Global BIPOC Board Meeting #18 Minutes

September 4, 2023 4:37 PM

Mefi Global BIPOC Advisory Board Meeting 18 Minutes–Public Jul 25, 2023 7AM PST - 9:00 AM (PST) 120 mins. Roll call: Loup, Aielen, Cendawanita, Porpoise, Hurdy Gurdy Girl, MiraK (for part of meeting)

Roll call: Loup, Aielen, Cendawanita, Porpoise, Hurdy Gurdy Girl, MiraK (for part of meeting)

1. Introductions and housekeeping
1. Introductions and welcome to new members/attendees
1. Current members present: aielen, hurdy gurdy girl, loup (moderator)
2. New members/attendees present: cendawanita, porpoise (MiraK joined later after Item 2(g).
2. Agenda/minutes document shared
1. Members invited to take collaborative notes/minutes
2. Agenda approved
3. Tool onboarding: adding new members to Slack, nachomountain email group, Zoom invite calendar, shared drive (and all other relevant documents not on the official shared drive); sending payment information to Thyme/Loup.

Action: New members will contact Loup ([e-mail]) directly with their email addresses (for Slack), preferred payment mode and payment details by July 30.
Action: Loup will add new members to Slack and shared Google Drive, as well as all relevant documents not on the shared Google Drive (e.g. content policy documents) - by July 30.
Action: New members will contact Majick with their email address by July 30
Action: Majick to add new members to nachomountain email group
Action: Thyme to ensure all new members are on the calendar / receive recurring Zoom invite

1. Discussion: Q&A between potential and current board members about what being on the board entails, what we’ve been doing, and the sorts of things we’ve been trying to address
1. Loup: spoke from moderator’s perspective to give context regarding more inclusion for BIPOC folks (and in the long run people from other marginalized groups) and the BIPOC board’s role in shaping moderation. 
2. HGG, aielen, porpoise and cendawanita spoke about their reasons for joining: wanting more representation for BIPOC members and making Metafilter a more inclusive place for all marginalized groups, not just BIPOC
3. Some discussion about differences in perspective (e.g. some members are not in the US, some are not a minority in their own country and thus have different perspective on racialization)
4. Group consensus: representation and a diversity of viewpoints is important and we welcome all new BIPOC board members!
5. Reference to MetaTalk thread last year that covered a lot of the purpose of the board: (https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26210/What-The-MeFi-BIPOC-Board-Does) 

1. Discussion of group feedback on policy documents circulated: “Community Guidelines”, “Content Policy”, “Microaggressions”
1. Loup shares the big-picture purpose of the 3 documents and their order of hierarchy:
1. Community Guidelines 
1. Covers how we hope the community will engage with one another when they interact
2. Positively-phrased (in terms of wording and expectations)
2. Content Policy
1. Lists things that are totally not ok on the site that will lead to consequences
2. Tone differs from Community Guidelines (“No. Don’t do this.”); explicitly outlines what not to do
3. This document is important because it is used as reference when moderators take harsher actions
3. Microaggressions
1. In most cases, this document is used to nudge a conversation. Loup has rarely on the site seen direct microaggressions but sometimes when things start going that way is when moderators will point out this document. 

These 3 documents are what MetaFilter will ultimately use as reference for moderating. 

1. Loup shared the history behind development of 3 documents: 
1. Initial content policy document was a 2-pager created by LobsterMitten: Guidelines and Microaggressions. 
2. As documents evolved, decisions were made to split them and have a primary doc that was phrased more positively, followed by a secondary doc with more details on unacceptable behaviour.
3. The documents are complex because Metafilter is complex. They are living documents and ultimately Loup would like to include membership feedback. 
2. Loup went through changes made by the moderation team since the previous version, with the board offering feedback:
1. Across all 3 documents: Improved accessibility through added links
2. In Community Guidelines:
1. Two extra sections added: “Allow others to express themselves” and “Use content warnings”
2. Removed mention of trolling (already covered in Content Policy)
3. In Content Policy:
1. Re-titled and expanded “Hateful or insensitive content” part of “Inappropriate Content” section
2. Expanded “Spamming” part of “Inappropriate Content” section
3. Added “AI-Generated Content” section
4. Added “Fanfare Guidelines” subsection to “Specific Subsite rules” section
5. Added bulletpoint about private notes in members’ profiles to “Enforcement” section. Notes can be helpful if identifying trends/patterns of behavior that occur over time; notes help facilitate shiftwork continuity
4. In Microaggressions:
1. Added “Questioning other people’s experiences” part to “Common Microaggressions” section
3. Loup summarized the moderation team’s approach in developing these current versions of the policy: meant to be more nuanced in spelling out the specifics; want to respond to behaviours the mods have seen an increase in; want to address more -isms such as ageism.


4. Board discusses refining Community Guidelines language of "inviting" people to speak so more agency is placed on those speaking from experience; suggests "encourage", "actively open a space", "open a discursive space"


5. Plan for implementing changes to the guideline documents: Annual review of all documents (August of each year); smaller changes implemented as necessary along the way.


6. Action: Cendawanita and Porpoise will also look through all 3 documents and make comments asynchronously before the next meeting

[MiraK joins meeting; another round of introductions.]

