Meeting Notes 2018 10 09

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Noisebridge meeting held 2018-10-09.

Moderator: Victoria (@tdfischer)

Note taker(s): Naomi (@nthmost)

Meeting Summary

TLDR what happened at the meeting:

  • 150k or so in the bank (but don't let's get cocky...)
  • Fundraising meeting happened at 7pm today w/ SK
  • Several new Philanthropists, yay!
  • TWO Consensus items!
    • Allow Philanthropists to Grant 30-Day Daytime Tokens
    • The "Oh Shit" Clause


Introductions

Noisebridge is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."

Has a board forbidden from doing anything, so it rests on your shoulders to maky anything happen Do-ocracy Be excellent and consult others Excellence with reversibility Trying to keep it from disappearing with the rising tide of rent in the city — it needs us to step up our game! Most aspects of NB are never actually truly destroyed — we care about displaying our past, present, and future to the world. If any organization is going to survive the horrors of the next 20 years, it’s probably going to be a high-functioning anarchist hackerspace.

Participants

Nicole — she — FUNdraising Naomi — any pronouns are fine — I just became a certified Jungian analyst! Ask me about NeoMcCarthyism. Dan — he/him — computers and fundraising Alex Peake — he/his — Gamebridge — simulated version of NB on Google Cardboard. If you want to narrate something, Lisa Rein — she/her — Internet Archive, lining up speakers and exhibits for Aaron Swartz Day. Ryan — he/him — trying to help NB get a lot of money and a lot of space. Jesse — he — 1st time here, live in Berkeley, came with a friend. James — he/him — scifi, fantasy and technical writer Miles — he/him — work 3 blocks from here, friend of Jesse. Jeremy — ? — IT guy, app for Philanthropy in today, building circuits. Nick — he/him — data scientist, like to hack on NB and do graffiti Bernice — they/them or she/her — i want all the pronouns to be gender neutral anyway. I hack on video games, teaching gamebridge, do things w/ NGALAC… various other things. Cain — [] — music shit Rafael — ? — programming, i like this place Matt — ? — programming, hardware, i hack on the space, trying to fix Ordibooth. I like to help people with lots of things around the space. R - they/them — currently working on new installation of laser cutter computer stuff. Victoria — she/her or they/them — been around a long time, mmmmmaybe do fundraising? i intend to stick around a bit. One time i refe Joshin — he/him — was here last week, i contribute humor and caring about people. Peace, perhaps? Ruth — she/her — just eavesdropping [lies!]

Announcements and events

Bernice: Oct 14 is last Sunday Streets of the year! Also I don’t want to lead them anymore b/c it’s more extraversion than I want to exhibit. Cain: Fetish Fashion show on Nov 4th, afternoon to early evening. @WizardOLinux on Slack Lisa: The Internet Archive’s Aaron Swartz Day soliciting participants to exhibit! Friday night, NB people get in free at the DNA Lounge. @lunarelf on Slack . Awesome people will be there!!! Ryan: I’d like to coordinate a NB Wiki Hackathon. Contact me on Slack as @pyconaut Ruth: We’re applying for government grants. Starting fundraising “for real” in November. Nicole: Hacksgiving! Maybe we can do things like replace donate.noisebridge.net (@gaardn)


Philanthropists

(Rando says we need to ask people applying for philanthropy this question because it’s “funner”.)

Jeremy Quester: something of a… well… Victoria: why did you apply? Jeremy: I applied… you took away what i was gonna say! Rando: Maybe because you’ve been taking responsibility even because it’s not required! Jeremy: Yeah… helping to close down the space, grant people access. Helping w/ the garbage and some of the space areas. Giving tours. And I asked to get a locker and got one, so I figured I should do the philanthropy thing too. And I made a donation. R: Adding a couple things — 24 hour access via RFID. Can renew 30-day access tokens. Responsibility to ask someone to leave the space if they are acting unexcellent (not a rule, just my understanding of things!) IMHO Ps should participate in keeping the space clean. Ryan: Ps usually are some of the first people to help donate to NB. It’s not required, but encouraged to donate about $80/month if you make good money and can afford it, but we also have a $40 starving hacker rate, work out your own cost (write to treasurer@noisebridge.net). When you let ppl in, it’s your responsibility to make sure they get a tour and feel welcomed. Update them if they haven’t been here in a while. Jeremy: You have to be sponsored by someone. I asked a few people and eventually got Lee to sponsor me.

