Compsoc Minutes (20/05/2006)

Apologies

Fred Emmott (Fred) was absent due to illness.

Present (exec members listed first)

Name (IRC Alias)

Andrew Wheat (Candle)
Laurence Hurst (Laurence)
David Byard (db_rat)
Bruce Tinton (Bruce)
David Buckley (Bucko)
Kim Tibbetts-Harlow (Kim)
Sean Connolly (Morlark)

Timothy Retout (Tim)
Arun Prasannan (Polar)
Chris West (Faux)
Benjamin Weber (benji)

Exec Abuse

The main problem seems to be that the exec member who changed a members hostmask did not own up immediately. The exec decided that the exec member in question should write an apology to the member in question.

IRC Policy

The exec discussed the proposed IRC policy. It was suggested that #compsoc could be censored, banning certain words but it was decided that this was a bad idea. I was also proposed that quotes which contained ‘not safe for work’ URLs be removed from the quotes database. Faux reported that this would be impossible due to the shear number of quotes in the database. An alternative suggestion was that all quotes containing URLs be tagged as ‘not safe for work’. The exec were asked to thoroughly read the proposed rules, and submit suggestions for improvement to the exec mailing list.

IRC Bans

A member of the society has been repeatedly banned from the main IRC channel and the IRC network however they continue to deliberately evade the bans which have been put in place. At one point the entire channel was moderated and other members in the channel given voice to minimise the disruption caused. It was suggested that only people who were authorised with Nickserv could be allowed to join #compsoc however this was dismissed since it would force people to auth with Nickserv who did not want to and potentially exclude new members from accessing the channel.

Steve Mathews Meeting

Db_rat reported that the meeting with Steve Mathews was very successful and would like to thank everyone who attended.

Website Project

Tim said that he would appreciate some help with the website project, but realises that most people are busy at the moment with exams. He also reported that twilight needed some more ram, but this is already ordered.
It was reported that the website is almost complete, lacking only an events system. The exec were also told that it would not be difficult to convert the new website to a wiki-style site, for easy updating, without any major changes. Db_rat reported that IBM were not happy with the current appearance of their logo on the website. Additionally they felt that the Compsoc website could look more professional.

Xen Servers

Since Fred as absent, this item was postponed until the next meeting.

Status of bong

The exec were told that something between the motherboard, SATA controller and hard disk is broken, however in the absence of Fred this item was also postponed until next week.

Feedback from IBM meeting

The exec were informed that the Hursley trip should happen on a Wednesday near to the 16th November. IBM have offered us two people for academic talks, an expert on viruses, worms and security exploits or an ex-Warwick student who designed a tracking system used by insurance companies to trace vehicles. The exec asked db_rat to ask if it would be possible to get both of them.
IBM have also asked us to increase our advertising of academic events through fliers, posters and calenders which they have offered to provide financial and design support for. Advertising at the start of lectures was also suggested as a way of increasing turnout. IBM are also happy to subsidise the LUG live cds and the Linux tutorials, provided they feature the IBM logo.
We have also been told that we can probably have a selection of IBM freebies to hand out at the freshers fayre. IBM would like their logo on the website fixed. They also suggested that it would improve the image of the society if the Compsoc website looked more professional.

Complaints procedure

It was decided that was was essentially a non-issue as complaints are dealt with at exec meetings. There was no exec meeting last week, which made it appear as though an excessive amount of time had passed since the ‘exec abuse’ complaint had been received to being properly discussed by the current exec.

Aston/Compsoc LANs and Monitors

Kim said that he was approached by a member of Aston’s compsoc about running joint LAN events. The exec decided that, unless special cross compsoc LANs were organised, the members of Aston compsoc would be welcome but would have to use guest signups after Warwick members had had an opportunity to sign up. While we cannot have larger capacity LANs due to there being no other suitable rooms available to us. The possibility of hosting cross compsoc LANs was discussed, perhaps with a 20/35 signup split between Aston/Warwick but no firm plans were made.
Kim also said that he was asked about the possibility of providing monitors for them, if we were to host a joint LAN event since a fairly small proportion of their membership have TFT screens. The exec decided that at the present time it would not be possible for the society to organise such a provision.

Minutes

It has been pointed out that individual members should not have been named in previous minutes. This comment has been taken on board by the secretary and efforts will be made to ensure that this does not happen in future minutes.
The exec had previously decided that all ex-exec members should have op powers, not just the previous year’s as was minuted.

There were no other objections or corrections to be made to last weeks minutes.

AOB

It was suggested that IRC and Molotov’s message of the day hold links to the latest newsletter and minutes, and that links be placed in the topic of #compsoc using a service such as snipurl to reduce the size of the links.

An official forum was requested by a member of the exec, whilst another member objected to the current redirect of forums.uwcs.co.uk to a forum run by a member of the society as it contains material which would not be permitted in any official forum due to equal opportunities rules etc. The exec decided that in view of the time and likely length of this discussion it would be postponed and added to the agenda of the next meeting.