Fall 2020 Executive Meeting

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General

The Fall 2020 Executive meeting was held on September 26 and it discussed a lot of upcoming changes to the organizational structure at TarValon.Net while putting separate department updates on the back burner, therefore only the major changes were included in the current notes.

The members of the Executive Team in attendance were:

Announcements

  • Staffing changes - Atarah has decided to step back from official roles and is resigning as Director of Research & Records

Shatayan

Presenting the budget for next year and approving it.

Amyrlin and Keeper notes

Revised Code of Conduct & Impact

  • Adding definitions for: Bullying, Racism, Hate Speech, Inciting Discord, etc. After posting it to Exec Discussion forum for everyone’s feedback, it should go before The Hall to vote on acceptance of terms.
  • Ideological forums changes status check – So far, there has been 1 issue in 4 months. We should revisit this in ~6 months for consistency and changes over time.
  • Procedure for filing allegation of an official Code of Conduct Breach:

Complaint is filed privately with the individual’s own Membership Admin

  • Membership Admin verifies they want to file a formal complaint and shares the info with Director of Membership. Director of Membership loops together the complainant’s Membership Admin and the accused’s Membership Admin and explains the situation
  • They get all the sides of the story, which section was breached, info about similar situations and how they were resolved, past infractions where these people were involved, and the Director of Membership creates a thread in the Hall
  • Hall votes on the discipline based on the behavior punishment system (establish what a passing vote % is)
  • Complaints & results (note: not details, not intended to shame, intended to confirm the matter has been addressed and resolved with this level of action) will be posted in a locked thread that SMs have access to. JMs can request info from their membership admins if needed. It can be stored in a Google Doc on the Membership Drive, and we can copy/paste the full list into the main post in the thread each time there is an update. This will help with making it searchable, and the Google Doc can contain links to the incident folder on Drive for current/future staff.
  • This should be introduced in tandem with the “Behavioral Punishment System”
  • Need to outline how behavior punishment, mediation and moderation systems complement each other and what makes them different.
  • This method gives us a transparent way to ensure everyone is heard, that repercussions are consistent and fair, and that they escalate for individuals who repeatedly break the rules/harm the community.
  • All of this to be posted to Exec Discussion Forum for feedback. This post should include examples. We will avoid “punishment” language. Will focus on the intent of transparency. We’re working to protect our members’ experiences and make everyone comfortable and addressing this issues to protect that experience.

Organization Structure Changes Updates

  • Retiring of Department of Moderators & Operators goes into effect October 1st.
  • Remaining work: Hiring of new mods (4 total) and Location and Access of new Moderators Forum

Decoupling Membership Status from Tower Role

This suggestion is a way to recognize members contributions/significance to the community with Senior Membership, not current community selection. This allows 1) Citizens to become Senior Members, and 2) Senior Members to demote and change groups without losing SM status. The Details of his proposal are as follows:

  • Senior Members in good standing can “demote” to Accepted/Soldier while retaining their Senior Member status. They would remain eligible for roles that require Senior Membership. IE - If someone is unhappy in their membership group this should not disqualify them from serving the tower in a role for which they are qualified.
  • Citizens continue as Junior Members. To be raised to Senior Member they must apply to be a Resident Citizen. Applications are reviewed by the hall and must be approved similarly to Accepted/Soldiers. Senior Member contribution still required.
  • Time limit before application to Resident Citizen should ensure path is not shorter than Aes Sedai/Gaidin path
  • Citizen Community will have 2 representatives in the hall similar to Ajah & Companies.
  • Current Resident Citizens would not be grandfathered into this- if they meet the requirements, they would have to apply for Senior Membership. They could retain the board access, etc.
  • A JM who has never reached Senior Membership yet would need to become a Citizen to apply for Senior Membership. You would not stay a Novice/Recruit or Accepted/Soldier forever.

Welcome Back Campaign Update

  • Intended to re-engage existing/lapsed members and get people back to the boards.
  • Start with campaign for current active members to bring back one friend for a specific event/week each month. For example - the first week of every month or every 15th of the month or the first Wednesday is “Welcome Back Wednesday.” Intent is to set reasonable engagement expectations versus come back to the tower every day forever.

Recommended Exec Meeting Schedule

The meeting schedule for the next year was discussed and approved

Feedback & Discussion Topics

Safety at Events

Introduction of the problem: Concerns were raised regarding attending RL events due to experiences/impressions of sexualized culture and inability to report issues or pursue recourse. Instances that have happened in the past include: putting hands on people, even though it’s unwelcome and people asking to be bitten (or being bitten with no asking). We want to avoid unintentionally violating people’s boundaries.

Plans: As no events are scheduled for the near future, at this point it is better to at least have initial impressions and to start the discussion for future

Ideas

  • I’m not a hugger stickers, etc.
  • Every event packet says this is an adult event and explains who to go to for various issues.
  • Make sure people know our code of conduct and consequences will be enforced at live events.
  • Moving toward hotels than isolated campsites, etc. may help keep the environment more socially acceptable.
  • Add specific rules to registration forms to make sure people see/are clear on expectations before planning to attend
  • Specific reporting structure for individual issues
  • Allow anonymous reporting in case a person’s name continues coming up. Then someone can talk with them that their name keeps coming up and review the rules with them.

Community Outreach Update

Recent Campaign Results
  • International Red Cross Fundraiser - Complete, $700 raised and donated
Upcoming Campaigns
  • The Great Charity Hunt - to be announced at online-replacement-Anni OR November 1, 2020
  • Feast of Lights 2020 - Spotlight on group endeavors for TGCH
Additional Activities
  • Tower CCG decks (previous campaign rewards) - graphic designer is finalizing custom cards as of last update
  • Qaato Nag Cookbook - Marketing will be making a PDF document, Outreach will try to find someone to print/bind the book

Add-On Topics

Tech optional costs

  • Animated gifs in discord ($60-$100 / yr - to be confirmed)
  • Moving blog to dedicated Linode ($60 / yr)

Events for 2021

A question was raised whether or not the RL events for 2021 should also be cancelled at this point, since the planning for a big event (20th Anni) might get rushed. Instead the big parties could be postponed to 2022 instead.

Licensing Discussions
  • Active conversation with Bandersnatch first is in progress
  • Discussion with Sony & Amazon is coming next
  • Licensing = permission to use TarValon, Aes Sedai, Gaidin, etc.
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