Up for the thing: Jeremy Elias David G Mateo

No objections! All pass!


Membership Binder

  • HAYYYY Members Here's 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.


Naomi: To start with, we haven’t had the philanthropist level until a few years ago. We did it shortly after we put locks on the doors. The access thing wasn’t a conversation till we had electronic locks; prior to that, we just let people come in.

NB runs on consensus. In doocratic society, people are constantly changing things and there’s no way to slow it down. It is hard to go around and check with every person for opinions so membership exists to handle large consensus-based decisions, such as spending large money or changing how NB works.

We have a trust network called MEMBERS. We add new Members when 2 existing members sponsor someone, and we talk about them for weeks till we agree they’re being Excellent by NB standards. We try to get to know that person really well before they become a Member, so we know we can trust them to uphold Consensus well.

The new thing I want to add to this is that I think that Membership forms a trust network that spans longer spans of time, in a that way this is impossible to get from normal cultural transfer as the Noisebridge social scene ebbs and flows.

Say there’s this specific thing the space needs that you want to be able to say someone should do for NB. By keeping on good terms with the broader Membership, then you have people in the trust network who can be called upon to show up to help in many ways: run a class, tell stories about Noisebridge past that help people understand what's going on right now, revive or explain an old piece of architecture, or whatever.

Members help solve the problem of the need for more reliable generational transfer. It is good to maintain good relationships with currently estranged Members. We do this structurally by keeping these people on the Member rolls, and trusting them to be Excellent because they've been through this longer vetting process.

Person: Some groups have a board for that and board members. What’s the difference between board and members?

Naomi: Good question. Board is legal interface for rest of world. Inside NB we have bubble of anarchism that the outside world doesn’t understand. The board is a legal layer around NB that allows the internal to function in a way that works for us but peculiar for rest of world. Meaning:

What's great about being a Member but not being on the board is that Members have all the freedom to run Noisebridge by consensus, while the board has no real power. To the outside world, the board is Noisebridge's point of contact, and so when things go wrong with outside world, the board holds all responsibility and no power. If I’m on the board and Noisebridge fucks up the the outside world, someone from the outside world can come straight to me and hold me accountable for what NB did.

The board enables people at Noisebridge to run Noisebridge the way they see fit without legal consequence from the outside world AND without interference from the board itself. It's for that reason that we keep the list of Members and Philanthropists SECRET.

Person: Boards have term limits of 1 year. All things that come with board members like elections seem normal. Members have lifelong anonymous tenure. I'm not comfortable with it seeming like people who aren't really around are making decisions in the background.

Naomi: I get that it seems that way. There’s a couple things to that. Members who aren’t hanging out aren’t paying attention to what’s going on. The more important part though is that there's no way for members who don’t hang out at NB to make decisions on behalf of space. It is up to people at NB to carry out consensus of decisions. You can’t make decisions on behalf of a space that has no idea (or is going to be pissed off about your decisions).

Person: OK and so where are these decisions made?

Naomi: These meetings are IT. You're swimming in it right now. We can talk more about this when we talk about Consensus.

Victoria: Let’s take stack and move onto consensus.

Ryan: Being a member should not be a goal. Not something you try to attain, although people may encourage you to become a Member. Being a philanthropist and being excellent member of the community does not require you to be a member. Membership is more formal layer to help keep Noisebridge functioning with good continuity and as a safe ecosystem.

Lisa: ah, so Philanthropist is not a member.

