray: 247 messages in webmaster since October. sepherke: I would like to delay the election until May, but would accept. [13-0-2] passes elliot: We are now discussing closed meetings. hartmans: I move that the topics discussed at a closed meeting of the SIPB may be discussed with anyone who is a member of SIPB at the time that the meeting begins, provided that those members agree to the SIPB closed meeting policy. [kcr seconds] pipa: With regard to what should come out of this meeting. I belong to several organizations that have closed meetings. In all the organizations I belong to, no one says anything said in the closed meeting outside the closed meeting unless they said it in the meeting. jered: What does Roberts Rules say? tb: The content of the meeting is only to be discussed with people present at that particular meeting. You can't say what you said without conveying the confidentiality of the meeting. The minutes are open to any member of the organization. hartmans: I realize that what I propose is different from Roberts Rules, but my intent is to allow discussion started at a meeting to continue with other members. kcr: SIPB uses closed meetings for slightly different things than LSC does. I think a more relaxed policy than say LSC does is appropriate. jcb: One advantage of the Roberts Rule style policy is that it guarantees that there is a more objective style recording of what went on. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to add to the motion that minutes are recorded to the detail appropriate for the situation. mkgray: At least as long as I've been a SIPB member, Sam's motion reflects past practice. kretch discussed allowing members to use discretion with what they discussed. nygren: I think that if people are going to talk about things that happened at the closed meeting after the closed meeting, having minutes is essential. jered: Saying people should use judgment is way too fuzzy for closed meetings. pipa: I object strongly to keeping minutes of closed sessions. I do not think it is fair to allow members to go back and read the record of their membership election. If people don't give a damn to attend a meeting where a closed session is likely, then they don't deserve to know what's going on. ghudson: I have to disagree with what pipa said. People have conflicts. The point of this motion is to make it clear that present members can find out what was said. The Roberts Rules applies to a society without closed membership elections. tb: The chief reason for having a closed meeting is that you want to feel free to say things you would not want to say at an open meeting. That goal is not the only goal to keep in mind. The things that you might want to say fall into two categories. One category is things that the person themselves would rather not become public; that is the usual reason; worthy because it respects privacy. A different kind of discussion is when you want to say hurtful things about someone in which the purpose is to prevent the statements from being attributed. It is important to keep in mind that both of these motivations operate. The rules should depend on who is being protected. jemorris: I think we definitely don't want to say at each closed meeting vote on how closed and who we are protecting. If the law or MIT policy require you to say something outside the meeting, then we don't need to have an explicit policy. Leaving to people's discretion is bad; lots of members are vastly indiscreet; I don't trust them, and I doubt you don't trust them. kcr: One thing we might do is specify the level of confidentiality when we close the meeting.To pipa, some people may have plans or for some other reason might not have the option of attending. abbe: Would this proposal preclude making something more confidential? In general, if you are trusting the members of the SIPB who come to the closed meeting, you should trust the members of SIPB as a whole. You can restrict confidentiality if you trust the present group but not others. dkk: Someone made the distinction between continuing a discussion and discussing the topics. Does this mean that if Emacs is brought up at a meeting we can't discuss that outside. hartmans: Abbe, it was not my intent to preclude increasing confidentiality before something was discussed. General mumbling about dkk's comment; we assume no one will interpret it that way. danw: WRT picking levels of confidentiality, before the meeting or during? I.E. you don't want to say, "I want this to be extra confidential as I will be bringing up that the prospective is a criminal," during the open meeting. kcr: Before, but possibly you might have to change in the meeting. jcb: I move to amend by requiring that minutes of the closed meeting shall be kept unless a vote is taken not to take minutes at the closed meeting. I move that discussion other than the minutes be limited to those at the meeting. I move that if minutes are not taken that the members requesting more info be directed to the officer presiding at the meeting. ghudson: Can we make the default for membership elections that minutes are not taken? [jcb accepts as friendly amendment] kcr: Friendly amendment that minutes start being taken after the membership vote unless someone votes to not take minutes. [accepted] jweiss: I don't think minutes should be taken at closed meetings because we cannot insure those minutes will not eventually b seen by someone who was not a member at the beginning of the closed meeting. aurora: I agree with everything he just said. There could be valid reasons that we don't want someone who becomes a member later to see their election minutes. bert: In addition to the problems pointed out so far, I think there is no way to get an accurate account. Closed meetings are usually fairly heated; it is easy to get a misunderstanding from a written document. pipa: I still don't support taking minutes, but there needs to be some limit on how the discussion of closed meetings will operate throughout the membership. We should definitely decide how the information will propagate throughout the membership before we vote on the motion. Some