Meeting Notes 2018 04 17

Moderator: Roy / @rizend

Note taker: Beka / @augur

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Introductions

Name - Optional Pronouns - Deets

Roy - they/them - Slack integration (eg safe space help page)

Tommy - N/A - New; wanted to see whats up at NB before we might have to close

Jarrod - he/they - mostly woodworking in the woodshop

Kate - she/they - Mitch said to show up and talk about a project; thinking in Spanish currently just got back from Colombia; from an anarchist collective art space

Nemi - he/they - new; student at SF state for CS, came to NB to make cool things and study and stuff

Kevin (@bfb) - he/they - 5 year-er, Neurohacking, machine learning; looking to kick of a new machine learning project looking for subject matter (something w/ the wiki, or whale vocalizations)

Togo - N/A - power electronics, electric transportation, CNC furniture, laser cutting

Will - he/they - wanted to check out noisebridge, looking for a hackerspace to get feet wet, newly arrived from Austin

Augur - she/they - fp, laser cutter class on Fridays, AI stuff, building a video uploader thing with Roy

Ozzie - they/them - Just here for the meetings

Patrick - N/A - by day I fight computers to make them more secure which we all know is a meaningless task; by evenings i've been getting progressively better at making house music which i someday hope to share here at Noisebridge without being embarassed

Scotty - he/him (they/them ok too) - You can play nyan cat on macos touch bars. Currently in china, been playing w/ memory a lot, just made a USB stick from iPhone memory

Lady Red - she - mostly recently been hacking fundraising instead of other things, giving a talk at pycon in less than a month!

Participation

Jarrod: Noisebridge is an anarchist do-ocratic space w/ one rule: Be excellent to each other; w/ a variety of traditions and an antiharassment policy which we take seriously. B/c noisebridge is doocratic, as long as you're following our one rule, you can do anything you want in this space w/o asking permission (move things around, make things, fix things, teach classes, etc.). Depending on the size of the change its generally good to talk to people, using your own judgment about how many that should be. To get it you ring the doorbell from 11a-10p; if you've been coming around, you can track down a member who can give you 30 day access; if you want 24h access so you cna hack all the time, you can become a philanthripist ($80 a month, roughly); if you want to be a part of making NB exist and help it persist and its a big part of your week or whatever, you can become a Member. None of those things give you greater authority in the space; we're all subject to the one rule, no one is in charge, it's all of our responsibility to make the space great.

Safespace

Kevin: First and foremost NB is dedicated to being a safespace. what this means to me is we're excellent to each other -- in practice, a reading of the antiharassment policy is a good start; what it gives us is the ability to ask people to leave if you feel unsafe because of their behavior; if you don't feel comfortable doing that alone you can ask help, which is often a benefit (or use the safespace help page); some additional tools (up to you to gauge): if you're comfortable, talking w/ the person to try to discuss what makes you uncomfortable w/ them: NVC (non-violent communication) /request to modify behavior, mediattion (page on the wiki, esp. if you don't feel comfortable w/ having a direct conversation and want a third part). we should also raise awareness about implicit bias in the space, b/c these do have significant impacts in our society, and it's useful and excellent to discuss them with others, and to be conscious of ones own (esp. if others mention it to you)

Announcements

Red Bull Creation

Kate: I work w/ a group called New Creatures in Oakland (small participatory design firm), we do a lot of cool projects, mostly not w./ corps, this one happens to be w/ Red Bull, and I wanted to tell you about it. It's called Red Bull Creation, done 4 times (2x detroit, 2x NYC), convince RB to bring to the Bay, typically gather nation's top makers from top makerspaces and they show up for 72hours and respond to a challenge to build giant things (flame throwers, amusement park rides, etc). This time is different, to be less exclusive, using the resources from the corporate world to support artists/creatives normally not given access to this. Will mix up teams between hackerspaces instead of each space having a team. Also want to make it less White Male if possible, esp. wrt engaging people without access to a makerspace or unaware of them but possibly would be interested. Instead of the normal 72h makeathon, will integrate public programming, so that people who dont want to show up in a space for 3 days can get exposed to some of this stuff. I want to extend invitations to participate! Even tho participants aren't compensated, you'll have access to all the equipment you could dream up and all the materials you would need. June 28 - July 1; team selection launch party June 1; July 6 is show and tell street party (10 teams of 4), will probably all be happening at American Steel. All the Red Bull you could drink, all food provided! Get in touch at kate_spacek@newcreatures.com.

