Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 01/29/2007 The meeting was called to order at 19:32 by jbarnold. In attendance were Voting members: tabbott kchen jbarnold yoz andersk k_lai tilia mshaw xsdg wdaher Associate members: asedeno hartmans jemorris Prospectives: danjared spang quentin jwalden geofft cporter mathmike adwinter Guests: [Editor's note: This meeting was particular in that everyone decided to use Robert's Rules to a fault. I recorded the username of each person talking as usual, and I sometimes recorded what phrase the Chair used to recognize the person speaking--it is the phrase in parentheses after a username.] jbarnold: The meeting will come to order! (x2) jbarnold: Mr. Abbott--er.. the member shall be seated. Treasurer's Report: jbarnold: May the Chairman have the Treasurer's Report? someone: No. Chairman's Report: jbarnold: May the Chairman have the Chairman's Report? hartmans(member from Laptop Land): Whereas, The MIT Student Information Processing Board is an informal organization; Whereas, Members are from similar geographic, cultural and other backgrounds; Whereas, Members do not represent any district, locality or division; and Whereas, Members do not have any name by which to refer to each other that will be generally recognized; now, therefore, be it _Resolved,_, That by a 2/3 majority, the rules are suspended, such that members may address each other by their names. mshaw: I object.. jbarnold: You are out of order. Please be seated. The Chair was speaking. You are out of order. Please be seated. Does the member who made the motion wish to speak in favor of the motion? hartmans: No. mshaw: I object because members are not from similar backgrounds. hartmans: Does the member have alternative wording? mshaw(member at the back of the office): No. jbarnold: Calling the question to order. 6-5-0, the motion passes. wdaher(member by the printer): Mr. Chairman, point of order. The motion requires a 2/3 majority. jbarnold: The point is well taken. Motion fails. [motion to allow people to use names fails] tabbott: SIPB officer elections are 2 weeks from today as is the general meeting of the SIPB. I also move for $50 for food for the meeting. jbarnold: Has the member submitted this to the secretary in writing? The member should do so. (motion is postponed until the member does so) wdaher: Mr. Chairman, may we send resolutions via zephyr? jbarnold: Yes, zephyr is a form of writing. quentin: Whereas, The MIT Student Information Processing Board has weekly meetings; Whereas, The members intend to conduct useful and effective business at weekly meetings; now, therefore, be it _Resolved_, That members may request, at any future meeting in the year 2007, that a motion be considered according to Robert's Rules of Order; _Resolved_, That no member may make more than one such request per year; _Resolved_, That the former Tech ombudsman may not make any such requests. hartmans: What is the majority required? jbarnold: 2/3? jemorris: He made that up. hartmans: Advise to appeal the decision of the chair. jbarnold: Shall the action of the chair be sustained? someone: Move to strike Jamie's comments from the record. jbarnold: It is moved that Jamie's remarks be stricken from the record. [motion to strike jemorris's comments from the record fails] jemorris(member right in front of me): People should vote for motions they make. hartmans: I think this motion would not benefit the organization. However, it might be a fun experiment anyway. mshaw: I move that the assembly do now resolve itself into a committee of the whole to take under consideration the aforementioned motion. jbarnold: Did the member just make a motion? mshaw: Freedom of expression something other other.. geofft: I move to make an amendment to the motion to form a _quasi_-committee of the whole. hartmans: Ask for the question. jbarnold: We will skip the secretary receiving this resolution in writing at the great displeasure of the chair. [motion to form some sort of committee of the whole fails] k_lai: (reads quentin's motion) hartmans: I move to revise the third resolution. jbarnold: 3-4-0, the motion fails. The resolution will not be split. [motion to revise third resolution of quentin's motion fails] jbarnold: All those in favor of the current pending motion, please say aye. This is the motion regarding Robert's Rules in the next year. jbarnold: Motion fails. [motion to allow and limit use of Robert's Rules in the next year fails] tabbott(member from laptop land area): Whereas, The SIPB has had poor attendance at officer elections meetings; now, therefore, be