people's discretion isn't so good; some people's memory isn't so good. danw: Move to call the question. [second 17-5-5 passes] [4-20-6] amendment fails. elliot: We have a motion from hartmans which specifies with whom discussion can happen. Do we need to know how the information will be spread in order to vote on this? Straw poll? abbe: There are two things in Sam's motion. It sets the limits of who can know and allows members to use discretion to discuss things within these limits. Elliot is suggesting voting separately on the limits than on how it travels. No one appears to be wanting to discuss how information is spread. elliot: I am dropping my straw poll. jcb: I propose that the degree of confidentiality may be increased at the beginning of the closed meeting by a simple majority of those at the closed meeting. [accepted] hartmans: I am restating. I move that except as provided below, the topics discussed at a closed meeting of the SIPB may be discussed with anyone who is a member of SIPB at the beginning of the closed meeting, so long as that member agrees to be bound by SIPB policy regarding closed meetings. A simple majority may move to increase confidentiality of subsequent discussion at a closed meeting. pipa: I still have a problem with how the information is distributed. It says that any member can go to any other member and discuss the topics of the closed meeting. I don't think this addresses the issue of getting a streight story. I propose an amendment that information can only be disclosed from the chair or the presiding officer. [not accepted; dies for lack of a second.] bert: I don't like the word raise; what if you want to lower confidentiality? hartmans: You are tainted by previous discussion; you cannot lower confidentiality on the rest of a topic without exposing previous discussion. dkk: I thought the wording was such that once you raised the confidentiality you could not lower it. yonah: If we want to return to the subject at later date, we may not want the same confidentiality restriction. hartmans: I accept an amendment: A simple majority may move to increase confidentiality of subsequent discussion of a particular topic at a closed meeting. mycroft: I find it objectionable to keep details about membership elections away from other members. In the time I've been in SIPB, there has been a distinct shift in the focus of membership elections. Many members may not be aware of this shift. I feel that people trying to keep things secret are not acting in the interest of SIPB. mhpower: Tb, if I'm at a closed meeting of some normal organization, can I repeat something slanderous said about me? tb: If someone has slandered you, and you wish to sue them, you can do so in civil court; you do not repeat the statement except in court. Also, the organization may have an internal process; such a process is normally at a closed meeting. hartmans: I move that except as provided below, the topics discussed at a closed meeting of the SIPB may be discussed with anyone who is a member of SIPB at the beginning of the closed meeting, so long as that member agrees to be bound by SIPB policy regarding closed meetings. A simple majority may move to increase confidentiality of subsequent discussion of a particular topic at a closed meeting. [25-1-2] passes jcb: I move that we recess for about 15 minutes before additional debate. elliot: I would rather not. [second] jcb: Five minutes accepted. [11-7-5] Recess until 21:25. abbe: At some point in the future I would like to raise a similar point regarding closed EC meetings. jcb: I move to enter closed session. [second 12-0-1] passes. Carl Alexander is barred from the SIPB office indefinitely. [second 14-11-4] passes. The SIPB formally apologizes to Carl Alexander for the manner in which these allegations were handled. [20-3-7] passes. SIPB is not 100% comfortable with the rationale for our policy on Carl Alexander and we plan to reconsider next week. [11-6-8] passes Office Report: kcr: There are some people who are allergic to dogs. tb: When is carpet happening. Shabby and I just added a new stain to the carpet. kretch: If rose comes into the office and responds to my email, please pass it along. This not happening has complicated carpet happening. elliot: I bought a CD case and zip disk rack. yandros: If we don't have a copy of CLR, we should get one; if we do, it should appear. kretch and elliot think we have a copy that we bought. shabby: The short book case next to lola-granola has a lot of stuff on it. elliot: The stuff and the book case are temporary. jewell: The top shelf in that tall bookshelf is not a real shelf; are we planning to replace it? Jewell may investigate. danw: We will probably be getting the NT box. kretch: Did we decide what monitor to put in the rack? ghudson: There is a monitor in my office. It would not work on Suns. jered: Is zsr useful? ghudson: It tends to be useful about 70% of the time. yandros: I suggest we delay these discussions until we decide how many heads we have. Office Cleaning Report: () MIT Computing Report: sepherke: pocky and another consultant are working on stock answers for Linux and NetBSD. mhpower: IS is offering free Windows NT system administration courses this spring. Computer Services: mhpower: There is another host address on patch, hacks.mit.edu. nygren: The IHTFP hack gallery moved to the SIPB cell. SIPB Backup Report: () Publications Report: tap: I finished a draft of iUsenet; please review. aurora: We have no Emacs reference cards. We are sending mail. R/O Report: elliot: It's preview weekend this weekend. IAP Report: () CokeComm Report: pipa: Since I was expecting carpet to be replaced, I didn't get anything. I will get more stuff this week. Other: hartmans: Auditors suck. sepherke: Netscape source code is coming out tomorrow. aurora: N42 is still a dangerous building for me. ghudson: The Taxpayer Relief act of 1997 sucks. Other Other: sly: I am in a PHD program here. bert: I have a job and so far it is better than OLC. The meeting was adjourned at 01:12, setting the record for longest SIPB meeting. Minutes taken and submitted by hartmans.