Lady Red: Looking for people already doing making, or open to people looking to learn?

Kate: We're going to aim to have at least some experience w/ this stuff on each team, but also make sure that it's doable for people who don't have lots of experience due to, e.g. lack of access to tools.

Lady Red: How many invites?

Kate: Finitely many, but we're looking at how to distribute invites. Email w/ ideas!

Hardware Startup SF

Augur: Relaying Clarissa's announcement that on Wednesday, April 18th, they are doing hardware studio from 7-9 pm at bolt 724 brannon, https://www.meetup.com/HardwareStartupSF/events/249162145/ - link for details

Makerfaire

Jarrod: Makerfaire is May 18-20, NB will be there! Bringing Brainduino from Neurohackers (an EEG in an arduino), Simbridge (VR tour of NB), NGALAC (Noisebridge Gaming Archivists Livestreaming Arcade Cabinet). All projects will need help and volunteers! For simbridge, come to a Gamebridge meeting (tuesdays at 9p) or message @lxpk on slack, working mostly on circuit design minigame currently. NGALAC Fridays 8pm / 2000h always looking for help, will be doing a bunch of woodworking, assembly, etc. this weekend, also need help building animations for the livestream that goes out to YT/Twitch/etc. also need help w/ Retropi emulation stuff so if you're knowledgeable there, stop by! We'll also be starting a small fund to pay for internet for the streaming upload. We also need Noisebridge Space Program documentation to give out during the Makerfaire event. If you're interested in helping w/ Neurohacking Brainduino, get in touch on Wednesdays 8pm / 2000h.

Philanthropists

Togo: Philanthropy is contributing to NB financially and having a little more access to the space. Additionally some new responsibilities eg, renewing RFID access. Apply by getting a single member to sponsor you and then you fill out the application and show up to the next meeting.

Kevin: Philanthroipists can be here 24/7 beyond open hours, so there's a responsibility to be conscious of who's in the space outside the open hours, close the space when they're the last to leave, make sure NB doesn't burn down, etc.

Ryan: There's also the responsibility to know how to give a tour, explain how NB works, etc.

No new philanthropist applications.

Members

Kevin: Membership means strong dedicate to keep noisebridge alive and to NB as an org and governance thereof. Process is to get to know ppl on the space, get familiar w/ the space, and often ppl apply when others already think you're a member. Fill out an application from the binder, get two members to sponsor you, and then the application is read aloud at 4 consecutive meetings, and then it's up for consensus where you'll be interviewed by people, you'll then leave, people will chat about you, and then a decision is made. Members (and only members) have the added responsibility of being able to block consensus items.

No new member applications.

Consensus

Patrick: A concept that is generally not practiced outside the 4 walls of NB in our daily lives but basically, our decision making practice for big decisions. Last couple of years described as Capital-C Consensus embodied by the procedure involving meetings and process outside the Doocratic norm. What happens is you write a proposal and its brought to a meeting and we discuss it with the community, if there are issues w/ the item they're raised, we converse, come to agreements, and iterate both at the meeting and outside, until after two meetings unchanged and no Member blocks it, the proposal is consensed on. This doesn't mean we're making the BESt decision, but it's one we can all live with. They can also sometimes get withdrawn if it turns out we realize that it's not necessary. It's NOT majority vote, intended to elevator everyone to get people to discuss things.

Patrick: Block detour: a block is when a member cannot find a middle ground on the content of a consensus proposal and that they think that it must not continue. In a healthy consensus process these don't happen b/c we'd all endeavor to talk about what's happening and massage the idea to a point we're all ok with, but sometimes they do happen.

Patrick: Normally it's good to bring reasons for why you want to block to the table and discuss them. There is only one exception to this tho: membership applications can be blocked without any reason given, nor expected, and also possibly anonymously -- for all sorts of reasons, including things like avoiding retribution, etc.

Roy: Proxy blocking??

Patrick: Not everyone can be here for the meetings, so if you wish you have your voice heard, you ought to get some other member to speak on your behalf, to block or raise an issue, or whatever.

Discussion

Kate: Invites to 72 hour hack

Kate: For me, it's more important to have super-excited, engaged participants than to have four ppl from each org, so if there's like 6-8 ppl into it, that's cool. Would love to have at least four.

Lady Red: We're in general pretty non-hierarchical, so it might just be a matter of putting out a call for participants and figure it out once people respond.

