Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2014-11-03 The meeting was called to order by vasilvv at 19:30. In attendance were Voting members: belzner, dove, dzaefn, dvorak42, btidor, vasilvv Associate members: achernya, jhawk, ksunter, quentin Prospectives: jakobw, sparrow_, tthoma24 Administrivia ============= dvorak42: I sent mail about a whole bunch of policies, I don't know if we want to vote now or later. The first policy is about standing allocations, it should be in everyone's inbox... vasilvv: I don’t think we can vote, we don't have enough people in the room. dvorak42: yes, but I wanted to give people the opportunity to voice concerns. vasilv: yes, but people can voice concerns with email. vasilvv: we should just wait for more people to be here. dvorak42: The proposal stuff got sent out about six days in advance, I think if people have comments it is fair for them to speak them for the minutes. vasilvv: okay, if that's what you think. dvorak42: does anyone have comments for the minutes? quentin: are these more complicated than necessary? dvorak42: the standing allocations are pretty necessary. quentin: I don't think you should be trying to encode edge cases into policy. dvorak42: two edge cases were to be more specific about vote-wrangling and what to do if there's insufficient quorum. and what to do with standing allocations that people seem fine with renewing. quentin: did you look up the historical hard drive consumption? dvorak42: yes, it tended to be around twice a year at around $250/month. quentin: 2 x a year at $250/pop is pretty reasonable. dvorak42: I don't want too-low allocations to discourage spending money quentin: I don't think they do - we basically do spending allocations dvorak42: yeah, but, like, I think the point of standing allocations is that people think we've already spent these allocations. vasilvv: I believe the point of standing allocations is more to avoid unnecessary delays in spending. quentin: I mean, we have never ever had a problem with the use of any allocations. dvorak42: like, is it reasonable for one service to get sixteen new hard drives? quentin: has that ever happened? I feel like you're planning for edge cases that will never happen. btidor: I assume the treasurer can ask the board to take a vote if they feel some amonut of money is unreasonably suspicious? dvorak42: yes, but this way the treasurer is kept in the loop. quentin: I feel like you are codifying a policy that is different than what is actually done. dvorak42: ...we also had the problem that last term the treasurer didn't know how much money we had because we kept spending money without him knowing. when we started asking Tom how much money was available, he wasn't completely sure, because there were a bunch of allocations that were made but hadn't been provisioned yet. tthoma24: It sounds like if you're going to buy something then you need to buy it and let the treasurer know. dvorak42: yes but there are people who spend things and then tell the treasurer. There was spending on office supplies. quentin: This doesn't seem like something the new policy will solve. dvorak42: yes but people with SAP bits had bought things without the treasurer being in the loop, because of confusion about the allocation process. - crosstalk, difficulty transcribing accurately - sparrow_: I think having a single system of record for spending might help. quentin: you mean something sort of like SAP? sparrow_: I mean for money in the weird limbo state between "agreed to be spent" and purchased, reimbursed, and all that. quentin: yes, the part of the policy where all the spending has to go in one text file solves this problem. dvorak42: yes, but talking to the treasurer will make sure he's kept in the loop. quentin: have we had random people buying stuff, or is it a small list? achernya: yes, the latter, the people who've bought hard drives in the past few years can be bounded to about four names. quentin: in practice, none of these have actually been abused, I'm not sure this is solving an extant problem. Normally, hard disk purchases are made through ecat so there's a very limited number of people who can make these purchases due to permissions. These people can see the budget, and normally this isn't an issue until the very end of the year when we usually have leftover money. achernya: Because we're conservative that way. dvorak42: I'd like the treasurer to be aware of every standingg allocation. quentin: I feel like the cluedump allocation is a different allocation because it is a priori and a fixed sum, unlike hard disks and office supplies. btidor: but I think it would be helpful to say that then that allocation doesn't require emailing every time, then the treasurer can make an exception for cluedumps organizers. dvorak42: I think this is similar than a different allocation, I think this is different than having every allocation, and maybe we could have a cluedumps chair or something. quentin: then we can create a separate cluedumps chair position who answers to the treasurer…? btidor: it's a standing allocation that's already been approved, and the treasurer can deal with how they control it. jhawk: why is this discussion happening at the meeting? dvorak42: we're trying to work out the wording... jhawk: you should have done that outside the meeting. dvorak42: yes but the discussion should be recorded somewhere, like in the minutes. btidor: I feel like we're going in circles. dvorak42: that's kind of the point. jhawk: motion to close discussion. dvorak42: but then where should we have this discussion? jhawk: somewhere else, secretary, do you want to keep typing this convo? sparrow_: nope. Please, do it elsewhere. vasilvv: motion seconded, motion passes. dvorak42: one more thing - so the point of policy Monday is to let these discussions go around so everyone can hear them. btidor: motion to get a smartcard reader. vasilvv: any objection to white ballot? motion passes. Project Updates =============== sparrow_: previous cluedump was a success, next cluedump will be PGP, announcement going out soon. jakobw: where do announcements go out? sparrow_: cluedumps-announce@mit.edu. jakobw: can I just blanche myself onto that? sparrow_: yes, you can. meeting adjourned at 7:58pm. Minutes taken and submitted by sparrow_.