Week 12
Mon 17th Mar - Sun 23rd Mar 2025
Tuesday 18th March 2025
Governance Workgroup
Type of meeting: Weekly
Present: PeterE [facilitator], CallyFromAuron [documenter], PeterE, CallyFromAuron, LordKizzy, Tevo, guillermolucero, Sucre n Spice, CollyPride, LadyTempestt, SubZero, Slate, Alfred Itodele, AshleyDawn, Duke, Effiom, esewilliams, Malik, Évéline Trinité, MaxMilez, UknowZork, osmium
Purpose: Regular weekly GovWG meeting
Narrative:
We looked at the consent form responses, noting that 14 WGs have no objections and have thus passed; and 7 WGs have at least one objection, and these will need to be discussed.
We also noted that we did not establish any kind of quorum for this consent round - so even though some WGs only garnered very few responses (for example, Knowleddge Base only had 4), they still pass.
We started with the objections to AI Sandbox/Think Tank; this took most of the meeting and was still inconclusive by the end.
Key discussion points included:
ADMIN COSTS vs DELIVERABLES / OUTPUTS 2 objectors and 2 abstainers all commented that AI Sandbox/Think Tank is spending too high a proportion of their budget on admin (nearly 4x as much as they spend on outputs). In the discussion, it was suggested that perhaps some budget elements had been mis-described as admin, when actually they are outputs/deliverables. The nature of this WG means that its sessions are not just procedural meetings, but actual learning sessions or debates, so in effect, it delivers a community event each week, so in a sense, its meetings are "outputs".
WHAT ARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TASKS? Tevo said that the project management tasks he does in his own WGs only take him minutes to do, so he queried why AI Sandbox/Think Tank is taking so much longer. He suggested the WG's quarterly report should list the fixed tasks needed to prepare each of its sessions - the WG has learnt, after operating for a few months, what these tasks are.
GITHUB vs DEWORK MANAGEMENT COSTS Is the WG "double-dipping" by costing for both GitHub and Dework management? No. Project management for this WG (as for many other WGs) is done on a GitHub Board - but in order to process payments, the information still needs to be copy-pasted into Dework tasks, because the Treasury system unfortunately doesn't integrate directly with GitHub. But we noted that there may be questions over how long this should take, and that using Dework templates could make it faster.
PAYMENTS STOPPED IN Q1 2025 It was noted as background info that during Q1, Treasury stopped payments to Sandbox/Think Tank for certain project management tasks, because they felt it was not clear enough in the Dework task what was being done; and LordKizzy amended the Dework tasks to give more detail.
VALUE OF TOOL EXHIBITION SESSIONS Tevo queried the value of the WG's tool exhibition sessions - do they give any more information about the tools than a person could gain by simply Googling? Are the selected tools actually useful? Should the sessions cover only sNET tools rather than just any AI tool? What is the impact of the sessions if nobody is actually using the tools under discussion? He acknowledged that perhaps the value is in the discussion itself, but still had questions, which were not fully resolved in this meeting.
PUBLIC GITHUB BOARD Lord Kizzy screenshared the AI Sandbox/Think Tank GitHub board, and realised that as they're using 2 separate repos, one of them is not public. He agreed to make it all public, to improve transparency.
DOCUMENTING PLANNING SESSIONS AND ASYNC WORK There was a suggestion that the WG's planning meetings and async discussions need to be documented, for transparency. But it was noted that many WGs do this kind of work and don't document it publicly, and have not been asked to; so it is important to ensure we are not demanding something of AI Sandbox/Think Tank that is not being asked of other WGs. We noted that in future Quarters, it could be made an absolute requirement for WGs to fully document this type of work, but it currently is not.
FLAT RATES FOR ADMIN COSTS? It was suggested that all WGs should pay the same for admin costs such as facilitation, documentation, etc. The counter-argument was that in line with WG autonomy, WGs should continue to be able to make their own decisions on this, within reason, and that some variation is OK; particularly because the tasks are not exactly the same from WG to WG. There was no final decision on this.
TO RESOLVE OBJECTIONS TO AI SANDBOX/THINK-TANK To resolve his objections, Tevo said that AI Sandbox/Think Tank need to:
update their budget sheet to remove as many things as possible from project management and assign to either of the deliverables (AI Sandbox sessions or AI Think Tank session);
if possible, lower the rewards for Dework task management, because it should use a template which they copy paste, and the work should not be more than 30 mins per week
make their GitHub board fully public so we can see all the tasks
explain in more detail, in the relevant GitHub issues, what the operational calls and async planning consist of, ideally including relevant links.