Kate: Next step would be to put together some tangible written info and send it to @augur

Kevin: My solution for everything is to create a wiki page :) [many claps from others]

Lady Red: What's the theme??

Kate: Normally we announce Thursday 4pm then start the clock, but it's going to be something like "bridge over walls"

Roy: Photography policy and streaming ; ryan: NGALAC too

Roy: I'm a big fan of our current photography policy: consent required from every person in the photograph. To me, that means positive, revokable consent -- going up to everyone who'll be in the pic and asking "Are you ok w/ being in a photograph?" and later on they can change their minds and you should then stop and delete photos, etc. Also concerned w/ how this applies to streaming.

Alchemist: I think we should distinguish between recording vs. streaming that's just ephemeral, and also recording/streaming for content distro vs. communication. Also distinguish btw/ audio and video.

Patrick: As someone who participates in AV convos remotely a lot, turning off the camera sucks.

Lady Red: TBH I would be ok w/ dropping the photography policy.

Augur: I've been talking with Roy and Nick about how we could enable streaming in a way that is consistent with our existing policy. We've had proposals for stream shutoffs from anyone in the space, using computer vision to blur faces / mute associated audio by default, all sorts of interesting possibilities, if you're interested about technical solutions to social problems, we are talking about this.

Ryan: I agree that we need to differentiate as @alchemist suggests; we should have a policy in place I think, but it seems like at times people interpret it to mean No Photos At All and we should have better explanations for people, so that we can have media showing off the space etc.

Roy: Addressing @alchemist: I agree there are distinctions, but for me at least while I feel diff. about being streamed, it's very easy to record streams and there has to be some level of trust in the recipients.

Patrick: Very much about trust, yeah, no technical solutions will 100% solve social problems.

Frank: Sometimes I'll be involved w/ something that's live or ongoing and want to be able to review the events after the fact; sometimes we have these events at NB with recordings/streams that have limited view and controlled mic setup so that people have to actively get onto the video. Regarding the possibility of No Photos, I'm confused by why this would be said.

Alchemist: If/when we do this, we need to make it very visible to everyone around the area who might be in shot, so they can know that there is something that they can deny consent to.

Kevin: I'm also a big fan of the policy and the practice of positive verbal consent; this is also in conflict w/ my favoring simplicity. How would people feel about something as simple as an announcement before hand???

Scotty: Obv. this affects me a lot, this is the 4th meeting I've attended remotely, and if we significantly change things so that I can't participate in meetings that'll really suck. I think digitally altering the stream will be an issue in terms of usability. Re: whatpatrick mentioned and I want to reemphasize: There's already a level of trust involved, b/c people in the space may be secretly recording, etc. But I do want to acknowledge what Roy said about the ease of recording. Last thought is: sort of overstating it as a rule vs a variant of excellents, and are we taking such a strong stance is this hurting our capacity to promote noisebridge?? It does make it hard to film in the space, and has a chilling effect on people sharing noisebridge.

Alchemist: My life has two personas, a professional respectable one and a very hacker-y one, and I don't want these two worlds to collide on the internet. I've also noticed during meetings that its very big, not everyone can project their voice to the entire room, etc. perhaps we can have some tech solution (camera + mic on a stick or whatever?) to aid this and that simultaneously helps amplify their voice, etc. and also be useful for streaming meetings??

James: We have perfectly functional wireless mics, we can use those.

Alchemist: We should stick it in a foam ball so we can throw it!

James: I guess I have a few thoughts that might be helpful. Both events that I've done here have involved the public being in the space and involving photography and video at MAPP and audio church. To start with, re: Kevin, there is the reality, you end up having to tell people that they may be recorded or photographed and someone says they have a problem with it, and you make a specific note to the room, and that's how it happens. If photographs / audio is being recorded, you're in the space. Recently we had someone taking photographs and felt that they couldn't take photos at all and left the event and thought they couldn't use the photographs. Using audio from audio church has been working. We can use it wisely. Simple solutions are what are going

Roy: response to Patrick and Scotty: when I was saying that I guess it was mostly wrt Twitch streaming and such to a public channel, which I think we should assume is being recorded. I'm personally ok w/ being streamed for meetings, for instance, but we seem to being sure people are ok w/ it. But for things like Twitch I think we should have a higher standard.

Jarrod: Twitch is recorded by default.

