Ideas for the Community & Activism Call - 2023-02-02

[HelenWDTK]

This is a place to leave any suggestions that you have for things you'd like us to discuss at the next meeting.

I'll look to circulate the draft agenda on 2023-01-26 and the final version at midday on 2023-02-01

[RichardTaylor]

Bugs / Issues Undermining our Aims

• https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli-professional/issues/578

We could discuss prioritisation. eg. Has the issue been put-forward for consideration at sprint planning meetings? What can we do to get action?

Strategy Progress

• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1023)
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1104
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1240)
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1243)

Encouraging and Enabling More Impactful Uses of the Service

• https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Aimpact
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1244

Finding further potential agenda items Review tagged threads, on Github and in groups/mailboxes.

eg.

• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-private/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22flag+for+community+and+activism+call%22
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues?q=activism+is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22Flag+for+Community+and+Activism+Call%22

[RichardTaylor]

Should mySociety's communications staff be involved in this call (potentially asynchronously).

The primary way we do activism is through running our service, we promote the service, and do related activism, by communicating.

We have lots of blog ideas

*https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Ablog-idea

• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-private/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Ablog-idea

[RichardTaylor]

Another useful theme to cover would be the extent to which we're meeting our aspirations and principles when it comes to running the service transparently.

Related tickets:

• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-private/issues/169
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1080

Talking about it might help with a shared understanding of why we have this principle, and why we might want to stick to it even when it's hard.

[RichardTaylor]

Updates on

• https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/g/wdtk-volunteers/c/DSIh1Ih68Lw
• https://github.com/mysociety/internal/issues/65 (and related matters)

[RichardTaylor]

Suggest an update from a WDTK point of view on

https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/g/team/c/513EA2l3-94/m/nZ8NybBSAwAJ

and note response awaited on

https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/g/team/c/513EA2l3-94/m/nZ8NybBSAwAJ

Edit: Note those two links are the same, which must be a mistake. RT

[WilliamWDTK]

To discuss: Do we want to blog / raise awareness about the ability to inspect/ask questions about authorities' accounts?

It has previously been briefly mentioned: https://www.mysociety.org/2018/06/13/foi-one-part-of-the-fight-against-the-lose-lose-lobo-loans-to-local-councils/

[RichardTaylor]

To discuss: Do we want to blog / raise awareness about the ability to inspect/ask questions about authorities' accounts?

Could be worth a sentence at: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/unhappy#other_means

It might technically be a way around some FOI exemptions, eg. for material withheld on security grounds.

In practice we should probably campaign for standardisation of public access to information laws, so we don't have irrational differences between different regimes (this is a point also mentioned at https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1243#issuecomment-1355201650 ).

[RichardTaylor]

The primary way we do activism is through running our service,

Following from this the top things we should be pushing on an activism call are those which will improve our service.

What are the best ways we could do that? Enabling appeals to the ICO (https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/2819 ) ?

[RichardTaylor]

I thought it would be useful to compare this ticket thread to the agenda:

• https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli-professional/issues/578 ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1023 ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1104 ❌ Not on agenda, but came up in discussion on role based volunteering.
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1240 ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1243 ❌ Not on agenda but came up in discussion about opening up "projects" to more users.
• Blog on CCG aboliton and move to ICB / ICP #1244 ✅ On agenda and progressed.
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-private/issues/169 ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned, however there was related discussion about transparent admin.
• https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme/issues/1080 ✅ Closely related item on agenda, not specific to the blog though. Discussion progressed.
• https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/g/wdtk-volunteers/c/DSIh1Ih68Lw ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned
• https://github.com/mysociety/internal/issues/65 (and related matters) ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned
• https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/g/team/c/513EA2l3-94/m/nZ8NybBSAwAJ ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned
• Do we want to blog / raise awareness about the ability to inspect/ask questions about authorities' accounts? ❌ Not on agenda, but was raised.
• Enabling appeals to the ICO (https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/2819 ) ❌ Not on agenda, not mentioned

There was no agenda item mentioning rejected items and no indication of the basis of the selection of items for the agenda.