Meeting Notes 2018 05 22
These are the notes from the The 495th Meeting of Noisebridge. Date: May 22, 2018 Note-taker: siackbot; Moderators: Beka
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Introductions (name, pronouns, deets)[edit]
Beka (she/her) - functional programming, laser cutter class at noisebridge, random other things
Micah (they) - write about Neuroscience and computational biology, AI, deep learning, Noisebridge and more at silicon valle global news; I like to organize meetups and stuff; ask me to know more;
Frank (he/him they/them) - data communications moving into blockchains technology; might hope for brief announcement and discussion piece
Jacob (he/him) - come here a bunch; work on mostly electronics projects, often with blinky lights and yeah
Danny (he/him) - generally working on bookscanning and learning kicad
Trent - data engineer; work with ansible a lot, python; do fun, relaxing stuff with ansible and python too; also web developer
Jade (she/her/they/them) - neurohackar; computational neuroscience and machine learning; was in the py group; I don't know, cool; I'm done
Kevin (he/him they/them) - neurohacking 8 pm every week wednesday; getting familiar with the brainduino at Maker Faire and the creator
Michael - come here to tighten up everything dealing with game development and virtual reality
Adrian (he/him) - electronics, fusion 360, nerf blasters, have cookies
Bernice (they / she) - video games, want to learn AI
Senthil (he/him/his) - graduated bootcamp, looking for first job; broguth new oculus go
Andrew (he/him they/them) - video game stuff; unity; do QA stuff professionally; learning more software development
Matt - coming here for a couple years doing unity C# stuff
Lisa () - cofounder of Creative Commons, building a vr museum and art gallery
Ryan sternlicht (he/him) - hacking on a lot of different things, helping teach game dev and helping other people with projects at Noisebridge
James (he/him/they/them) - host audiochurch, coordinates donations for AV gear at NB, of which we've gotten a beautiful no-strings-attached donation of bitwig and maxnsp licenses
John () - putting tumbleweeds on the blockchain and testing whether nooisebridge can have snacks in the fridge
Siackbot (they/them) - like messing with homologlyphs
Mark (he/him/ * / they) - do game stuff here; archive and development
Nick - you probably all know me
Participation[edit]
Kevin - Noisebridge is a 501(c)3 anarchist hackerspace; our policy is to be as open as possible; we try to be open from 11 am to 10 pm (our open hours); anyone with a 30 day token can get in then; Noisebridge runs on doocracy which means you can do whatever you want as long as you follow our one rule
Safespace[edit]
Beka - there is one elaboration of excellence which we have felt the need to expand on
John - Our safe space policy is meant to keep this a place where you feel space
Beka - A more recent addition to our safe space policy is that reverse-isms are a nonsense thing; Posted around the space are safespace help signs with a url, if you are having trouble dealing with someone, or getting out of a situation / conversation, you can use the form there anonymously or non-anonymously to ask for help
Kevin - mediation is another option to resolve conflict. For example, if you'd like to be heard on a topic, but feel unheard mediation can help; you can see the list of active mediators on the wiki
Announcements[edit]
Mark - Maker Faire was this weekend and it was awesomed! Three projects: NGALAC, neuro hacking brought the brainduino, and there was noisebridge VR.
Frank - there will be a self-guided ethereum study group starting soon
Bernice - on maker faire, we're streaming to youtube live and twitch and people will be able to stream more once it's setup again; we got an editor's choice award
Mark - we may show up on a tested.com video
Bernice - Silver has a fashion show June 2nd at Omni Commons
Ryan - after the meeting, I will be going over how to setup our VR gaming machine
James - June 2nd, Noisebridge will be a venue for MAPP, our local community Mission art event, one of 6 or 7 to 10 venues; we're looking for people to exhibit projects and collaborate
John - Noisebridge has been losing our lease, but it looks like we're going to get a 1 year postponement of it; Noisebridge is dying less quickly than before which is very exciting; a crypto coin company wants to give us money; see financial report for more details
John - last year Noisebridge sponsored my brother's memorial foundation and we gave away our first grant today; it is its own independent non-profit now; thanks to Noisebridge for sponsoring its beginning; tomshutt.com is his website with his awesome books
James - hackerspace in Europe would be interesting to give us 1 BTC; I could use some help, reach out to me
Beka [changed from Discussion to Announcement for time reasons] - We'd like to extend the Noisebytes model to other social media stuff, convo in the #socialmedia channel or hangout after the meeting
Kevin [changed from Discussion to Announcement for time reasons] - also inspired by noisebytes model and concerns on opaque social systems; right now to get access you have to find out who the right person to ask is; no-one really knows who issued a token to whom; this goes along with eliminating philanthopist; We'd like to have an actual user interface for earl whereby people who have pseudonomyous access can grant new pseudonomyous access tokens and anonymous tokens and people with 24 hour access can grant other people those tokens and 24 hour access tokens; there would be an auditable list of who has access and we would be able to revoke a whole subtree of access. conversations happening in slack and after the meeting
