Meeting Notes 2016 12 06

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Revision as of 00:07, 7 December 2016 by 138.68.4.211 (talk) (added some safety-wg stuff to victoria's statement)
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These are the notes from the The 439th Meeting of Noisebridge. Date: December 6th, 2016 Note-taker: Roger; Moderators: Torrie.

  • One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

FIXME FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST TLDR what happened at the meeting:

  • Announcements:
  • Finances:
  • New members:
  • New philanthropists:
  • Consensus Items:
  • Discussion Items:

Introductions

What is the noisebridge?

  • ??? - <there were words here but I didn't get a chance to type them>...Noisebridge is a place wehre you can do anything as long as you're being excellent to each other. Don't sleep here.
  • Alex - Game development
  • Thon<?> - Doing game stuff
  • David - Game night as well
  • Bruna<?>
  • Islam <?>
  • Patrick
  • Isis - Working on a low level crpytography library
  • Harry - New. Found Noisebridge through Torrie. Torrie forwarded me a flamewar. Inexplicably I was still interetsted in Noisebridge
  • Frank - Radio Stuff. Came for the atmosphere.
  • Victoria/Torrie - Advocate housing policy.
  • Richard - Magnets.
  • Jeremy - Runs a VR arcade with his posse.a
    • Justin - Game dev
    • Pat - Same.
  • Nick - Electronics / Starfish group
  • Lizzie - Security work.
  • Drew - Communist. Knows nothing [well].
  • Jeremy - Software stuff.
  • Blake/Cowlicks - Privacy/cryptostuff. Labor organizing.
  • Mike - Working on a <?>phone protoype
  • Phillipe- French. Documentary filmmaker. Meeting with Mitch tomorrow, figured he'd stop by today. Looking at
    • Anabel (sp?)
  • Marco - building web app for programming beginners, answer first questions and help finding learning sources
  • Machore <?> - Game programming.
  • Roger - Taking notes. Can barely hear the meeting. Capitalizes Things Inexplicably.
  • Lee - A dude who likes to experiment with sounds and cryptos
  • Jarrod - (introduces self)

Short announcements and events

  • Cool new projects? Something you'd like people to know? Say now, but keep it short! One or two sentences please!
  • Any happenings at the space of which members should be made aware.
  • Don't hog everyone's time since we all just want to hack!
  • Jeremy - Opened a VR arcade at Hack

er Dojo. Also a VR development support center!

  • Blake - Rebooted 5 minutes of fame. This thursday. And next thursday. Awesome keynote speaker!
    • Jeremy - Go to 5MOF on the wiki. Also rebooting the Kaggle competition stuff.
      • What is the Kaggle competition?
      • Jeremy - Data Science Stuff
  • Frank - Is there a cryptocurrency seminar happening?
    • Jeremy - If there's no objection, they'll be meeting on Early January.

Safe Space

Note: This section is experimental. We discussed it at Meeting_Notes_2016_06_28. We're going to try it for the next meeting, and see how it goes, and then discuss in the discussion section how it went, and how we'd like to tweak it.

Noisebridge is a safe space. Invite a volunteer to describe what that means.

  • Blake - Noisebridge is a place where everyone should feel free of harrassment.
  • Alex - Find more info on how to handle situations at [[Noisebridge <?>]]
  • Victoria - What to do if you feel unsafe at the space? Go to the #space-guardians channel on slack. If you feel uncomfortable, you don't have to be specific. Just post in the channel and someone will reach out to you. Other members of the community have an obligation to help that person, whether it's calling a non-emergency police line, mental health resources, or something you wouldn't otherwise do.
    • Noisebridge strives to be radically inclusive, but not to the detriment of other's safety.
    • Noisebridge also has an anti-harrassment policy, that is posted in various areas throughout the space.
  • Alex - The most basic thing to know is that you can always ask someone to leave. If someone asks *you* to leave, even if it's for a ludicrous reason, you should leave. Come back later, try to resolve it with other members of the community, but leave to make that person feel safe.


Some specific points you might prompt the group to touch on, if it doesn't happen naturally:

  • What to do if you feel uncomfortable.
  • Noisebridge strives to be radically inclusive. What does that mean?
  • Noisebridge has an antiharassment policy. What does that mean?

