openSUSE board meeting minutes January 17

= Minutes of openSUSE Board meeting 2022-01-17 =

Present: Attila, Axel, Gerald, Gertjan, Maurizio, Neal, Syds
Guests: Bill, Doug, Emily
Minutes: Maurizio


== Minutes taking ==

- Gerald reminds board members who are taking minutes not to forget to
post them in the wiki.
- It was suggested to ensure contact details of meeting guests are
collected so that we can ask people to review the minutes.
- Drafts of minutes could be taken using collaborative tools such as
Etherpad to be used privately by board members and guests.


== (Re)confirmation of Syds as Treasurer ==

- All board members agreed to reconfirm Syds as Treasurer. Big
congrats and thank you to Syds from everyone.


== Travel Support Program ==

- Syds to contact heroes as he needs to have access to the Travel
Support Program portal in order to approve requests.


== Bar T-shirts ==

- Bill confirmed that it is happening, as soon as we agree on a logo
and once Leap 15.4 artwork is finalized the news will be announced
through the openSUSE channels.


== Moderation - Issues #9 and #27 ==

- Attila, Gertjan and Maurizio to meet this week to get this started
and will update on the progress.
- See issue tickets at https://code.opensuse.org/board/tickets/


== openSUSE Conference Board Face-to-Face Meeting ==

- June 2nd to 4th are the dates of the openSUSE Conference.
- The Board could have a face-to-face meeting before the openSUSE
Conference, possibly the 30th/31st of May. However because of COVID-19
and strict quarantine regulations in Hong Kong and Indonesia, Maurizio
and Attila may not be able to attend as it is hard to predict if
regulations will relax by then.
- It could be possible, for those who cannot physically attend, to
make arrangements to join virtually.


== openSUSE Survey on Safety and Well Being ==

- Survey ran for one month, during December 2021, and focuses on
community members sense of safety and well being across different
communication mediums and social media platforms used by openSUSE.
- Results in the form of stats and graphs will be shared with the
community, however because of privacy concerns, data that may connect
to personal information such as comments will not be shared.
- General take on the data is positive with the majority of community
members feeling "safe". However the data also suggests that
improvements are needed and comments indicate that issues are directed
to poor behavior of individuals and a deterioration or a lack of
appropriate moderation on some of the platforms.
- We lack a common and formal approval process for moderators and each
platform does so independently, usually based on merits. We consider
moderators as contributors so it would be useful to have a formal
approval process, best practices and perhaps training for moderators.
- The Board response to issues needs to be more determined and faster.
- On social media platforms that are beyond the Board's control, it
was confirmed that openSUSE Guiding Principles still apply and
inappropriate behavior of openSUSE members should have consequences.
- The Board should evaluate in extreme situations if memberships
should be stripped away.
- There is a discrepancy between the Board's duties of Conflict
Resolution, as defined by the bylaws, and expectations from many
community members who view it as "Board of Directors" or expect more
leadership.
- It was suggested to review  and evaluate if Conflict Resolution or
at least part of it could be delegated to a new and separate team,
under the Board's supervision. This could open more contribution
possibilities for less technical community members and allow the Board
to focus on creating partnerships.
- We concluded that implementing changes will take time and
discussions,  so moderation issue #27 is the first step to take before
we do anything else.


== Meeting times ==

- Suggestion to switch from CET to UTC as it's more common outside of
Europe. To consider if it  makes life easier and to re-discuss in the
next meeting if necessary.

-- 
Maurizio Galli (m4u)
openSUSE Board
openSUSE Xfce Team