RationalWiki:RationalWiki Foundation/2023 12 15 minutes

RationalWiki Board of Trustees Meeting

• 15 December 2023 1700-1745 UTC via Discord

Introduction

The meeting started at 1700 with the following members present:

• ApooftGnegiol
• Cosmikdebris (Secretary)
• DuceMoosolini (Chair)
• Shabidoo
• Spud (Vice Chair)
• Stabby the Misanthrope (Treasurer)

Foundation business

It was agreed that all formal communications from the trustees shall be reviewed by all members prior to publishing on RationalWiki.

DuceMoosolini noted that the trustees list on the foundation's website is out of date. Cosmikdebris has the credentials to this site and said he would get the site updated.

DuceMoosolini was appointed Chair of the trustees.

Spud was appointed Vice Chair of the trustees.

Cosmikdebris was appointed Secretary of the trustees.

Finances

As Treasurer, Stabby agreed to prepare the foundation's financial statement upon completion of the fundraiser and send it to Cosmikdebris to prepare for publication.

The trustees agreed to research the exact requirements related to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit status to get an idea of what our exact requirements are.

Stabby announced that he is preparing the 501(c)3 IRS form now. The trustees agrees that the IRS designation for the foundation should be "B01 - Alliances & Advocacy Organizations (Education)". (After the meeting concluded, Stabby noted: "The IRS 1023-EZ form has been submitted! The Foundation should get its official 501(c)3 designation whenever the IRS gets around to it.")

The trustees were pleased at the rapid success of the recent emergency fundraiser, which surpassed its initial goal in three days.

Cosmikdebris noted that there was some discussion in the RationalWiki Saloon Bar about considering advertising as a sustaining source of revenue. The trustees universally agreed that advertising on the site should not be considered.

Operations

Trent Toulouse retains his role as Operations Manager. However, the trustees agreed that a major priority should be to offload as much of this role to others as soon as possible. No formal appointment was made but in the interim Operations Manager roles will be shared by Stabby and David Gerard, who have access to the RationalWiki server and management account. The trustees agreed that an effort to contact Tim Starling should be made. Tim managed the most recent MediaWiki upgrade and is very knowledgeable about the setup of the host platform and MediaWiki software. The trustees agreed that Tim should be placed on retainer for server maintenance and management if he is willing to resume that role. The trustees agreed that we should shop around for more interim technical expertise to assist in server maintenance if Tim is unwilling or unable to resume this role.

The trustees agreed that the most pressing longer term goal should be preparing for an executing an upgrade to RationalWiki's MediaWiki software. This should be a topic of discussion with Tim Starling and/or whoever is identified to take over the primary tech role.

Adjournment

After some discussion, the trustees decided that the next meeting will be Sunday 18 February 2023 at 1700 UTC via Discord.

The trustees noted that they will regularly appear on the RationalWiki Discord to discuss any emerging issues.

The meeting was adjourned at 1745.