Compsoc Exec Minutes (2006/11/10)

Present:

Bruce
Bucko
Candle
Fred
Kim
Polar

Apologies:

Laurence

Hursley

It was thought that there were too few people to pay for the union coach. A minibus and cars was suggested. It was pointed out that there may be a cancellation fee for the union coach that has already been booked. Candle thought that the fee for cancellation may be up to 10. The cost of the coach is approximately 500 Great British Pounds, making the fee up to 50 GBP. The cost of hiring the coach to the society was thought to be much more on even a 50 increase on signups between the meeting and the trip. The trip has already been advertised in 1st and 2nd year lectures with the careers service and Tiskin has also mentioned it. There have been posters placed in the DCS common room, work rooms and been projected in the entrance. Posters have also been placed in the maths entrance and undergraduate common room, the physics concourse including L3, Rootes Social Building, on notice boards outside the arts centre and union south and on the compsoc notice board in union north. The level of publicity was not thought to be able to be increased significantly. It has been noted that there is a post-graduate open day and other careers information fairs and activities on the day of the trip, which may have caused the reduced uptake of the event.
The topic then turned to whether IBM would be happy with us sending about 16 people when they were expecting a much larger turnout. Polar will call Yvonne tomorrow to check. If the event does go ahead, the source of the lunch for the journey would be best told of the scale and at what time people would be buying lunch. It was noted that there were union shops open or Costcutters. Bucko suggested that the 1.5l crystalline water would be useful as it was cheap and would provide an alternative to fizzy drinks. Candle was put in charge of organising the food as he would be attending the trip.

Loughborough University

Loughborough University have proposed joint lans during the Christmas and Easter holidays at Loughborough. This was thought to be a good idea as gaming does not currently exist. The proposal was to send about 20 people for a weekend. Transportation was discussed with the idea of a compsoc van or minibus to transport equipment or by train. It would be 80 GBP for a union minibus for the journey to and from the university from Warwick. It was thought that as it was during the holidays that people would largely be able to get lifts with parents and small groups of friends may be travelling together. The idea was thought to be a good idea as it would allow a larger and different variety of games. If people wanted to organise transport through the society, putting it in the comment field would be useful as early as possible. Signups closing a week before the event would allow time for society transport to be arranged if enough people wanted it. Kim pointed out that the best time for future lans of this type would be the first weekend after term ends. This may be difficult to implement as different universities may end term on different dates. Fred has been asked to ring Loughborough regarding possible transport between the station and the university.

At this point we tried to checkup on last week’s joblist though as the secretary was absent, no-one had a copy to hand.

Topic Rules

There were no issues or objections raised with the rules that bucko had produced. A quick list of rules was made during the meeting:
Don’t overuse memes, troll, flood, use annoying scripts or put content not suitable for work in the channel, this includes porn or anything deemed unsuitable (including screamers (sounds that are not suitable at work). If an item is dubious, an op may wait for a complaint before kicking.
To control the ability of people to flood the channel, it was thought a BadgerBOT plugin would be best as there is already one that has the ability to detect flooding so another would be needed to link with the api of the first specifically for flooding the channel. Three lines in three second was thought to be appropriate as people are unable to type three proper sentences in three seconds. If this plugin was operational, BadgerBOT would then have the ability to kick people. The exec agreed that there had to be no possibility of any user abusing this through any other plugin. If this was not guaranteed then policing this in the old fashioned method would be used. A member of the BadgerBOT development team’s maturity was questioned. It was pointed out that the member in question already had the ability to kick people in any channel and the abuse through BadgerBOT would be easily traceable. It was originally suggested that BadgerBOT should have halfops, though this would not allow the protection against the ops in the channel flooding so full ops have been agreed upon being instated. +a was suggested but quickly dismissed in case BadgerBOT needed to be kicked.

Budget/Spending

The exec discussed the current status of accounts.
The exec decided to move away from the stance that past execs have taken and not minuting the exact status of the accounts.
The recent failure of the DCS cupboard was pinpointed to the switch inside the cupboard during the power blip that affected campus systems widescale. A new switch will be ordered as a replacement.

Game Coding Event

VGDSoc has not got back to Polar. We know that VGDSoc have booked B2.13/B2.14 from 7pm on Friday. The connection from ITS is the information that is being waited upon. Apparently, VGDSoc has emailed ITS, Covbob is checking as well and Polar has emailed them to gather the information. The techteam should be attend with equipment at the beginning. Fred will organise this. It was noted that “Team Nuclear” is the only compsoc team that is planning to enter at this point. A number of people in the room did discuss entering as well.

Techteam Cupboard Key

Euan’s Key has been collected from him. It has been decided to be reassigned to Crazy_Piglet.

Lan (Week 8)

This is the week after next. Signups are opening this Wednesday. The events system does not have working mac address fields or seating preference options. Members should put these in the comment field or, if they wish them not to be known to everyone on the internet, email lan at bucko dot me dot uk. Signups will open at 10pm due to the trip to IBM Hursley and LUG Tutorial.

Flyers

Kim’s thought the flyers aimed at maths and physics students should not be produced till after gaming was organised. This was thought unacceptable.
Polar will be making posters and flyers to advertise the guest lecture that is a week on Wednesday.

Gaming

Gaming in Social Studies will occur once ITS fit the room with computers. This is not a long term option though as they will not be 24 hour access next year. Amorya is looking into the possibility of computers in psychology.

Christmas Dinner Social

The exec thought that this had to be special otherwise it would be a pub social with different food.
The Virgin & Castle was thought to be the ideal venue, though as it has currently not been booked it may not have space. Kim will be phoning tomorrow to book. It was decided to book for 30 people and then possibly reduce the number as it would then guarantee us the space so would be easier to reduce than choose a lower number then increase. This will be Saturday of week 9. The exec decided that if The Virgin & Castle was unavailable then The Old Clarence would not be a suitable alternative.

Bowling

Kim is organising a bowling social on Wednesday of week 10.

Newsletter

An apology should be sent with the next newsletter regarding recent communication.

Resulting Joblist

Polar to call Yvonne tomorrow regarding Hursley trip.
Candle to cancel coach booking.
Candle to organise food and transport if the Hursley trip does take place.
Fred to talk to Loughborough University regarding transportation and dates for LANs.
Bruce to write irc rules.
Bruce to tell Faux to write a flood protection script for #compsoc.
Fred to organise techteam for Game Coding Event.
Polar to design flyers for guest lecture.
Bruce to print flyers for guest lecture.
Kim to book Christmas meal tomorrow.