Meeting Notes 2017 05 09

   * noisebridge unmeeting 05-09-2017
   
   + alex maker faire
   + juan mate
   + gareth philantropist
   + cowlicks meetings
   + x 5mof (not now)
   + trent announcement
   + jarrod announcement
   + george and marky - vr stuff
   + cowlicks safe space discussion
   + ryan - should we require people to use the wiki?
   + jarrod - announcement
   
   ** alex maker faire
   finalizing maker faire plans and prep. simbridge? is a virtual reality
   exposition of noisebridge. 3d model of noisebridge. experiences of
   actual noisebridge with 360 camera. wants to capture as much as
   possible of actual noisebridge between now and then. wants
   suggestions!
   
   jarrod - signup for maker faire is on its way to the announcement list
   in the moderation queue. looking for volunteers. thurs 18, early
   morning, uhaul, san mateo. friday 13:00-17:00. a little bit of
   setup. after friday there's a dinner. and we can see things without
   people there. saturday 10:00-19:00, sunday 10:00-18:00, then takedown,
   bring things back to noisebridge. two projects: simbridge and
   ordibooth. next tuesday there will be a training session. 19:30?
   
   thex - unofficial makerfaire soire? unofficial hangout. thursday after
   5mof at noisebridge. possibly official/unofficial. a lot of people can
   come by. also 5mof mighyt be cool for makerfaire people to talk about
   makerfaire.
   
   lxkpk - do we need party prep?  thex - not sure, we can blow the doors
   off if people want. cool.
   
   consensus is that we should party prep. official or unofficial. thex
   will look for one more person to help. multiple people offer to chip
   in.
   
   dj? thex is planning on setting it up. we'll see if it happens.
   
   short interlude on who opens the door.
   
   **  juan mate
   order is in. this week or next week. emailed 2600 guy about when and
   heads up. we should organize some people to collect it. will put that
   in #group-by when we have more info. probably worth discussing where
   we will store it.
   
   thex - what's the bottom line?  juan - 40 cases. some are allocated
   for noisebridge, some are allocated for people. some are up for
   grabs. ideally purchasable like beer for people to buy in the
   space. 8-10 bottles in a case.
   
   ** trent gareth wants to be a philantropist
   
   trent.
   
   gareth - he's a 3d programmer trying to be in a startup. trying to
   make a tool for vr makers? 
   
   lxpk - we have a 360 camera and we'd love to talk to you
   
   trent - we should explain how this works. what's a philantropist?
   
   lxpk - someone who wants to contribute financially and
   socially. 24-hour access. being excellent to each other. sponsorship
   by a member.
   
   $500? 5 mill? what ever you want.
   
   cowlicks - how do we get rid of a philantropist?
   
   lxpk - a member can unphilantropize them. also what's a member? like a
   philantropist but 4 weeks, two sponsors, consensus.
   
   trent - normal noisebridge rules apply to everyone.  does anyone
   object to gareth? nope! trent will introduce gareth to being a
   philantropist.
   
   thex - what's the status of the board, treasurer, etc? can we confirm
   that we have all our obligations? 
   
   jarrod - brings up a good point that we used to have an officers
   page. dunno if that has been updated. but we shouldn't require people
   to be on slack.
   
   ryan - but we shouldn't require people to use the wiki too. especially kids.
   
   trent - operational security is important too. so we've taken steps to
   reduce amount of public info.
   
   thex - single point of contact. 
   
   augur - there's a wiki list but prob not accurate.
   
   cowlicks - board doesn't do anything. they've taken an oath not to do
   anything. there for legal purposes. but some legal liability.
   
   trent - united states law requires us to have a board.
   
   thex - secretary and treasurer are important.
   ** cowlicks meetings
   
   cowlicks - does anyone have any ideas or problems with what we do at
   meetings? does anyone think our meetings are perfect? (no) does anyone have
   suggestions? (yes)
   
   main objections: doesn't like when people pitch things to
   noisebridge. been to a couple that are very pitchy with a captive
   audience. we need a way for people to find others interested but tone
   it down a little bit.
   
   darryl - people who want to pitch things should be at 5mof. ryan -
   that would be great. cowlicks - if they want to pitch things they can
   go to a meetup.
   