Philanthropy[edit]
Beka - we have two philanthropy applications: Jacob and Jehan
Jacob - philanthropy at Noisebridge is a level of caring at the space; first level is coming into Noisebridge and they have a low responsibility level; regulars have the same responsibility to be excellent, but more of it; philanthropy is even more trust and requires you to know how to close up, and to work on maintaining the safe space of Noisebridge; members are an even higher level of emotional involvement
Trent - closing up is important; don't leave hot stuff on
James - opening up is important too
Beka - it's easier though
Jacob is philanthropized
Beka - Jehan is not here at the moment
Membership[edit]
Beka - no membership applications
John - most things in Noisebridge do not require membership; it is not a requirement and it's different from membership at other places; it means taking on a greater responsibility to keep Noisebridge going on into the future; members can formally block and vote for the board of directors which is legally a thing
Beka - being a member and being able to block is not a nuclear option; if there is a block there is a block and it's not cool to push through blocks
Trent - Members can grant access tokens; to become a member you fill out an application and ask two members of the space to endorse you; it sits for four weeks and at the last week, the meeting can consense the membership or block; you should be present to become a member; three members should be present
Siackbot - three members is not my understanding
[*Jade - has been referred to 'quorum' in the past]
Consensus Items[edit]
= Trash Cans
Frank - maybe someone could add a beacon to our trash cans
Beka - two 64 gallon bins; the current cost for us is $293.10 / month; now $548.69 / month
Aidrian - one suggestion was to sort out bottles and cans and leave them out or bring them to a recycling center
Mark - I would like to talk about how this affects item #2
= Professional Cleaners
John - we should have not grimy floors by paying professional cleaners
Micah - very little of the money usually goes to the workers
Frank - should we look at craigslist
Trent - I wonder if we should get some quotes for cleaning different subspaces and consider our priorities; mopping the whole floors would be good
John - breaking down areas sounds good; fruit flies are bad
Trent - we need to have a professional relationship
Mark - concern that we give them a really really good tour and well defined list of dos and donts; messing with someone's project is bad
Micah - is there someone in the Noisebridge community / do we want that
John - if someone runs a professional company
Micah - do we need a "professional" cleaner
John - we should hire someone who already has a professional company
Beka - Monetary relationships poison things; it might make sense to say to people who are dominant users of a subspace of Noisebridge that they're do-ocratically empowered to have a space cleaned
Siacbot - concern about contractors, would feel a lot better about more cleaning days and us taking full responsibility for the space ourselves
Adrian - I could see us hiring a cleaning company, but we should get quotes; just cleanup dust and grime is a more clean cut rule
Trent - we don't pay anyone except for the accountant and architect and electricians (due to legal requirements); people who are interested in cleaning the space could pool money to hire somebody to clean the space
John - that sounds good; now that we're bringing in more than we're spending; cleaning happening automatically makes it something we don't have to think about; I consider cleaning a basic thing
Trent - accruing or non-accruing?
Bernice - request that we can see the notes
John - http://lacolectivasf.org/ (worker owned cleaning coop)
John - I mostly just thought about this in terms of looking at problems that we can solve; possibly we could rewrite to kick decision to a cleaning working group; I might reintroduce with that slight change
Nick - it doesn't have to be permanent, is it worth it, three month trial or something
James - question for john: does anyone know who actually puts out our bins?
Nick - for a long time it was a small group, it was terrible for us and now we have a Message at 9:13; please spread the message of how we take the trash out when the message plays; we don't turn the internet off right now
John - AI assistant asking for donations works
James - another part of the robot voice is the privileged white male please donate
Siacbot - We have this lovely AI system called Mary that lives on a server called Pegasus. THere is a public URL where people can make people say things inside the space. If you want to make things happen on a timer using crontab or timer with shell access, talk to me, and we can add you to the users who do that.
Lady Red - when I was a little queer, my mom would always tell me to clean up everything so the cleaning ladies could come in and vacuum; not only are cleaners good, but the impending arrival of cleaners can help motivate us to clean up stuff
John plans to rewrite the consensus item
Kevin - I'd appreciate if there was a little more clarity on the budget
Micah - I think it could be fun and may not hurt to have a special fundraiser for just cleaning
Lady Red - not necessarily for a cleaning fundraiser, but my partner had the idea of doing an event where you get to throw water baloons at techies as a fundraiser
= Defining Roles
John - we have a lot of confusion on how Noisebridge's administration works, so I have a proposal for defining this
Kevin - infrastructure shouldn't be so defined roles-wise; do we need a chairperson?