1. Actions re: 3 Policy documents

Action: Board to make comments, suggest changes in the 3 policy documents by August 15
Action: Loup to synthesize and implement these suggested changes between August 15 and August 22, and email the new version of the 3 documents to the board mailing list before the next meeting (August 22). Board will vote/approve this new version at the next meeting.
Recommendation: Loup to schedule a similar policy review exercise annually beginning every July for policy document changes to be implemented by September.
Action: Board to set aside time during the July 2024 and August 2024 meetings for similar policy review next year, with Thyme adding this to the board’s calendar. (Meeting dates: 23 July 2024 and 27 August 2024)

1. Meeting minutes: workflow, formatting, finalization (including level of detail)
1. New members given helpful links and documents to get up to speed with the board’s activities and minutes thus far
2. aielen goes over meeting minutes workflow: board has recently been revamping and refining workflow. Currently: Board collaboratively takes notes. Thyme compiles and finalizes the minutes after the meeting, producing an internal board-only version and external/public version that is approved and then Thyme formats for publication before next meeting. This is in response to community feedback in Metatalk about quicker public minutes turnaround.
3. Thyme will need to get support in formatting minutes for Metatalk, as it currently takes more time and knowledge than they have in their workload.

Action: Loup to take over the task of minutes formatting (for MetaTalk), beginning with Meeting #18 (current meeting).

1. HGG and brainwane had concerns about level of detail in minutes. There have been critical comments in MetaTalk about unnecessary level of detail, and HGG and brainwane agree. We will aim for the sweet spot that addresses previous community feedback wanting more detail and not having overly long minutes.

Action item: HGG will contact and coordinate/work with Thyme on the public minutes, beginning work for this meeting’s minutes on 2nd August.
[Porpoise, Cendawanita and MiraK leave; Loup, HGG and aielen stay on to resolve outstanding action items from past meetings.]

1. Previous business: Action items from past meetings
1. “Loup to send all remaining outstanding payments owed, and confirm with each payee that all payments owed have been received.” (followup from Meeting #17) Done, except for one member who attended only once, who has not yet responded. 

Action: Loup will attempt to follow up with the former member again and will update on this next meeting.

1. “Loup will share this moderator onboarding document with the board on Thursday, June 29th, through email.” (followup from Meetings #11, #16, #17) Pending. Loup has not done this yet. 

Action: Loup will share this document by Thursday, July 27.

1. “Loup to lead the writing of a statement to share with BIPOC Board and with the user, and to reach out to the user directly. Loup will send the note to the user and cc the Board; Thyme offers to help.” (followup from Meeting #17) Done. The note was sent on June 28.
2. Loup: Loup to share the BIPOC board subsite spec with frimble (followup from Meeting #17). Discussion with frimble has begun, but there is still a need to discuss specifics.

Action: Loup will give an update on the BIPOC board subsite next meeting, based on their discussion of the spec with Frimble. 

1. Thyme: Thyme to change Reminder Bot setup and shut down Reminder Bot in #general. (followup from Meeting #17). Done on June 27.
2. Aielen and HGG: Reaching out to certain users to ask whether they are interested in joining the BIPOC Board, to do please by July 11th. (aielen: reach out to a user; HGG: reach out to two users). (followup from Meeting #17). Done. aielen and HGG reached out to their designated users, some of whom indicated interest in joining. aielen also reached out to some additional users that also expressed interest. 3 of the users contacted are present at this meeting, 1 additional user will join next meeting. 
3. Board: Revisiting discussion of board discoverability / publicity (followup from Meeting #17) Tabled for next meeting under the agenda item “Publicizing the board, solving the larger issue of discoverability that is tied to outreach”
4. Majick, brainwane: “majick or brainwane to work with Thyme for next MeTa posting, show Thyme the free online tools to make this easier and quicker.” (followup from Meeting #17). Done.
5. Loup to bring up the proposed “code tour” for the board with frimble when the UX changes are ready to go live (understanding that Loup informed the board changes would be implemented by July 15). (followup from Meeting #17). Done. Loup asked Frimble about the code tour, has not heard back. Frimble made a round of homogenizing code changes across the site that are live but not visible. The next phase will have more visible UX changes (e.g. mobile flagging). Loup will check when this will happen and the remaining changes to be done.

Action: Loup to check with Frimble about the next phase of UX changes and the code tour, get more details and update the board next meeting.

1. Loup to share draft of new revised policy documents with the board and Jessamyn by June 28. (followup from Meeting #17). Done on July 14. 
2. Loup and Thyme to discuss issue of Slack plan’s paid member/guests asynchronously with board members over Slack, check Slack plan payments and sort out members vs guests on the board’s Slack workspace. (followup from Meeting #17). Done; currently only active board members are on the paid Slack plan and previous board members, SC members and any non-board staff are now guests in the general channel and no longer have access to the joint discussion channels or meeting channels for the meetings they previously attended. 
3. Board, aielen: Following up on user-reported issues around MeMail harassment and moderation of POC content in AskMe (followup from Meeting #17). Done. User will be present at the next (August) meeting. Discussion tabled for next meeting under the agenda item “User-reported issues around MeMail harassment and moderation of POC content in AskMe”

End of Meeting. Items below will be revisited at our next meeting. 

1. Publicizing the board, solving the larger issue of discoverability that is tied to outreach
2. Prioritizing future board work, answering the question “what is the needle?”
3. Frimble’s progress on a tool for viewing mod notes in threads
4. User-reported issues around MeMail harassment and moderation of POC content in AskMe
5. Data gathering for existing data
6. Land acknowledgements
7. Moderation resource allocation

posted by travelingthyme (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 4:37 PM