   cowlicks - second thing: at meetings when contentious topics come up,
   some people are inclined to discuss them outside of the the
   meeting. think we should take the chance at the meeting to discuss
   problems or drama. not necessarily bringing things to the meeting but
   open discussion about how we handled things. feels like at meetings
   hard things are avoided to not scare people. it
   
   responses:
   + jarrod - all the stuff you suggested falls under the moderator's
     discussion. moderator can decide. moderator could stop a pitch or
     suggest saving it for another person. moderator is never required to
     follow list on page.  moderator should always push for how they want
     meetings to run.
     + cowlicks - definitely true but this discussion is part of it.
     + thex - worthwhile time to enhance moderating notes. good to have
       an open discussion.
   + lizzie - meetings are very structured, kind of boring frankly.
     + lxpk - some parts of the meeting get rushed for time reasons. more
       than controversy-fearing. we can streamline certain
       things. section called the manual. made a poster to pay attention
       to it. a manual could be printed. the idea of the meeting is not
       to require computers to participate. a printout could be
       useful. we could put things there encouraging people to read and
       have access to. suggestion: printed manual is actual embodiment
       without having to go into whole long things.
   
    +
   + luke - facilitating vs moderating. unconference facilitation model
     called fishbowl e.g. two people in middle, third person can come and
     kick someone out. so it's a good way to have discussions.
   + george - when you guys have meetings, you guys do talk about?
     + lxpk - we have topics.
     + ryan - twice in a row we've had unmeetings.
   + cowlicks - no hard action item. but we should speak up at meetings
     about how it's being run. we should ask questions. likes idea of a
     handout. suggestions: safe space, membership and philantropy are
     things we should talk about.
   + lxpk - definitions can be written in full detail, even with
     dissenting versions, we should have that. during the meeting we can
     discuss how we think it's evolving. e.g. "how are we feeling about
     having a safe space".
   + jarrod: would like to see more scaffolding on the safe space
     discussion. the safe space discussion doesn't have any scaffolding
     on the wiki, ideally we'll get an organic discussion. and that's
     missing on the meeting
   + lxpk - the discussion page and the wiki format are designed to help
     evolve content like this. we don't want to set things in stone. we
     could work on things with the normal wiki process even though it can
     be frustrating. e.g. editing wikipedia can be a bad experience but
     noisebridge can be better.
   + thex - typed "safe space" into wiki, got a weird page referring to
     the 86 page.
   + lxpk - let's fix this right now.
   meet thex and lxpk after the meeting.
   + thex - has been the principal editor of the noisebridge homepage and
     discussion page. has pretty much beaten back the tits and
     stories. made an effort to organize things weekly. 
   + lxpk - what's the page?
   + jarrod - noisebridge.net discussion page.
   ** thex
   
   anyone interested in running 5mof? otherwise let's focus on the next
   week, third thursday, day before maker faire.
   
   ? - what is 5mof?  thex - monthlyish sometimes weekly historical third
   thursday talk for 5 minutes. typically ten talks.  next thursday will
   be day before maker faire. one talk for ordibooth, one talk for
   simbridge, hopefully some other people. hit up 5mof on the wiki. thex
   is taking point, may have a conflict, can't 100% confirm whole
   5mof. but will definitely be here after lizzie - can maybe mc if thex
   needs it.  thex - slightly larger - volunteer to make sure it goes on
   announce and meetup.
   jarrod - j usually does it.
   lizzie
   thex - can jarrod be able to moderate announce?
   jarrod - needs to ask #rack.
   cowlicks and lizzie - thanks for making it happen.
   
   thex - music and drink 
   
   geoge - do we livestream it?
   thex - we could but don't. sometimes we record it.
   george - we should do it sometime. maybe vr.
   
   ** trent has an announcmenet
   
   trent looks around shiftily.
   
   thursday 8pm - the library wg will be meeting. will be working on a django
   and react app for the library. don't come if you know what you're
   doing, but if you want to learn come. react and django rest. so probably
   
   ** jarrod annoucnement
   
   stupid shit hackathon is this weekend. it's probably one of the
   biggest events we have for the last two years. we use every chair and
   seat and every working space. 150 people here all trying to find a
   place for their laptops and burritos and workshops. please be
   prepared + also come. coming in early saturday for cleanup. same day
   as godwaffle. then after that stupid shit starts. removing things from
   circumstances. if you want to come to help clean, come at 8-12 and
   meet jarrod. but also come and work on projects. really cool
   event. took us by surprise. now we have a welder and laser cutter.
   
