Main Page

Welcome to Boston DSA's wiki! It's here to serve as a reference for how our chapter works, how to organize, and how to get involved in our work.

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!

Getting Started in Boston DSA

• Join our Discord server! This is where we do almost all of our discussion outside of meetings!
• Boston DSA events calendar: Contains info about all of our upcoming events! Most Working Groups meet every month, we have a General Meeting every two months, and we have an Annual Convention every April.
• 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.

Chapter Resources

Getting Organized

Making things happen and getting other people involved.

• How-to Guides: This page 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.
• Chapter Policies: Links to chapter bylaws, guidelines and policies regarding member data, security, financials, and other sensitive topics.
• Chapter Communications (and other technical resources): A list of the various media the chapter uses for communications, along with information for use and process guidelines.
  • Importantly, it includes How to set up a Zoom call.
• Online Voting Guidelines: Information about the online voting and discussion system used for absentee voting on resolutions posed at chapter-wide meetings.
• Information about National DSA

Chapter Structure

Officers

• Coordinating Committee
  • Co-chairs
  • Membership Coordinators
  • Communications Coordinator
• Harassment and Grievance 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.

• Cambridge Working Group
• Ecosocialism Working Group
• Electoral Working Group
• Healthcare Working Group
• Housing Working Group
• Internationalism Working Group
• Labor Working Group
• Political Education Working Group
• Socialist Feminism 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.

Not sure how to do a thing?

These handy how-to Guides include process documents and best practices range of activities within the chapter, such as events planning and scheduling, graphic design resources, and sharing the Zoom nicely. It also includes guides for how to use Action Network and how to get an event on the chapter calendar.

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!