Discussion Points:
Noting which WGs' Q2 2025 budgets have passed, and which have objections
Working through the objections for AI Sandbox/Think Tank
Decision Items:
We agreed that the following 14 WGs' budget have passed:
AI Ethics Archives Gamers GitHub PBL Governance Knowledge Base LatAm Moderators Onboarding Process Strategy Treasury Treasury Automation Video
[rationale] Because they had no objections
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We noted that the following 7 WGs' budgets have NOT passed, and need to be further discussed:
African AI Sandbox/Think Tank Education Marketing R&D Translation Writers
[rationale] Because they have at least 1 objection
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We agreed that next meeting, rather than continuing where we left off in the discussion on AI Sandbox/Think-Tank, we will start by reading through all the objections to all WGs, before beginning to discuss any of them.
[rationale] To ensure that we at least make people aware of what all of the objections are, even if we do not get time to address them all in one meeting. In this meeting, we focused in too quickly on one WG, and that took up all of the time.
[effect] affectsOnlyThisWorkgroup
We agreed that we will need to adjust the schedule for Governance meetings to allow for several more sessions on discussing the budget objections.
[rationale] because sorting out budget objections properly is more important than getting the budgets agreed quickly.
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We noted that we did not establish any kind of quorum for this consent round - so even though some WGs only garnered very few responses (for example, Knowleddge Base only had 4), they still pass.
[rationale] We have previously discussed the idea of a quorum, but never actually implemented one for this round.
[opposing] Possibly this is something to consider for next Quarter
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
Action Items:
[action] Everyone - particularly WGs with objections - will add comments in the "Responses" Googlesheet to address the objection(s), in time for the next meeting (Thurs 20th March). [assignee] all [due] 20 March 2025 [status] todo
[action] Peter will give a brief update at today's Town Hall to outline where the budget consent process is at - and then we will endeavour NOT to talk about budget issues beyond that, to avoid exhausting people on the topic ("budget discussion burnout") [assignee] PeterE [due] 18 March 2025 [status] todo
Keywords/tags:
topics covered: Q2 2025 budget, Q1 2025 quarterly report, AI Sandbox/Think Tank, objections, admin costs, admin costs vs outputs, Town Hall, budget discussion burnout, GitHub project board, cost standardisation, Quorum, Dework, Dework template
emotions: well-attended, inconclusive, no decisions, in-depth, slow
Thursday 20th March 2025
Governance Workgroup
Type of meeting: Weekly
Present: PeterE [facilitator], CallyFromAuron [documenter], PeterE, CallyFromAuron, guillermolucero, Tevo, Jeffrey Ndarake, Eric Davies, CollyPride, LadyTempestt, Kateri, Effiom, AshleyDawn, UknowZork, LordKizzy, Sucre n Spice, advanceameyaw
Purpose: Regular weekly Open Gov call
Narrative:
We read through all the objections in the spreadsheet here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6Uy3ZsPwAZUM094ENN3kqXugU5xUaZpxYdqfaDy7rk/edit?usp=sharing to ensure that they have at least all been publicly heard.
We noted that the only objection for Translation WG (i.e. to add links in the Quarterly Report to the translated articles) has been addressed and the links have been added, so we confirmed that Translation WG's budget has now been approved. As an aside, we noted that some of the translated articles are not tagged, so it would be difficult for people to find them - but this task is supposed to be done by Iain Wentworth.
We discussed some of the issues raised in the objections to the 6 WGs that have not yet been approved, but did not reach a resolution on any of them.
We realised that the current schedule, which requires the 2nd-round consent forms to go out this Sunday, 23rd March, is not possible, so we amended it to push all the dates back by 1 week (see "Decisions" below).
We also decided on some changes to the 2nd-round consent process to ensure fairness, and avoid an endless cycle of new objections (see "Decisions" below). We recognised that it is unlikely that even another 2 meetings will completely resolve all the objections; so as GovWG our role is to ensure everyone knows what the objections are, and has easy access to the WGs' comments on them - people can then use the 2nd round consent process to say whether they feel the objection(s) against each as-yet-unapproved WG are an issue, or not. In this, we agreed that it would be valid for someone who did not object to a WG in round 1 to rethink based on the objections raised by other people, and to say in Round 2 "Actually, I agree that such-and-such is a problem", but not for them to add new objections of their own at this stage.