Victoria: Correct.

R: On Process. To become member, NB knows you and you know NB. You feel you want to be part of NB and responsible for it. Way we implement is application with 2 sponsors beforehand or over course of 4 weeks during application. It is read at every meeting. It is formal Consensus for you to be approved. Member applications can be anonymously blocked. [and non-anonymously blocked too --N]

Naomi: The part that makes Membership different from Philanthropy is that members can block consensus.

When things go through consensus process, another member can block consensus. It is considered a weighty move. More excellent to resolve conflict in other ways. Blocking is last resort.

Financial Report

Consensus

“Formal consensus” examples: financial decisions redefining membership or philanthropy ...? profit!

Process: You have an idea! You should bring it up as a discussion at Noisebridge, wherever that may be. If everyone seems to agree, you can make it a formal consensus item and bring it to the meeting. 2 weekly meetings... it passes if no one blocks it AND it doesn’t change significantly (if it does change then the clock resets)

Example of the relationship between Do-ocracy and small-c consensus: The couch story (Victoria and Naomi tag-team)

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.)

Proposals for next week

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

Allow Philanthropists to Grant 30-Day Daytime Tokens

  • Ryan: I notice lots of people coming here all the time who don't have tokens.
  • Ruth: I have concerns b/c it's very possible they'll be first in the space and also alone in the space. I'd feel more comfortable if we could see logs of who granted access to whom, and ability to revoke.
  • Victoria: as one of the admins of the access system (assuming it's still the thing Henner wrote), there's an audit trail of who granted to whom already. There's a CSV on the raspberry pi. It keeps a record sort of like a blockchain of cards that depend on cards.
  • R: can i direct response on that?
  • Victoria: don't hit me.
  • R: on the blockchain, the only hash in earl... there's no tree-hashes. We only record the most recent person who vouched for a 30-day token. It's the hash of their token's code.
  • V: my understanding was different.
  • R: I could be wrong.
  • James: this means ppl will be granted to the space, but also means needing to have more guidelines for it, like being able to track down the person who granted the access. Also, i wonder if any of this is backed up.
  • R: Henner has a cron-job on pegasus that performs a backup of the CSV file w/ all the data. I think daily.
  • Matt: Backups don't matter b/c we can just re-grant to everybody.
  • James: It matters for figuring out who added whom.
  • Ryan: it sounds like we still don't technically have a secure way of tracking these things, so we don't have to retroactively fix this thing.
  • James: Sounds like there is trackability in the system now so I think that's fine.
  • Ruth: I'd like to get a show of yay or nay about adding on this proposal. (Thumbs up/down split 50/50)
  • James: the IDs will provide tracking (just after the fact).
  • Naomi: So... when was the last time we had to revoke a philanthropist token?
  • Matt: never
  • Ruth: Just pointing out that this about the people to whom tokens were granted, not philanthropists.
  • Naomi: yeah so, followup question, when was the last time we revoked a token from a non-philanthropist?
  • Matt: A couple months ago (?) a person named Alex harassed me.
  • Naomi: what did we do, did we find the person who granted it?
  • R: Yes and we revoked the token [by processes]
  • Naomi: OK, and what are we requiring from people as a consequence when they are held accountable for letting in someone?
  • R: Well, we're not, right now.
  • Naomi: OK... I mean, if we're not planning on punishing people....
  • R: Also the person who granted that token was actually a Member.
  • James: Well then we'd be able to see people with a pattern of granting access to the wrong people.
  • Matt: Lemme point out that, right now we aren't getting enough people coming into the space and holding it open in a good way. It's very easy to fuck up a place when you have malicious intentions. We're afraid of one person being alone here in the morning because we don't have enough people coming here in the morning. So it would make more sense to give more access and get more people here in the morning.
  • Ruth: I don't know that I would trust all philanthropists right now to give 30-day access, if this was a power we gave retroactively.
  • Jeremy: there is already a sort of accountability... if I let anybody in by any method, it's on me to properly show them in, give a tour, etc. I'm responsible for their behavior if I let them in.
  • Ryan: I agree with that point and also w/ Ruth's point that certain philanthropists shouldn't be given the 30-day daytime token access granting ability. People should be more tracked and logged so we can hold people accountable.
  • R: we already allow people to grant 30-day tokens (Members)... almost all the problems people have noted here can be applied to Members and I don't see why there's a difference here. Not everyone wants to be tracked. We don't publicly log in a channel when anyone logs in a space who they are, but we do log what user level. Having more ppl in the space means we have more eyes in the space and will prevent issues in the space.
  • R: to address Ruth... NB is a constantly changing place and I don't think it's that big a deal to give Philanthropists new powers.
  • Victoria: (pulls a stack of papers from the binder) there are about 200 philanthropists in the binder and 120 accepted. Granting 120 people the abilty to pull in another 120 people *click* like that feels a little unnerving. I do agree with your points (to R and Matt) while I also have some concerns. But ... Naomi taught me about antifragility. If you break NB it'll come back stronger than before. Not like the phoenix which comes back as it used to be. This is different: we should think about the backstop of the cultural immune system that will catch the problems. Tragedy of the Commons can occur where many people just stand around watching bad things happen because they're no one's problem. It might be good to give the space a "vitamin shot", but then again, i'm not sure Noisebridge is "ready" right now (gut feeling).