Participation

Invite a knowledgable volunteer to describe who can participate at Noisebridge, including:

  • Describe how to get an rfid key for the door system
  • Describe how to get access to slack
  • Lee - How to participate? Show up. How to get in? Ring the doorbell. You can get in as long as someone is willing to be responsible for you.
  • Blake - How do you get access to slack? Ask someone, after you've been coming around for a while.
  • Victoria - How does the space open and close?
    • Lee - If you can close, you should close. If you are the last person here, go around announcing that you are closing the space, possibly with a megaphone. If you have been let in, and the person who let you in is leaving, and no one else is there, leave.
    • Lizzie - What do I do if I'm neither a member or philanthropist, but I'm the last person here?
      • Lee - You should close up shop. There is documentation on the wiki.
      • Victoria - Check the Noisebridge Manual.

https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Opening_and_closing_the_space

Philanthropists

  • Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to describe Philantropy, and the application process.
  • Mike - Get a member to sponsor you, go to a meeting, and understand the rules & responsibilities - closing up the space, and keeping the space safe.
  • Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Any applicants must have their sponsor present to vouch for them.
  • If there are no objections, they're a philanthropist! Their pledge should be handed over to the Secretary posthaste, after which their token will be updated to give them the 24/7 access they've earned(?)
  • Blake (sponsored by Roger). No objections.
  • Mike Perry (sponsored by Patrick). No objections.

Membership Binder

  • Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to describe membership, and the application process.

Being a member of Noisebridge is not like being a member of a gym or your local chess club. Anyone can come to Noisebridge to hack and learn: you don't need to be a member for that. At Noisebridge, membership is something different: it means taking responsibility and committing to help to maintain, improve, and govern Noisebridge. As a member of Noisebridge, you don't just come here to hack and learn, you actively work to improve what you see around you, help to deal with problems, and make this community and space better than it is today.

  • Victoria - Membership is a state of mind. You are noisebridge, noisebridge, is you, and vice versa. I wanted to be a member because I loved noisebridge so much that I wanted to live forever. I want to love Noisebridge in a very deep and intimate fashion.
  • Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Mark down a check or other indicator on every open application to keep track of how many weeks they've been read out.
  • Anyone eligible to join this week should
    • introduce themselves,
    • answer any questions members may have for them, then
    • leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime, or cookies) for the rest of the group.
  • The rest of the meeting should reach consensus on whether they may join.
  • Remember to applaud new members when they return.


Financial Report

  • Patrick - Over $60k in the bank. Noisetor has a lot of that money. I can't remember how much.
  • Lee - Equipment fund?
    • Patrick - Yes, we have a matching fund!
  • Patrick - We also want to buy the building. We could negotiate a renewal with decent terms, but every lease is a nailbiter. Renewal is in 2018. If you have any experience with nonprofits/leasing/real estate, help.
  • Victoria - We always need money.


Consensus

  • invite a knowledgeable volunteer to give a brief primer on consensus process
  • It is important that everyone in attendance understands at least:
    • Blocking with verbalized principled objections.
    • Why we use consensus over other approaches to decision making.
    • How consensus isn't a legislative process
    • Why consensus isn't applicable to some things like conflict resolution, resolution of time sinks, and the like.
  • Lee - Infrastructure changes, right?
    • Roger - Nah, we didn't even go through consensus to get a giant-ass laser cutter.
  • Victoria - Little-c consensus: how most changes are made. No formal process, just asking members of the community for their input for a substantial, infrastructural change to Noisebridge.
  • Victoria - Big-C Consensus: Existential changes to the space. Relatively rare. Proposals are read for 2 weeks, and on the second meeting are consented upon. If no member blocks, it is ratified by Noisebridge. A block by a member is taken seriously, which is why we take membership seriously.
  • Victoria - When you block, you have to explain why you are blocking. Blocking is an acknowledgement that you will try to work through this problem.

This is not a legislative process, because we do not have a hierarchy amongst members.

Proposals from last week

(Add any items which are consensed upon or someone has raised a principle objection for to the Consensus Items History page.)

  • No Items

Proposals for next week

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

  • No Items

Discussion

Longer discussion items belong here. This is the last part of the meeting so that people can break off and continue their discussion afterwards.

