This page lists decisions which PLOTS staff have voted on. Currently any major decision requires a 70% (currently 5/7) consensus and any staff member can call for a vote. We use anonymous approval voting, which is de-anonymized after the vote is complete.

Togo project approved

Approved Oct 31, 2011, 7/7: "We should commit to doing the Togo World Bank project with the GFDRR Labs."

• Added scoping trip with OSM
• Addition of strict language, developed by Public Lab, around community ownership of data
• Area in Baguida to do pilot in has not be determined, this pilot could be run similarly to the Rio project in that mapping occurs in public space rather than private space

Vote thresholds for all votes lowered to 5/7

Approved Sept 9, 2011: The threshold for a successful vote was lowered to 70% or currently 5 of 7 staff members.

Part time staff working over 20 hours during a workshop

Approved Sept 9, 2011: Speakers/workshop runners get compensated for all the time they work; they must use comp time or something similar to fit it all within the # of hours they can work -- trading for non-work-time before or after the trip.

Hiring a fundraising person

Approved Sept 9, 2011: We will move $7,800 for a fundraising person from next year's budget to this year's

Butte-based coordinator position

Approved Sept 9, 2011: A Butte-based, Butte-partner paid, 3-month contract position, non-voting, possible renewal, oversight by working group, long-term expansion to other mining sites, no travel/conf budget built in. Also some amount of (~$2k?) overhead for PLOTS, not including Mathew's travel.

Honoraria or equivalent from speaking engagements & workshops

Approved Sept 9, 2011: PLOTS provides a yearly bonus to staff from pooling $150 of any honorarium for a speaking engagement that brings in over $500. If a PLOTS staff member receives an honorarium for a speaking obligation of over $500, $150 of that money is transferred into a collective pool. At the end of the fiscal year, that pool is divided evenly among the staff member as a “speaking bonus”. The remaining amount of the honorarium in excess of $150 is folded back into the organizations operating budget. For honorariums less than $500 all of the honorarium is folded back into the organizational budget.

Rio/UNICEF project vote

Approved Aug 12, 2011: "Should Leif represent Public Laboratory in Rio, at personal cost to him and Liz?"

Approved Aug 12, 2011: "Do you give your approval for Shannon to sign the contract with the following amendment?"

"This signed agreement pertains to all data, pictures and media collected through the UNICEF Brazil Environmental Digital Mapping Workshops in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. All environmental and mapping data collected at the trainer workshops and follow-up workshops with youth shall be community owned and, with their explicit consent, provided transparently to those who request it. Public Laboratory has offered to publish the data in its publications and online in its digital archive with noted credit to community partners and to UNICEF Brazil, and may do so with approval from community partners."

Aug/Oct Q1 budget, Vote threshold for budgets

Aug 15, 2011: We approved the following measures:

"we should adopt this budget" (aug-oct budget)

"we should require only 75% (6 of 7) approval" for approving budgets in the future

(In the case of 75%, if the number of voters changes, the percent would stay the same, though the # of voters to get that might change.)

(This vote was superceded by a 70%, 5/7 majority threshold, see above, Sept 9, 2011)

Comp time vote

July 22, 2011: (need to post results)