Jarrod: response to other comments about the policy being too seriously: I view this as an extension of our safespace policy

Scotty: it's not that we take it too seriously I just think we should be careful about the tone we use when talking about it b/c we seem to be miscommunicating some how

Scotty: I did want to react to this idea of muting part of the meeting discussions or such I feel like should be a non-started b/c it would make it impossible to participate remotely in any effective way.

Roy: I think this was brought up by Beka (and @alchemist) as just a brainstorming idea.

Scotty: I just feel like it becomes an approach that will kill off remote participation in meetings.

Alchemist: I think consent should never be assumed or default, it should be actively given, or else its not there. Film crews put up signs, etc. to make this clear. Secondly, I think many interesting orgs i've worked w/ have photographer "understanding agreements" that they give to people w/ cameras; probably not easy to do w/ everyone w/ a camera but possibly fine for people with proper equipment?

Jarrod: I think it's indeed important that we understand this as stemming from excellence, not that there's a rule. It's a tradition in interpreting the One Rule. but I do think there should be a degree of understanding and flexibility in terms of context, eg wrt NB 10th anniversary due to things like how hard it is to get consent from a constantly changing crowd. NB exists in part to share things with the world and sharing these things in video/photographic form is important to that. not that we just override consent but I'd like to see some way these can co-exist in our space. I worry that we might stick to an ideology so strongly that it really hurts us. Perhaps this should be highly contextual and solved on a case by case basis.

Augur: let's american table, make channel, discuss there

James: lets do this interpersonally, effort outside of meetings

Augur created a channel #streams-and-privacy

Lady Red (discussion item post-poned): Member list

(tldr: pretty diff. expectations of what privacy should exist here, I feel the list should be public, but can't stay to talk :( )

slack discussion

Patrick: Membership issue in the last month or two

Membership Kerfuffle

Patrick: Ppl are probably aware of the Big Kerfuffle causing a considerable about of stress over a fucked up membership consensus process which are tense. I think things have deferred to mediation at the moment, but it seems that two things will come out of it: that interpersonal tensions will be revealed and so on, and also that we figure out how we feel as a community about the process abstracted from the people involved. I'd like to address the latter especially, because it's broader and important to have an understanding of.

James: What is the best way forward on this issue at this time, at this meeting?

Kevin: My hope is that we don't necessarily solve the problem tonight, but at least get a sense of where everyone is at on the topic.

Patrick: Being honest w/ myself I don't think I can come to the conclusion that Lizzie is a member b/c the way I was introduced to the notion of consensus, it's that the codification in policy is one thing, but that consensus is really about consensus *building* and that the process broke down. The darkest days of noisebridge were obsessed w/ formal process.

Scotty: I want to reiterate Patrick's comments and also add that the addition of new members is partly about trust of the existing membership and that this is really important. I don't think I've heard anyone suggest that this is a good way of doing things and that we should do this again. I do think that if Lizzie wants to be a member it should be at the consest of the full membership.

Roy: Regarding consensus building, I think there was a good bit about it, and that a lot of it didn't happen on slack, and I think partly this discussion needs to be about what slack's role in the space is.

Kevin: From a spirit perspective I feel like it was honored in which conversations were happening, the application was being read aloud, I was working to get to know her better, etc. I don't think that having a private conversation is in any way a contribution B/C it's private and necessarily excludes people. But I will also add that in this case I think it would be most excellent for Lizzie to volunteer to withdraw her membership knowing what we know how after the fact, but also that it would be unexcellent for us by fiat to revoke her membership w/o further consensus.

Patrick: I want to provide some context about the interpersonal issues that raised these issues, in that I've experienced them before too, and we had resolved them ourselves, and mentioned to her that there were other people who had similar issues. I should've more strongly emphasized the importance of that, esp. for consensus building.

Scotty: I also have had several conversations w/ Lizzie about some of my concerns wrt lower-c consensus at the space, and also discussed ongoing conflicts w/ other people and that she should work on it with other people. I also think it's unfair to say that consensus happened and that discussion in MiniEx doesn't count; we do have an established policy about not needing to explain blocks, and that people can anonymously block. The intention was there to block, the actions were there, but the process broke down.

Kevin: I just want to expand on my comment about consensus and private channels: there's an important reason why consensus is done at formal meetings and I think what we risk by stepping away from that is that no one knows how long, after a decision is made, how long it will last.

Patrick: I want to foster conversation about what consensus is and will be at noisebridge esp. wrt to remote members. One of the things you could categorize the reboot as is a period of soul searching where we thought a lot about what noisebridge out to be wrt formal process vs. principle process.