= The "Oh Shit" Period

aka "probationary period" for Membership

(R reads the proposal)

  • Ruth: can you do this anonymously? does it read that way?
  • R: no not currently
  • Ruth: can we add that to the text? thumbs up or down who would like this? [most people thumbs-up]
  • Victoria: the Secretary typically accepts anonymous blocks and makes sure the person is kept anonymous. So it can still work that way.
  • R: the issue this is trying to address is there was a block that didn't reach the table. I'm only saying that _A_ member needs to declare the block. It can still be a proxy block.
  • James: i propose that we send out an announcement on the 6th day, since people don't pay attention to deadlines until they're about to pass.
  • Victoria: my answer to that is making sure we read it out again on the week after the Membership is added.
  • James: well but that only works if the Member who's in the room
  • Victoria: interesting, because the last time this happened, _I_ was why that happened. There was an application in the binder and in that 4-week period, the way you would do this was to tell the Secretary (who is/was me), and the secretary would write "blocked" on the form. Big gap in communication. I told people "noted"... and i never did it. Total failure. I like this proposal and I'd sort of want to be like 2 weeks. At that point i'd be confident in saying if you didn't raise your block, it's past. Does this resolve the real issue? It's a bit of a patch/band-aid... doesn't quite fix the problem but maybe it'll help.
  • Ruth: show of who likes 2 weeks better? (lots of thumbs)
  • R: I will make that change.
  • Victoria: let's wrap soon.
  • Ryan: I think having a wiki page or something where if the secretary isn't able to physically able to come to the space, something on the Membership page -- people have access to a FORM where they can anonymously submit a block that will show on the wiki page.
  • R: Statement that any Member can make this declaration, like Slack, mailing list, etc.
  • Victoria: My general excuse was that i wasn't on anti-depressants yet.
  • Matt: I'd rather see this be 6 months.
  • Naomi: Yeah the arguments for 1 week or 6 months are basically the same.
  • R: the reason for 1 week was that a block didn't reach the table in time. 6 months is really a different thing.
  • James: There's a difference between probationary period
  • Naomi: we do have a process for removing Membership, we go through consensus. If someone's been a Member for 5 months then at that point it feels more appropriate to go through a more formal process to dismember them. All these time periods are fairly arbitrary.

(general mumbling about whether time periods are arbitrary or not, what constitutes "probationary" versus, etc)

  • Victoria: OK, so this is in its first week, so let's end it here.


Discussion

Discussion Items

__NO TIME! It's 10pm let's go back to hacking.__

End of Meeting

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