Meeting Notes 2009 11 17

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Crew[edit]

Moderator: Erin

Note-Taker: Seth

Attendee Count: about 17

Officers: XX

Agenda Items[edit]

Announcements[edit]

Introduction and Names[edit]

What Noisebridge is about[edit]

Treasurer's Report[edit]

Ex-treasurer reports: we have about $24,000 in the bank. We owe money for expenses for build-out and for drinks. After these liabilities, we have a few months of money left. To keep it this way, pay your dues!

Very brief primer on Noisebridge consensus process[edit]

What's Going On at Noisebridge[edit]

One short sentence about each of the following:

  • Circuit Hacking Mondays (7PM, 2169)
  • Python Mondays (6:30 PM, 2169)
  • Security group - Thursdays 8PM except when 5MoF happens
  • Project Euler now on Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m.
  • First Aid/CPR class to be scheduled by Thursday
  • Mandarin corner is happening on Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m.
  • Shop Friday still plans to come back when the shop is done.
    • Tool chest is needed. Is there a budget to buy one? -- Nope.
  • Special event: Dorkbot tomorrow at Noisebridge at 8:00p

Project Updates[edit]

2169 Mission[edit]

  • Electrical
  • Library

Shelves will be put up between the windows. Planters will be put up on the windows, with plants planted therein.

  • Network

Consensus items[edit]

Yes. Thus, nominations are now open.

  • Membership Binder

Discussion Items[edit]

  • Ownership of stuff at Noisebridge

No discussion this evening.

  • Is the 8th of December good for the board election itself?

This sounds OK.

  • Recent drama: The couch on the roof of the darkroom.

The darkroom builders are concerned that it should have been clear that a couch shouldn't be put on the darkroom while it was in progress and in any case shouldn't have been back after it was removed. Other people don't think that the couch should have been removed without prior discussion. Different people had different levels of knowledge in the process.

There is a lot of disagreement about what behavior was appropriate and inappropriate in the conflict over the couch. Darkroom builders say that the couch would damage the light-tightness of the darkroom, and caused a risk of a flood because people could bump into the sprinkler head and set it off.

Q. What should happen now?

A. It's not appropriate for people to do things that damage projects that other people are working on.

Proposal: It's not excellent to modify other people's projects in process arbitrarily.

Proposal: There should be rules of some sort at the space that address situations like this in advance so that we don't have to use the general meeting every time to address every conflict on an ad hoc basis, because the existing procedures haven't scaled up. E.g., prevent people from painting a mural on the projection screen, because that would interfere with other people's use of it.

Is the norm to "be excellent to one another" enforceable somehow? Is it sufficient by itself? Do we need more specific or explicit rules?

Do we need a way to censure members or their actions?

Q. Is there consensus about the nonexcellence of what happened here? A. No.

It can be unclear whether someone's action will harm or interfere with someone else's project. Someone can do something that inadvertently causes damage. But then there needs to be communication to address this.

Q. Why wasn't there a mailing list post when the darkroom builders decided that the couch was a problem, in order to explain what happened? A. The darkroom builders tried in person to figure out who put the couch up and to explain their concern, but they didn't manage to do so.

Q. Did they try effectively enough or long enough?

Q. Shouldn't they have told other people about their safety concerns? A. The couch was put back almost immediately and nobody anticipated that it would be put back. Also, some people don't like or use the mailing list.

Is retaliation OK? The couch was put back in anger and retaliation.

Proposal: if you revert a change, put up a signed note about it so that people can see what happened and why.

Q. Why did this conflict need to involve the whole community? A. It's about respect and not just about furniture placement.

Q. Does Zedd need to be here for this discussion?

Q. What do we want to happen?

Proposal: some kind of rules.

Q. What am I supposed to do if someone does something that harms my project?

Since conflicts are likely to happen, we could have rules or we could have a process for dealing with conflicts publicly. So far we seem to have the latter.

Q. What can be done to prevent this problem from repeating?

There is no apparent consensus or conclusion.

Notes[edit]