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From Boston DSA Wiki
Revision as of 23:00, 5 September 2023 by Meelleni (talk | contribs) (→‎Committees)

This is the internal wiki for the Boston chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. We are a democratic organization committed to the project of building a mass socialist movement in the United States and freeing people everywhere from the deprivations of capitalism.

This wiki is members-only; any DSA member in good standing can request an account here. Make sure to use the email address you used to join DSA. Someone does have to manually check your membership and approve the request on the back end, so if you don't hear anything in a day or two, email tech@bostondsa.org and ask. If you are not yet a member, you can join DSA here!

If you are a member looking to get more involved, check out the New Member Resources for some steps to get yourself plugged into chapter activities. Once you’re ready to get involved, visit the Chapter Events page to see information about working group meetings and new member orientations. Find a working group you care about and pitch in!

About the Boston DSA Wiki

Welcome to Boston DSA's wiki! A wiki is an editable website and any member of Boston DSA can view and edit this website. It's here to serve as a reference for how our chapter works, how to organize, and how to get involved in our work. If you would like to view and contribute to this wiki, please read the How to contribute to this wiki section below.

NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 emergency, all chapter meetings and most chapter events are remote for the foreseeable future. We realize this makes navigating the chapter a little harder since you can’t just turn up to a meeting anymore. Pages related to safely and cooperatively planning online events include How to set up a Zoom call and How to make a Facebook event.

Chapter Resources

Getting Started

What is Boston DSA up to?

  • Boston DSA website: Contains information about the chapter, along with working group contact information and a calendar of events.
  • New Member Resources: New to the chapter? Start here! Find out how to get on the email list, how to get involved in a campaign or working group, how to get on the chapter Slack, the New Member Handbook, and other key information.
  • Chapter Priorities: A description of the current chapter priorities and how to get involved with them.
  • Request an account for this wiki. Make sure to use the email address you used to join DSA. Someone does have to manually check your membership and approve the request on the back end, so if you don't hear anything in a day or two, email tech@bostondsa.org and ask.

Getting Involved

Your regularly scheduled socialisms.

  • General Meetings: Information about the monthly all-chapter meetings.
  • Annual Convention: Information about our annual chapter convention (not to be confused with the national DSA convention, which occurs every two years).
  • Priorities Process: Our chapter's process for selecting priorities.
  • Events Calendar: All our events can be found on the website, on Facebook, on Slack, and even on Google Calendar.

Getting Organized

Making things happen and getting other people involved.

  • How-to Guides: Not sure how to do a thing? This section includes process documents and best practices for a range of activities within the chapter, including events planning and scheduling, graphic design resources, and sharing the Zoom nicely (see below).
  • Chapter Policies: Links to chapter bylaws and other documents, as well as guidelines and policies regarding member data, security, financials, and other sensitive topics.
  • Chapter Communications (and other technical resources): Here is a list of the various media the chapter uses for communications, along with information for use and process guidelines.
  • Online Voting Guidelines: Information about the online voting and discussion system used for absentee voting on resolutions posed at chapter-wide meetings. (During COVID-19 restrictions, all voting is handled through this system.)
  • Information about National DSA

Chapter Structure

Officers

Working Groups

Working groups carry out our external political work. Working groups meet regularly, and information about working group meetings can be found on the Events page. A list of current working groups is below; if you have an idea for a new one, check out How to start a new working group.

Committees

Committees help the chapter function by carrying out administrative work and other internal organizing. They maintain the various systems we use to do work in the chapter, such as administering elections and maintaining member data.

Campaigns and Teams

Campaigns and teams are individual projects, some of which are large enough to have their own infrastructure outside of a working group, others of which are run by individual working groups. Four campaigns are chosen as Chapter Priorities every year. Our current campaigns are:

  • Take Back the Grid
  • Project Right to Housing

Identity Caucuses

Identity Caucuses are affinity spaces hosting social events for members who share particular identities.

Political Caucuses

Political caucuses are vehicles for socialists to organize within the chapter in support of a shared political program.

Informal Groups

How to contribute to this wiki

  1. If you're a member of Boston DSA in good standing, you can request an account here. Make sure to use the email address you used to join DSA. If you're not a member of DSA, join here!. If you can't afford dues, email membership@dsausa.org and request a hardship waiver. If you're in another DSA chapter and would like access, contact the admins at boston-dsa-wiki-admins@googlegroups.com.
  2. Abide by these rules:
    1. Don't write other people's personal information besides first names (and last initials; think Rosa L) and non-personal email addresses (like tech@bostondsa.org or other emails they made for this purpose). No home addresses, workplace information, last names, personal email addresses, or work email addresses without explicit consent.
    2. Don't write anything about sensitive direct actions.
    3. Don't write anything that might compromise coalition partners or their members, or other vulnerable people.
    4. Get consent when taking notes at a meeting; people may want to use an alias or go off the record.
    5. These rules apply to Google Docs that you link to in the wiki as well. If a Google Doc has sensitive information in it, it should not have link sharing on (so that when people click on the link, they will only see the content if they have been granted permission to see it).
  3. Pitch in!
    1. If you see something incorrect or out of date, don't hesitate to fix it.
    2. If you have extra information that abides by our rules, add it!
    3. If an edit is getting changed back and forth multiple times, there's an edit war, and we like no war but class war. If you see an edit war, try resolving it through communication or tell the admins at boston-dsa-wiki-admins@googlegroups.com and we will take care of it.
    4. If you see information that violates our rules or is clearly inappropriate, undo the edit AND tell the admins at boston-dsa-wiki-admins@googlegroups.com. As always, our code of conduct applies.

Example wiki page has basic instructions on how to create and edit new wiki pages.

Why use a Boston DSA wiki? and Wikifaq cover the answers to some basic questions regarding wiki use.

If editing a working group resource, consult Standards & Practices for a template and general guidelines.

Here is a comprehensive guide to editing existing pages, adding new pages, and viewing revision history.

Here is a cheat sheet to formatting edits to pages.

Contribution Wish List - check out what people want to see or add something you want to know about!

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