it _Resolved_, The SIPB will allocate $50 for the purchase of food for the 2007 officer elections. hartmans: I move the question. jbarnold: Motion passes. tabbott: Yay, I passed a motion! [motion to allocate $50 for food for 2007 officer elections passes] jemorris: Whereas, The point of holding this meeting was to utilize Robert's Rules in excruciating detail; and Whereas, The Chair made a particular fuss about not using people's names under Robert's Rules; now, therefore, be it _Resolved_, That the Chair is not to address nor refer to any person by name. jbarnold: Motion passes. [motion to force the Chair not to use names passes] tabbott: As discussed recently, there is a subsidy to travel to California to Paul Graham's school. If people are interested, they should contact the right person as stated in the email. MIT Computing Report: hartmans: The member would like to report that W92 was evacuated because of a 5-year-old bomb threat that was in fact a transcript of a phone conversation regarding a bomb threat. As the date of the document was uncertain, the building was evacuated. geofft: Whereas, The last of the Pasta Pads, the colloquial name for the free Athena dial-in servers, has been taken out of service due to the recent server moves; Whereas, The availability of a free dial-in service is a valuable service for the MIT computing community; now, therefore, be it _Resolved_, that the SIPB allocate up to $50 towards the purchase of a modem for providing dial-up access to Athena for the MIT computing community. hartmans: Move to postpone to the SIPB Projects Report. jbarnold: Motion (to postpone) passes. [motion to postpone pasta pads motion passes] tabbott: Athena 9.4.36 patch release is going out tonight. SIPB Projects Report: (~3 people stand at once) hartmans(member closest to me who is in front of laptop land): Move to recall previously postponed motion. jemorris: Can it be read again? tabbott: Chair should not use "me" when referring to himself. jbarnold: Point is well taken. hartmans: I wonder if SIPB should engage in such a service so hastily and that it might be better to partner with IS&T. It would be more maintainable and reliable. quentin: Move to consider the motion by paragraph. jbarnold: Member at the front of the office should send the motion to the secretary. tabbott: Point of order: we should refer to the prospective as a prospective. k_lai: jbarnold: Motion fails. [motion to allocate $50 for a modem fails] wdaher: A Resolution to Purchase An RFID Reader for SIPB Whereas, the MBTA recently introduced a contact-less smart card for the purpose of fare collection; Whereas, SIPB has historically taken an interest in researching these new technologies; Whereas, an RFID-reader theoretically capable of reading said card is available for approximately 217 Euro (280 U.S. Dollars); now, therefore, be it _Resolved_, that $350 be allocated for the purpose of purchasing said RFID reader. geofft: Mr. Chair, I would like to know if the reader will read other such cards like MIT ID cards. wdaher: It reads ISO 14-443 types A and B. The MIT card does not comply with those standards, so no. quentin: Would it be possible to purchase a reader that would read both types? wdaher: Not really. We have in the past been able to read MIT ID cards, so it does not seem necessary to find one. hartmans: Would people use this reader? quentin: Yes. wdaher: Part of my motivation is to figure out how the MBTA is using the cards. I would be willing to later refund SIPB's purchase if we have decided that it hasn't gotten much use. jbarnold: Motion passes. [motion to allocate $350 for an RFID reader capable of reading CharlieCards passes] andersk: scripts.mit.edu has been upgraded to Fedora Core 6, so it now has fast cgi and SElinux support. yoz(chairman--er member near the Akamai thing(water bottle)): Chairman should not refer to members as "Chairman" and should not refer to himself as "I". jbarnold: The point is well taken. andersk: The linerva project will probably be upgraded to Debian etch by the end of the week. I would also like to ask the Chair if the Chair has anything to add. jbarnold: Fast cgi support is now enabled on scripts. We don't what it's going to look like, but it's there for testing. jbarnold: The white board will be examined by Kip for mounting on Thursday. Office Report: andersk(member near the gadget shelf): I tried to use the USB enclosures yesterday but couldn't. In particular, there are no power adapters or Firewire cables. wdaher: I think you can use the camera cable and can scrounge the rest of what