  • Lee - SLA Printer
  • Jeremy - The internet sucks.
  • Juan - Buying a pallet of Club Mate?
  • Victoria - RFID access / Fire Safety
  • Juan - Club mate is delicious! Mitch got in contact with a guy who is buying a pallet of Club Mate. That is a lot of mate.
    • Drew - How much is a pallet?
      • Roger - That's not bad
      • Drew - (thinking emoji)
    • (A discussion about club mate prices ensues) Whole Foods in the Castro. Mission Cliffs.
    • Victoria is very interested in this idea.
    • Jeremy - I'll make a couch out of bottles.
    • Victoria - This was the inspiration for the Flaschen Taschen
  • Lee - My friend, a Pier 9 refugee, was building a stereolithography printer. I don't even know what those words mean. Issues are that the printer is "Kind of goopy". Should we use this, where should we put it? The dirty shop?
    • Victoria - Every so often, we get an email trying to offload broken computers. We refuse them. They show up. Then we have to pay money to get rid of them. So we're sensitive about crap in the space. (not saying that this is crap)
  • Jeremy - Internet sucking, what's the root cause?
    • Lizzie - RF interference?
    • Patrick - RF interference.
    • Patrick - Also there's an AP that isn't reporting. POE issues?
      • Victoria - Just know, Passive PoE, not Active PoE.
    • Victoria - also I installed a cloudkey device, which is magic. It's been running on a former Noisebridge's infrastructure. The issue is that it requires email.
    • Jeremy - Do we have a path to fixing this?
      • Lee - Ensure power?
    • Juan offers to help.
  • Patrick - Fire Safety. Recent events have highlighted the importance of fire safety. A marshall came by on a spurious report and didn't find anything sketchy.
    • Our fire extinguishers have not been tested. We have issues like open-top bins with flammable material.
    • We have closed up false exits (like the stairs down to the second story that are blocked off), but we only have 2 exits for a 5500 sqft space.
    • A friend gave me info about a person who does private fire safety consultations.
    • We also need fire cabinets for things like solvents.
    • If you have any experience in fire safety for a similar space, hit us up.
    • Hundreds of people come through Noisebridge, and we owe it to them to keep the space safe.
    • <?> - Are exit signs regulated? There are a lot of bright flashing lights in the space, that might not actually be exits. This is distracting?
    • Patrick - We also need <?> lighting in case we lose power.
    • Lee - Fortunately, the LED lighting is on mains power.
    • Patrick - I want to buy a bunch of smoke detectors. We have a large contingent of involved people, who can be notified if there is a fire in the space. I'm considering purchasing Nest fire alarms, even though it's against Noisebridge's principals most of the time.
    • Lizzie - Nest alarms don't look like smoke alarms, so you should label it.
    • Frank - What are the exits? Is there anything in the back?
    • Patrick - There used to be a staircase that was blocked out to the bottom.
    • Juan - Can you get out of the back alley? (Unclear)
    • Patrick is coordinating fire safety work. Needs help with getting the fire extinguishers serviced. Involves being here on a weekday and calling the 1-800 number on the extinguisher. NB will reimburse you.
      • Victoria volunteers as tribute.
  • Victoria - RFID Tokens. Mitch has asked me to read out this statement:
   *** 

maltman23 [13:38] "At tonight's meeting, please bring up a discussion item about responsibility of RFID holders. Before leaving the space, ensure that there is at least one RFID holder who will be responsible for the space. If no one is (and no one is coming very soon after asking on Slack), close Noisebridge. Also, at 10pm, close Noisebridge unless a member or philanthropist is present to keep Noisebridge open."

   Roger made this wiki page: https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Daytime_Access
    • Lizzie - Is an RFID-holder responsible for the space, or a philanthropist at the space?
    • Victoria - The issue is with flammable/dangerous items. Acetylene torches are the first thing that Noisebridge has had that is actually intended to be very flammable.
    • We will have various people coming into the space and may not know how to use the fire stuff. We had a situation last week with someone extremely intoxicated and using a blowtorch dangerously. How do we reconcile dangerous materials with a noisebridge that strives to be open?
    • Jeremy - we had a setup at a TX hackerspace where we controlled dangerous tools
    • Blake - It's not angle-grinder proof


Discussion Items

If any important discussion happens, it should be happening after forward progress is made during consensus.

End of Meeting

  1. Return the membership binder to its rightful location.
  2. Discuss any items for which there was not time during the meeting.
  3. Enjoy the company of your fellow hacker, robot, or robothacker.

Note taker posts the notes

  1. Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
  2. Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
  3. Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.)
  4. Email the meeting summary to Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge Announce lists.
  5. CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
  6. Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
  7. Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

  • Reprise of the Hackernationale. [This is anarchy - we do what the wiki says!]
  • PGP Key Signing could happen now (if it doesn't happen before any given Meeting). Ask others around the space or check the list to see who wants in on the action.

!!!!!