   ryan - lots of people won't be trained.
   augur - one person will be here to train.
   thex - who is the point?
   jarrod - noah swartz
   thex - also toool is coming on sunday.
   jarrod - good luck.
   thex - if no one has any objections he'll take the back space around church for vr stuff and toool.
   cowlicks - we should ask if toool can move
   thex - they moved it already
   jarrod - depends on how many people.
   ryan - could we fit it in turing? back room has plug access because wifi sucks.
   lxpk - toool should just do stupid shit.
   jatrrod- the networek connection has died every stupid shit hackathon soooo
   ryan - yeah. even with wired?
   jarrod - probably just a wireless.
   lxpk - bring ethernet adaptor.
   thex - will have at least one 5ghz network running indepedently.
   ryan - who's workin on the ethernet switch in the back room?
   crickets
   thex - when are we doing setup?
   jarrod - saturday morning.
   thex - can't be here saturday mo9rning but it could be cool to drop extension cables and power stips.
   lizzie - but godwaffle
   thex - before staurday, church and turing.
   jarrod - tables and chairs around turing and church.
   will finish this discussion outside of meeting
   
   ** vr stuff
   george and marky hosted a film festival in vr and it was a concept
   we've been working on at altspace. was really cool. watching a 2d
   screen inside an immersive theater, + q and a sessions. looking how to
   develop space more. unity plugs right into it but it's still tricky. 
   lx and ryan will talk after.
   
   george - 1000, 4000
   lx - 5mof
   
   george - nicolas cage's brother
   
   ** cowlicks wanted to have a safe space discussion
   
   if you, maybe like a week ago, he saw a thing happen that made him
   unsure how to handle it. wanted to have a discussion about how
   noisebridge isn't very safe and how we can make it better.
   
   in particular, someone came to noisebridge for the first time, guy
   gave her a tour, monopolized her time for 3+ hours. she was friendly
   but the guy wasn't picking up hints.  he should have given her
   space. if it's your first time here you want to be nice but he
   wouldn't be surprised if she didn't come back.
   
   tried to pull him aside without making it awkward but it didn't
   work. that's something cowlicks wanted to make people aware of it. noisebridge being a safe space isn't only about harassment
   
   thex - now that you've had time to think about it, how could you have
   handled it?  cowlicks - didn't do anything for
    the fiorst hour, could
   have been direct about talking somewhere else.
   george - was there a complaint?
   cowlicks - yeah I'm complaining.
   george - did she complain?
   cowlicks - I'm complaining. She probably received too much attention and it makes people uncomfortable. On your first time here you don't want to be 
   george - so he wouldn't leave her?
   cowlicks - he was polite but trying 
   trent - what happened?
   cowlicks - unresolved. letr's talk offline.
   
   lxpk - whenever we mention what safe space is, tries to mention
   this. this is the way safe space issues happen mostly. in our
   discussions of safe spaces, we need to draw attention to
   it. noisebridge historically has had a couple people who are beloved
   but monopolizes peoples' times. it's not something most people are aware of.
   
   cowlicks - yeah, we should do that.
   
   lxpk - should maybe be on the safe space .
   
   luke - there's an ambiguity around what it means to be excellent and
   it's interesting because there's a big issue around social and
   emotional labor. there's a burden especially put on women about
   emotional labor. Maybe we should add a bit more clearness about what
   it means to be excellent. some people may feel like it's excellent to
   give other people all of their time. there's guilt wrapped up in
   it. the safe space stuff is all about
   
   trent - we have idioms, like "this person won't leave me alone".
   cowlicks - but also she didn't ask him to leave alone. 
   lizzie - 
   george - can say "we can just go to the bathroom"
   cowlicks - we need to make it explicit that the dude has to fuck off.
   
   luke - to do it with kindness is important.
   cowlicks 
   ryan - it can definitely be a disability
   
   lxpk - some people have a disability but it's often just obliviousness. maybe you can put on headphones.
   
   cowlicks - don't want to put more emphasis about what the person being
   bothered should do. people aren't culpable for some kind of annoyances
   and bothering people but they are if we make them aware of it. I think
   most people are culpable but ignorant.
   
   lxpk - other than the safe space discussions, how do we make this
   known widely? greeting people is a good place. we should bring up
   "don't monopolize time".
   cowlicks - I have. and also point out anti-harassment policy. please bring it up giving a tour, especially if it's a dude.
   thex - along those lines, the headphone thing, it would be nice if there was a general understood signal  for "I'm here, I have something to do".
   ryan - yeah.
   cowlicks - it's not the responsibility of the person being harassed to signal that they need to be bother it.
   thex - if it was understood that we have these headphones we could do it. it's somewhat common practice for bartenders to have codes.  creating a social situation awareness or a safeword. 
   