Discussion Points:
Reading out all objections in the Q2 process
Approving Translation WG
Amending the timeline for the consent process
Changes to the 2nd-round consent process to ensure fairness, and avoid an endless cycle of new objections
Decision Items:
We agreed that Translation WG's budget is now approved
[rationale] because the objection (i.e. that links to the translated articles need to be added) has been done.
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We confirmed that the 6 WGs which have not yet been approved are therefore:
African AI Sandbox/Think Tank Education Marketing R&D Writers
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We agreed to amend the schedule for this consent process to a week later, so:
Tues 25th and Thurs 27th March: Gov WG meetings will be additional budget approval sessions
Sun 30th March: deadline for WGs with outstanding objections to submit amended budgets/reports
Mon 31st March: Round 2 consent forms are shared
Weds 2nd April: deadline for Core Contributors to send in their consent forms
Thurs 3rd April - final meeting. If objections cannot be resolved, then WGs with 80% consent will be approved.
[rationale] because there clearly will not be time to proceed on the previously-agreed timeline
We decided that WGs with objections should ideally create a doc where they list the objections and give their responses
[rationale] Because this will be easier to read and to reference than having the points as comments in the "Responses" spreadsheet.
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We decided that the second-round consent process should only allow people to comment on objections that have already been raised, rather than raising completely new ones.
[rationale] We won't have time to address brand-new objections; it could end up as a never-ending cycle; and it is unfair to WGs to continue to allow new objections to be raised that were not mentioned earlier.
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We agreed that it would be valid for someone who did not object to a WG in round 1 to rethink based on the objections raised by other people, and to say in Round 2 "Actually, I agree that such-and-such is a problem".
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
We decided that the consent form for Round 2 needs to be amended to reflect the above. It should list the existing objections to each WG and ask people to agree or disagree; and it should all be in 1 form, rather than requiring people to complete separate forms for each WG.
[rationale] Because the form as it currently is would allow people to introduce new objections, which we have aagreed would be undesireable.
[effect] mayAffectOtherPeople
Keywords/tags:
topics covered: consent process, Translation WG, objections, consent process timeline, timeline, consent form
emotions: slightly prickly, inconclusive, circular, slow
Friday 21st March 2025
Writers Workgroup
Type of meeting: Weekly
Present: kenichi [facilitator], CJFrankie [documenter], kenichi, Mikasa, CJFrankie, Gorga Siagian, devon, Evelyn, inesgav, LadyTempestt, AJ
Purpose: The weekly meeting of the writers workgroup
Working Docs:
Narrative:
Kick-off: The writers' workgroup weekly meeting commenced at 3:10 p.m. Kenichi reviewed the action items from the previous meeting. He announced that the Twitter premium plan had been activated and that the monthly Town Hall updates from January would be the first publication on X. Furthermore, he stated that the Web3 publishing platforms require additional attention and, to that end, requested that Cj Frankie and Gorga submit their first drafts.
DRAFTS: As agreed in the previous meeting, article suggestions will now be submitted via spreadsheet. In this meeting, Kenichi demonstrated the new draft submission form, which streamlines the process. Writers can now suggest articles, include submission and preferred publication dates, and provide other relevant information. The form's integration with a Google Sheet simplifies tracking for the workgroup. Ines also recommended considering tools like Trello to further enhance workflow. Both Scribblers and Scribes will have access to the submission form. Once a draft is approved, the Scribes will submit it to the community page. Kenichi will coordinate with Peter to pin the form link to the WWG Discord channel for easy access.
Role document: Ines inquired about the new role document and its associated thresholds. Kenichi clarified that the document will be accessible this Quarter, and there will be no penalties for not meeting any outlined expectations. The document's purpose is to track Scribblers' progress over time, enabling the workgroup to make informed decisions, such as whether or not to onboard new members.
Ambassador Program website: In this meeting, Ines proposed the idea of creating a platform or WordPress for the workgroup, where all information about what we do can be easily accessed. Kenichi then revealed that he is collaborating with the R&D guild to develop an Ambassador Program website, which will house comprehensive information about all workgroups, each of which will have a dedicated page with updated access.
Action Items:
[action] Kenichi to chase Peter to pin the draft submission form in the WWG Discord channel. [assignee] kenichi [due] 28 February 2025 [status] todo
Learning Points:
Keywords/tags:
topics covered: Ambassador Program website, R&D guild, Twitter/X Premium, article submission form, roles
emotions: Brief
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