you need from around the office. hartmans: Some enclosures don't need some of the cables. tabbott: I would like the prospective to comment on the machine identifiers that he placed in the middle of the office. geofft: The papers on the bulletin board were difficult to read from the opposite side of the room. Also, the process of using static IPs is not clearly defined. Having the machine identifiers makes the information more readable by people in Laptop Land, Secondly, they are physically moved to another spot, so people can physically claim an unused IP address. mathmike(member hovering above the tables): Mr. Chairman, I would recommend moving these things to a better location. geofft: I could not think of a better location. wdaher: Mr. Chairman, I recommend putting them on the bulletin board. quentin: Putting them on the bulletin board defeats the purpose of making them readable. tabbott: I suggest making the font size larger. tilia(IAP sucker): I talked to the CAC, and they didn't have any whiteboard markers or projector cables and wondered where I got the idea that they had these items. quentin: Mr. Chairman, I suggest that we should find out which department or administration is in charge of the markers and the projector cables. Office Cleaning Report: tabbott: On the center table, I have here a receipt and some sort of recipe or something. The Vice Chair would like to have them destroyed at the end of the meeting if they are not claimed. geofft: _Resolved_, that any items left in Laptop Land for one week with no identifying information be discarded at the discretion of anyone in the office. tabbott: Move to postpone this motion to next week when we can hold an appropriate discussion. jbarnold: Voting on the motion to postpone. Motion passes. [motion to postpone office cleaning motion until next week passes] Publications Report: CokeComm Report: geofft: Mr. Chairman, there are very few items left in CokeComm, so people who know how should get more items. There are two things of Coke left, and that's about it. tabbott: Mr. Chairman, I would like to know if the prospective has emailed CokeComm about this. geofft: I have not. Orientation Report: mshaw: I would like to note that it is sooner than you think. IAP Report: mshaw: I would like to inform SIPB that it is sooner than you think. It is now. geofft: Point of order. Use of "you" should not be used to refer to SIPB. mshaw: "You" was referring to something else. hartmans: Point of order. This point of order is as dilatory as the rest of them. quentin: Move to limit debate. geofft: Using Robert's Rules is in itself dilatory, so making the claim that the points of order are more dilatory than others doesn't hold. hartmans: Prospective's comments are out of order. jbarnold: The SIPB is not in order! The members are reminded to direct their comments at the Chair and not each other. mshaw: Move to set the time for this motion to end 7:30PM one week from now. jbarnold: Now the Chair considers the motion dilatory. mshaw: I appeal the Chairman's decision. jbarnold: Appeal fails. jbarnold: Chair recognizes the member as dilatory and will not consider any other dilatory motions from said member. geofft: Propose that we eject the member at the back of the office. quentin: Move to postpone question about adjournment until 9pm. jbarnold: The Chair considers the motion dilatory. jbarnold: 9-8-0 motion succeeds! Meeting closed! [motion to close Robert's Rules meeting passes] Robert's Rules meeting was adjourned at 20:28. jbarnold: Robert's Rules meeting closed! SIPB meeting still open! Other: danjared: I am trying to help organize arrangements to bring Ubuntu developers at MIT. hartmans: MIT conference services. danjared: Also, if anyone would like to assist with this, please contact me. jbarnold: Conference services want lots of approval, etc. jbarnold: There are 2 postcards en route to SIPB, one with the full address and the other to "SIPB MIT USA". They discuss the differences between Taiwanese and American cultures. Hopefully they will arrive. They cost 30 Taiwanese dollars to send, which is one US dollar. Other Other: geofft: I happen to have left my Macbook pro power adapter at a high school. I have an IAP class this Wednesday that I need to use my laptop for, so if anyone has one that I could borrow, please let me know. hartmans: Move to allocate $100 for a MacBook Pro power adapter for SIPB that geofft can borrow for this explicit purpose. [ayes have it; motion passes for $100 for MacBook Pro power adapter] The meeting was adjourned at 20:33. Minutes taken and submitted by k_lai.