   juan - on the door there's a piece of paper with blakc and yellowish
   text about how we have an anti-harassment policy and how if people are
   hanging around others it's not excellent. signs are a good way to
   advocate outside meetings.
   
   cowlicks - direct response. but we have hundreds of thousand signs
   around noisebridge. we should point that out more.
   
   thex - good.  ryan - so, I understand both points. it shouldn't be the
   problem of the one being harassed to respond. but also there needs to
   be an ability for them if no one else has noticed to raise
   attention. we need to make it happen as little as possible but no
   amount of training .
   lizzie - leaving will always be easier than weird cultural headphones things.
   
   marky - on a certain level it's the person's being harassed's
   responsibility. we need to create a safe space by allowing people to
   tell each other to fuck off. you don't know if she was actually
   bothered.
   
   (augur - this is a queue not a stack)
   
   cowlicks - direct response. we have a problem at noisebridge where
   there's very few women. there aren't going to be more women coming to
   the space to use tools. women are expected to be passive and nice and
   it's much easier to leave than to tell them to fuck off. we need to
   explain to people that you can be monopolizing someone's time without
   trying to bother them. you should give people space, especially if
   it's their first time here and they want to leave.
   
   george - when I came here two weeks ago, I was uncomfortable because I
   didn't know anyone here. passing someone off and leaving them alone
   sometimes makes people uncomfortable.
   
   marky - who was more aware of the harassment policy - the new person
   or the person talking?
   
   cowlicks - it would have been great if she had felt like she could say
   that. but these are nuanced situations. it can make the space
   unwelcoming and I don't think if someone comes to noisebridge to do
   something. this is a nuanced thing and it's something that that person
   should have realized. we need to train our community a little better
   and police ourselves.
   
   george - can we have a girl show them the space?
   
   trent - I don't think that makes any sense. the anti-harassment policy
   specifically says that it includes persistent, uninvited
   communication. that's harassments. your (cowlicks) perception is that
   it was persistent and uninvited. do people always mention the
   anti-harassment policy on tours (lizzie, cowlicks, jarrod, thex
   (mentioning it)). I think the fact that there is one
   
   luke - the boilerplate is there, and it doesn't get contested, but the
   things that stick we can really emblazon in the space.
   
   trent - there are signs.
   
   luke - but there are bigger things.
   
   trent - maybe we need anti-harassment art?
   
   luke - bmw plant has little signs for don't talking to it. maybe we can circumvent social problems with 
   
   lizzie - nobody reads signs. well-known phemomeon.
   
   trent - but pointing to signs is useful.
   
   ben - noticed it when he went to the bathroom and thought it was cool,
   as a newer person.
   
   augur - these are jarrod's sign.
   
   cowlicks and lizzie like em.
   
   ben - but it's on the left, so it's hard to see when you're coming in.
   
   jarrod - maybe the time has passed, but I feel like the conversation
   was verring into "the what are the responsibilities of the person
   being harassed". regardless of their responsibilities, what can
   noisebridge do to lessen that occurence? that's where this discussion
   should be, not "should someone say something".
   
   thex - the thing that iv'e heard between most all of this is the
   awareness factor. unawarness is the culprit. if it's part of the tour
   or the and part of the community standards, if that was like the
   top-level thing and this was more readily discussed. to me that's
   something very different from safe spaces. be aware that people monopolize times intentionally and unintentionally, but that's not quite about safe spaces.
   
   cowlicks - would like to push the fact that this is a safe space
   issue. giving people unwanted attention *is* harassment. it makes
   people feel like it's not a safe space.
   
   lxpk - jc (thex) was saying it's not a safe space. I think it might
   not register in peoples' heads as a safe space issue. but the sign
   deserves to be big. maybe a comic.
   
   lizzie - we should talk about what we can do outside of specifics of sign-making.
   
   thex - let's continue this afterwards.
   
   trent says we're at the end of the stack.
   
   thanks trent for taking stack!
   
   ** ryan - wiki
   different meeting probably.  lxpk - it would be nice to have a concise
   hand-held handout to contain all this. infospaces have zines. the zine
   from longhaul infoshop might be a cool thing to have. we could talk
   about it more. but it would be cool tot ake