Jade - I agree; some of the items seem good; some don't make immediate sense to me and feel unnecessary; this might lead to someone applying to be president simply like they want to do social media
John - part of this is that it would be good to have someone you could talk to about having credentials; many days of who can post this Maker Faire stuff; a clear on ramp is good; who can grant me access
Siacbot - the president's role is to make sure the minimum number of people know who they are
Micah - shouldn't the roles be minimized
John - it's not clear who to talk to about official Noisebridge things; having the president know is useful; I agree that it's antithetical to the ethos; president is powerful; having a clear person in charge makes power less opaque
John - we have control without responsibility
Discussion[edit]
= Frank : Ethereum study group
Frank - among the blockchains, one of them is ethereum; stan has suggested a four times per month group study of the ethereum technologies; we'd like to purpose the older scanner right next to the book scanner, but not connected to it
Dany - we setup the mac mini more recently because there was no computer and then the old computer was rediscovered; I'm pretty sure it's okay for you to use it; I suggest pinging on the slack channel for digital archivists
= Philanthropist -> Daemon
John - background: philanthropist strongly implies giving money and multiple have held back on applying because they didn't have the funds to make an $80 a month commitment; responsibility is more important and pay what you can; I've never turned anyone down due to amount; a new name would be cool; last week Daemon was pretty good
Danny - I don't know what the right name; I'd like for us to call everyone a member; people ask how do you become a member
John - our bylaws were 10 year old boilerplate; we could probably rewrite those; we could talk about changing the bylaws
Adrian - my understanding was the the philanthropist role was created it was a role to generate more money for the space; over time it has evolved away from that; I'm not sure Daemon is the right one; I'd also like to change member to something else
Jade - I agree alot with what Adrian just said; it let us get more money without them needing to apply for membership; philanthropist is an unnecessary middle tier so I haven't applied
Micah - I think we want everyone to be a philanthropist as in donating to us; currently philanthropist is paying to volunteer to take care of the space; people should be able to help the space seprately from this; we could have committees or not have single people in a role
Jermops - I yield the balancy of my time
Pyconaut - so, I just want to reiterate what I said last time that I agree with the people who think Daemon is a pretty good one and I want philanthropy and membership to have different names so those words can be used elsewhere
Siacbot - First, sometimes I differentiate between capital-M members and lowercase-m members. When we had members as a term on the safe space policy that meant "anyone." It's not as directly important, but in the past that's one way of using member and what we mean by member as a formal role, which is different. You are a member and a part of Noisebridge.
Mark - you show up there and you are a lowercase m member; uppercase M membership is about consensing
Dany - I want to propose a framing; Noisbridge has to operate with anarchy and consensus and with the outside legal world which requires bylaw; we should differentiate between internal and external, responsibilities vs dealing with outside world
John - My big takeaway from this discussion is that I'd like to talk to a lawyer about renaming member in the bylaws since it is extremely confusing; my view of membership is once you start approaching the legal world of nonprofits, you need a defense against falling into the standard non-profit structure; this is all a problem that's created by interfacing with the outside world; consensor would be a good word and member would be better for people who are on the space
Micah - I want to propose that we add new terms that make it easier for people to contribute however they can; philanthopist - donater; space gaurdian - anyone who closes / opens the space; basic member - attender; board member - current member; committee member - specially responsibility board member such as holding passwords
Siacbot - Board Member already has meaning
Jermops - I like members being anyone who comes; philanthropist -> host; guardians - current member role; broadly the idea of blocking consensus protects noisebridge from going directions it shouldn't go
Kevin - I don't care what we call it; I agree with Jade and Siacbot; I would strongly oppose new roles and statuses; we don't need consensus for new namings; I'd like John to reconsider changing bylaws to solve an in-space problem
Adrian - I don't want to create more roles, but the philanthropist role (having 24 hour access different from blocking) is still useful; new role called member makes confusion
James - a couple thoughts: so, the thing I want to ask more is; I'm suprised there's an issue with the term philanthropist. I want to give additional context since there might be confusion about how we do things. We have what we do as people but also our nonprofit status. Something we talked about this morning that people might now know is that we had the idea of asking people to be "saviors of Noisebridge" for $10/month, giving absolutely nothing. We still get those donations. We get $4,000 per month (less now). It was $10 minimum, and some suggested more.
Money[edit]
We have $97,479.08 in the bank, mostly general fund. We have 0.1626 BTC in the HODL fund. A cryptocoin company wants to give us $50,000.
Latest financial reports on https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances
Meeting murdered!
Adrian - Noisebytes model for slack invites would be cool