Week 11 Term 2 Exec Meeting Minutes

Week 11 Term 2 Exec Meeting Minutes (and yes there are 11 weeks in Term 2)

Present: Amelie, Dan, John, Josh, Keegan, Leo, Ryan, Ella, Skiros, Scott, Thomas, Toby

Absent: Daisy

Discord Layout

Link to initial ideas/prospective changes: Discord changes - Google Docs

Membership screening

• Introduction to Discord
• Specifically looking at "community servers" new feature.
• Would not affect current users, nailing down what new users need to do/be aware of before taking part.

Intros

• Suggestion to remove #intros and change bot to introduce in #general, for example.
• Don't create a separate #grad-intros channel
• Decisions: Don't keep #intros, don't create #grad-intros, keep welcome messages

Rules/Code of Conduct

• Start pushing people to content-warn potentially-upsetting content
• Would we need a "not-exhaustive" list of CW ideas?
  • Tabletop doesn't have a list
  • Pushing people to edit, so they get an idea over time.
  • There will be a transition period.
• In general, anything NSFW
• In general it's a bit subjective as to what could be triggering.
• Reminder that we are a student platform, but we shouldn't need to justify ourselves.
• Where would this list go?

• A lot of the things in our rules/CoC are also in Discord's guidelines.
• Purpose of our rules is it is stuff that applies to all events, virtual and in-person, that don't necessarily happen on Discord.
  • This year is a bit of an exception with a lot of activity existing in Discord
• More changing how it is presented rather than the content
• Action: take a look at CoC and see if anything needs a rewrite?

Roles

• Currently #roles at top of Discord, split by categories, react gives/removes roles.
• Other than opt-in, roles don't serve much of a purpose
• RE split into multiple channels: separate important and optional roles so you do see important roles first
  • Counter: most do find the important roles anyway
• Focus of this discussion is on those who are new to Discord etc.
• Other role changes:
  • Split @postgrad into @pgr and @pgt
    • Change for role and channel
    • Specifically PG-Taught and PG-Research? Nope
      • Quite long
      • Widely used terms
      • Put description in role menu rather than in name
  • @Physics, @Biology, @Chemistry, @Engineering -> @Other STEM
  • @Business, @Humanities, @Social Sciences -> @Non-STEM
    • Summary of this: anyone can take DCS modules. At what point do we feel we have too many/too little channels?
    • Keep Direct DCS courses (everything to Data Science) as separate roles then group otherwise similar to above?
    • Strawpoll?
  • Add @prospective-student
    • Channel for prospectives to ask current students questions? Not needed all the time.
      • #undergrad?
  • Remove @garrys-mod, @jackbox, @film roles
    • @film merged with @social
    • Agreed! Let's move on please as I'm losing my sanity... :D
• Generally follow Slack model (important channels available to everyone, everything else opt in)
  • May look a bit unsightly but its the best option we have right now.
• Remove BDFL/ex-exec colour
  • Ex-exec don't have any powers in the server, they are listed in the exec history
  • Limit colours to years/course roles + exec

IRC

• Whatever happens, we need a #general
• Point of #freshers is for first years to go/meet people -> repurpose #first-year
• Just make and see if they get used? Was requested by freshers as there wasn't a starting area for them with their peers.
• Worth trying and looking at the end result
• Hmm it's already 6.50...

Continue original agenda at next meeting in a week

Other things for now:

• More public exec discussion in #exec
  • General discussion etc to move public? General pinging to stay private (e.g. write the newsletter!)
  • Anything discussed resulting in an action is discussed in a meeting anyway. General planning in front has previously normally been in private.
  • Don't put sponsor stuff public!
  • Mundane convos used to happen in person, however that can't happen because of a certain pomegranate going on right now.
  • Perhaps a #exec-readonly channel where discussions happen publicly?
  • Does everyone need to comment on stuff right from the initial idea, if everything is discussed publicly later?
  • Action: do something I don't know....
  • Real action: cut out everything that can be public and put messages to get exec to make it public. But otherwise sit and think and see what happens
  • Amelie's action point: improve !reminder command so they don't default to other reminder bots.
• Shrekathon date: poll to go up shortly

Move Academic events section to next meeting whenever that may be

I'm lost...

"That was the sudden shrek scare" Ryan (slightly paraphrased as I forgot the quote half way through typing...

"I WARNED YOU!!!" Amelie

"Don't make any good decisions without me" Alex in chat (don't worry, we won't!)