MWStake incorporation/Board meeting/Meeting minutes

< MWStake incorporation | Board meeting

Meeting notes from the inaugural MWStake board meeting

  Note: The meeting agenda and notes should probably be folded into the meeting template/structure on this wiki.

MWStake incorporation

Bryan briefly discussed the status of MWStake's incorporation.

• Applied for Rapid Grant, was delayed significantly, but now approved
• Grant funds incorporation of legal entity (estimated cost = $2,000 and grant amount = $2,000)
  • Next phase will be filling for non-profit status (estimated cost = $1,500)
• Working with a lawyer out of Pennsylvania
• Application for Employee Identification Number (EIN) has been completed (required even for a non-profit w/o "employees")
• Paid for legal advertisement required for incorporation (newspaper & journal) and corporate minute book (although our meeting will likely be captured in a wiki)

Board/Officer role/title selection

After some discussions, the following officer roles were agreed upon:

• President - Mark Hershberger
• Vice President - Markus Glaser (this role will be an addition to the "proposed model" from our lawyer, but will likely be necessary)
• Treasurer - Evita Hollis
• Secretary - Bryan Hilderbrand

The MWStake board consists of:

• Bryan Hilderbrand
• Cindy Cicalese
• Evita Hollis
• James Montalvo
• Lex Sulzer
• Mark Hershberger
• Markus Glaser
• Sabine Melnicki

Membership/election/term

Membership:

• How do we get/advertise membership?
• What are the "dues"
• We should propose a membership model, get our lawyer's input, and then vote
  • Need members input

Board and officer positions:

• We should tend towards quicker board/officer terms (≈ 1year)
• Staggered elections to provide continuity is desired (not all officers are reelected at the same time)

Non-profit type

Not discussed, but needs review

• 501(c)(6) vs. 501(c)(3) - See here for more information
  • Need members input

Funding

Funding sources:

• Membership dues
• Grants from business
  • James discussed the possibility that NASA might be willing to help pay for a tech stack review
  • Maybe find a compelling argument that works for NASA and use it as a template for other businesses/organizations
• Grants from WMF (Ideally we move away from this model)
  • Need members input

Bylaws

• Our lawyers are drafting a set of standard non-profit bylaws
• We should add vice president as a officer role with Markus

Insurance

Depending on the direction MWStake takes, insurance needs should be looked into further.

Goals for the future

MWStake induced extension certification (MWS Certification)

• Cindy - SMW Audit
  • Set up a program for security audits for 3rd party extensions
  • Might need to get a lawyers input for liability
  • What does funding look like for this effort?
  • Could use a bug bounty model
  • How to perform a security review? Hire a contractor?
  • Brian Wolff works half-time for the WMF and may consider contract work in his non-WMF time
  • Robert Vogel may have experience and bandwidth to tackle this
  • James notes that SMW is a moving target and the security audit shouldn't be considered a one-time event
  • The This extension is maintained by a member of the MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group is a great example of the "badge of approval" MWStake can give as a "curated app" in addition to being good marketing/branding for MWStake (from extensions like LDAPAuthentication2)
  • Certification similar to MWStake induced extension certification (MWS Certification) as shown on right
• Lex
  • Suggestion: Adopt the following meeting preparation/execution culture: When requesting meeting agenda items from members, always try to obtain an item substance that is 80-100% ready to be decided on (in terms of direct implementation or whether it should get continued attention by the board/members). If the suggesting member is not the apt person for suggesting this substance, that member should obtain help from another member before the meeting. Having a "80-100% decision-mature" item substance speeds up processes and makes it easier for other members to actually engage with the topic at hand in a meaningful and efficient way for its concreteness. An example for this is https://mwstake.org/mwstake/wiki/MWStake_incorporation/Individual_statements#Lex_Sulzer.
  • Consider endorsement/support for/of conference "SearchAndWiki 2019" on selected knowledge transfer aspects
• Bryan (and likely Evita) - Improved documentation for "curated list" of 3rd party enterprise extensions
• Brainstorm on others
  • Need members input

Extraneous

• Shorthand for name: #mwstake, MWStake, MWSG, etc.
  • Need members input
• Meeting schedule: Quarterly, Monthly, etc.
  • Need members input
• Meeting time: This time (6am PST, 9am EST, 3pm CET), rotate, etc.
  • Need members input
• Correct email for members (personal vs. work)?
  • Need members input
• Branding
  • We should brand the Houston EMWCon with MWStake as the organizer
  • We should get a Twitter account for branding