Venue: The Usual Spot
Present: 4th Dwarf, Coyote, Woodsy, Aggie
Absent: Chair (without regrets, no excuse), Independent Observer (with regrets and excellent Canadian excuse), Conch Shell (with regrets, reasonable excuse)
1. Parsing Elginstreet.com's (crass) attempt to either dognap Coyote, take us over, or do something else: Did Matty actually read the blog before making the offer?
W: How much money are they offering? I say for $500k, we'll do it.
C: We should ask for one million dollars.
A: Between $500k and $1M, let's start at $1M
4D: Really. If they offered us any money at all we should take it.
C: What if they want editorial control?
[General laughter at the idea of any ESIs taking editorial direction from anyone.]
4D: If it is only Coyote that they want, should we tell them ,"No, but you can have the Chair"?
[All agree.]
2. How to support Aggie non-intrusively : best practices
A: Moving on to the next item...
[Woodsy intervenes in her indirect but persistent way to keep the agenda on track.]
A: This is good. ESI meetings, crafting, drinking, watching TV...
W: Above or below the blankets? [see RNDP 22]
4D: I think she means above the blankets.
A: Yes. Above the blanket.
3. Canal Skateway: Is the ice lousier this year, or is it just the Citizen?
A: These are the same people who said Gordon Lightfoot was dead.
W: The ice is not lousier.
4D: When I've been on it this year it's been in the condition I'd expect for the weather on the preceding days.
W: The Citizen is lousier.
A: Because [redacted] is [redacted].
4: The Olympics: The ESI's Official Position
4D: I don't think the Olympics are important enough for us to have an official position on.
C: Okay.
5: Vitamin D: The ESI's Official Position
A: I'm generally for pills.
W: No.
C: Yes.
4D: 3 out of 4 of us are pro-vitamin D, but I think there should be no official position on Vitamin D because it's not an area of our expertise.
A: I take vitamin D. I don't feel better, but I blame that on the Year of the Tiger.
5: To Twitter or not to Twitter
All: Not.
6: Official Positions
A: We could have an official position on positions.
W: What kind of positions?
4D: I don't think she's talking about yoga.
W: Oh ho. [Woodsy makes a suggestive smile and eyebrow waggle.]
7. Whither the Blog
A: Do we need an advisory board?
W, C and 4D: huh?
A: A group that could advise us on new directions, new technology, long-term planning, short-term planning?
Woodsy, Coyote and 4D endeavour to politely explain that they have no interest in taking direction from anyone else and doubt that any of the rest of us would pay attention to such a group.
W: We already get advice from people in the comments.
Aggie still thinks it is a good idea and suggests some specific names for board.
W: Zoom came to an emergency meeting and told us to just keep doing what we're doing. Megan came and said the same thing.
4D: On the one hand, I don't see the point because we won't pay any attention to them. We don't even pay attention to each other. On the other hand, our blog has become a public trust. Dare I say, a sacred public trust and perhaps we do need an external body to ensure we fulfill that trust.
[4D goes on to propose a mechanism that would address Aggie's proposal in a future posting. All agree.]
8: [Redacted]
4D: Do we have anything to say about Conch Shell commenting at [redacted]?
A: She's a free agent.
W & C: She can do whatever she likes.
4D: Yes, but do we want to encourage her to comment?
[This question is never answered because the conversation somehow is diverted to that old topic of how much more fun it was when we were metablogging the Fifth Muse. Woodsy reiterates that she doesn't get it because she wasn't around for all that. Aggie tries to explain with a diagram.]
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