Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of November 11, 1985 The meeting was called to order at 19:35 by RF. In attendance were Members: RF, WHBH, spook, Peter, Carla, Stan, BCN, Bill Sommerfeld, HNH, Meilin, WMY, simson, Aya, Mark Lillibridge, Chun, JTK, Irene Prospectives: Charles Coleman, Martha Adams Treasurer's Report: Dispatch was closed so Carla couldn't get the numbers. Chairman's Report: Need to modify purpose and membership procedures in the by-laws. Right now our main purpose is to provide access to computational facilities. Simson proposes describing the categories of members and defining the purpose of each type. Simson likes using Charon and being a vocal advocate for the students, but doesn't like giving out accounts. Carla likes to help people out. There is a need for people who sit in the office and answer questions. Meilin notes that giving out Multics accounts does not require much overhead. Five minutes to set up the account and then a regularly staffed office to answer any questions they have. The office manual should be updated to reflect the new account setup procedure. New members should know how to give out accounts. RF thinks we should have a set of lists of responsibilities. There should be things we have to do, things we should do, and things we could do. Some responsibilities can be attached to particular positions, such as Office Manager. Simson says we should figure out the real reasons people join. Various members propose a minimal set of requirements for active members: knowing how to give out an account, having office hours, reading the office manual, NETS and NUMS, knowing how to use Spinwriter, going to meetings once in a while. Simson thinks this is too fascist and rigid. People should have general knowledge. RF thinks members should have knowledge of our documentation. [JTK walks in.] RF then switches to the question of what other tasks we could be doing that we aren't doing currently. Two years from now, there won't be a Multics and Athena will be decentralized. We have to keep this in mind. (Actually, Multics will probably stay around a lot longer.) Simson worries that many of the SIPB's achievements go unnoticed. For instance, SIPB members were instrumental in getting the W20 clusters for all undergraduates. Simson thinks we should organize our catering to Athena. Martha suggests putting the SIPB's purpose on our documentation so that it's more concrete. Meilin thinks word-of-mouth is more effective in attracting members. Simson notes that Lerman mentioned us in a recent issue of the Communications of the ACM. Carla proposes giving each prospective a "mentor" who makes sure they know what's happening. This learning process will go on for a month and will include staffing the office. After a month, the mentor can nominate the prospective if the prospective is ready. WMY and others think we should get back to our old policy of official office hours as well as signups for office hours. Carla moves that the following parts of the bylaws be enforced: Before someone is nominated, we should know that he/she wants to join for the right reasons, has been to four meetings, has some competency, i.e. knows how to give Multics accounts, knows how to use Spinwriter and has read the policy statement. Part of this process will be the "buddy" system proposed above. The staffing requirement will be about ten hours, six with the buddy. We will apply this retroactively to the beginning of the summer. Now we attach office hours to this still unseconded motion. To start, we will have hours from 2-4 p.m. and 8-10 p.m. To organize this, we will need an Office Manager. Since Aya is already our office manager, she can keep a schedule sheet. The motion is never seconded, but it passes by the principle of general agreement. The EC has a whole set of by-laws that most people have probably forgotten. We should probably keep it around even if it is a bit obsolete. [Flaming about the original purpose of the EC ensues.] [Now we pause to eat Toscanini's Ice Cream. There is some advantage to going to meetings after all. Many thanks to Cliff, Simson, and Henry!] [Irene comes in.] We have to clarify our voting procedure, but for now we'll let the Chairman decide whether there are enough people to vote. This issue will be dealt with further at another meeting. The Scribe project on Multics is being reorganized to move Scribe work out of SIPB/SIPBADMIN. RF will set up a notes file for things that need to be done. People have to be assigned buddies now. The following people were elected since the beginning of the summer: Chun, Mark, Bill Sommerfeld, David, HNH, Stan, Jim Reich. The following pairs are set up: Ken (spook) and Bill. Henry (HNH) and Carla. Stan and Simson. Mark and RF. Chun and Meilin. Martha Adams needs a buddy. Carla volunteers. We need people to update the office manual. Office Report: Aya is the Office Manager. She will set up the office schedule over the next two weeks. She will also find an eraser somewhere. Athena Report: Eva is thinking about putting in the modems without a rack. If it's possible, it should happen within a week. 258-SIPB has been assigned to AMP. We have to think of something else. The Math Library for Scribe has been done by somebody, but we need to purchase another font for the 9700 to use it. Simson and HNH are working on a conference call program similar to VMS's "phone". Computer Services: [There is flaming about some terminal in the basement.] Telecommunications Report: Someone wants to tag the LA36's (Decwriter III's). If they call, tell them the terminals are in the Student Center. Aya suggests putting the LA36's in the Athena clusters, at least in Building 11. There isn't any room in Building 11. People should think about where terminals could go. We still have two unconnected Multics lines coming into the office. HNH wonders what we should do about them. We have to think about service contracts for next year on our terminals. Aya will write up a list of terminals or get the orange binder up-to-date. The latter may be impossible. Publications Report: Check out the new policy statement next to the stereo if you're interested. R/O Report: IAP Report: People will be preregistering thru our office for Cliff's course. BCN has started a signup sheet on the blackboard. Other: Other Other: Bill York (WMY), former SIPB chairman, was present at this meeting! The meeting was adjourned at 21:48!!! Minutes taken and submitted by WHBH.