Meeting Notes 2015 03 03

500th meeting of Noisebridge

Moderator: Jay

Note taker: Patrick

What is noisebridge?

Kevin: Welcome! Noisebridge is a 501(c)(3) hackerspace for teaching, classes, working on projects and doing fun cool stuff. Only one rule: Be excellent to each other. That's how we maintain this openness, with Excellence. If you have any questions just ask! Noisebridge runs on a combo of Do-ocracy and Consenus. It'll become apparent during the meeting :)

Introductions

• Greg - I take the Python class and spend time here during the day hacking on Python and SQL stuff.
• Kyle - I use the sewing space here. I make bike touring things and backpacks
• Kevin - I enjoy writing code for machine learning, graphing and building pretty graphs. I've been building web servers for my pretty graphs lately.
• Henner - I write software by day and night. I also hack electronics by night. Recent projects: the RFID access control system. I'm refreshing some software I wrote a few years back.
• Patrick - Software engineer by day; tinkerer and other hacker by night.
• Jay - I'm a software engineer, working on payments for my day job, but I'm a general tech enthusiast and like to keep up to date with things.
• Jade - Currently tutoring a 13 year old on Python. I come here for Neuro Hacking
• Danny - Web designer, learning Swift for iPhone apps. Have done some electronics tinkering before. It's my 3rd time @ Noisebridge
• Harry - Software engineer, mostly JS and node. Looking for debugging help w/ Rails. Been involved here ~6 months. Excited to see progress thus far
• David - Software engineer. First time at Noisebridge, just checking it out to get some inspiration for projects.
• Denise - Here to learn! Was a truck driver, but trying to do coding on the off hours.
• Samer - Paid to put 1 and 0 in order. I like to work on emacs @ Noisebridge and submit patches for it!
• Jehan - Doing some computery stuff.
• Jenn - From Chicago, here only for a few days. From the Southside Hackerspace. Made hackerspacing into a job!!! I do 3d printing, lazer cutting and other fab w/ middle schoolers.
• J...... - Has a much longer name. Sysadmin by day; hacks things by night. First hack was fixing a Nintendo. Helps around the space when it's needed. Do it because I would have loved to have this place when I was a kid. I love this place.
• Seth - Old member from 83. Works.
• Parker -
• Elizabeth - I like the Open Internet.
• Sarah - Journalist! First time since the Reboot.
• Gabriella - Had a book party here!
• Molly - Works w/ Gabriella. First time since the Reboot.
• Torrie - Green tea ice cream is favorite.
• Damon - Been around before, but took a hiatus. Glad to be back!

Short announcements and events

• Samer - I work at sourcegrep, we do code search. We're having a meetup tomorrow. The author of urllib3 is talking about building FOSS communities. He has a very pragmatic approach to it. You should come along if you're interested. It's at 531 Howard St @ 6pm. Talks start 6:45pm. You should email me at samer [at] sourcegraph.com. Also we're having a Hackathon on Saturday! Hack upon our beta-release intelligence engine.
• Patrick - Iron blogger is happening! You should go.
• Harry - Programming languages I've been meaning to try but haven't gotten around to yet - Let's make one happen at Noisebridge. Need someone to help run this w/ me.
• Greg - Every Wed @ 6:30 there's a Civic Hack Night at Code For America at 9th and Mission. It's a great crowd of people. Come work on making the City better.
• J - We're making a display and awesome table for Makerfaire! The table is great, it'll light up. There'll be a bunch of displays and experiments. If you'd like to contribute ideas and help out reach out on the Wiki or come to our Thursday meetings.

• • A bunch of EFF employees walks into a hackerspace **

Membership binder

• Kevin - Membership at Noisebridge is very different from membership at a gym or chess club. It's an open space, where all are welcome to come, hang out and improve the space. Membership is just a commitment to helping the running of Noisebridge, and it comes with a monthly dues requirement. There's a 4 week application process to membership. You need 2 existing members to sponsor your membership. Your application is read out at 4 consecutive meetings and when you have enough signatures and it's past your 4th meeting your membership is up for discussion. There's a brief interview process and then your membership is a consensus item.
• J - You don't need to be a member to do anything at Noisebridge. Teach a class, come, work, learn; you can do it all without membership. Being a member just means having a commitment to the continued existence of Noisebridge.

• Henner - week 2. [HENNER'S STATEMENT HERE] 2 sponsors
• J - week 2 [J'S STATEMENT HERE] 2 sponsors

Financial

• Balance $20,751.57
• Checking balance: $17,928.30
• Savings: $2,823.27
• Noisetor: ~$9,000
• Effective balance: $~12,000 dollars

Consensus

• Torrie - Consensus is our group decision making mechanism. Consensus means that everyone has their voice heard, that everyone gets to participate. The way it works is like this: You add a proposal to the wiki, it's talked about for two consecutive meetings, and then the wording tweaked and confirmed. If, after 2 weeks, the proposal is still intact and everyone wants to pass it, then it's consensed.

Proposals from last week

• Patrick - No current proposals.

Proposals for next week

• Kevin - To clarify and consense on the board election process for the 2015 board election.

Discussion items

Project X

• Torrie - Lockers. Last couple of weeks we've consensed that the green and red lockers are for the community. I bought a bunch of locks. If you'd like to use one for something, talk to me. Lockers are being cleaned out on the 15th. You can claim the locker with a sign to stop it from being trashed

• Patrick - Project X feedback. Want to get people's feedback to see if folks would be happy to have it again.

• J - I loved it. It was a lot of fun. Had been hiking earlier that day, and came to Noisebridge afterwards. I liked the mini exhibits and events going on in the space. There was a painting class which was amazing. It was great to have folks who'd not been here before doing things. We should look at the calendar of events for things in San Francisco and make events happen in parallel so we can capitalize on their attendance. We can do more of this and open the space to more people and let them know and participate.

• Jenn - The libraries in Chicago are getting into this type of space. Most recently Southside Hackerspace hosted a meet and greet for them and for Make magazine. Make approached them, but maybe should reach out to MAKE about it.

• Torrie - I was at the party most of the night; it was fun. One interesting thing was that we had a security person stopping super sketchy people from getting in. It worked out really well, having a bunch of sketchy people "here for the python class" not make a mess. They did a great job with the cleanup. They really cared about leaving no trace. A++ and would do again. It'd be great if folks came from within Noisebridge to talk up people into donating, exciting them about the space. Almost everyone there that night was new. If we want to have more barkers, that'd be great.

• Harry - I wasn't at the party, but was wondering what to do w/ the drying paintings.

• J - We moved the paintings because they're still wet, but we should let art class folks know what to do when you're done with the space, cleaning up and where to leave things like paintings to dry.

• Torrie - I'd ask Signal and Naomi what do with them.

Board Elections

• Kevin - I was Electioneer last year. Last year we had a month with ballots to be filled. The ballot was simple; just indicate on the ballot who you supported on the board. We should set a date to close nominations and then set a date for voting.

• Torrie - I did some digging and was trying to determine the process for voting - Concordet voting.

• Kevin - Yep I think what I described is that. Noisebridge

• Harry - It'd be great to get clarification on the nomination process

• Kevin - Anyone can be a board member, as long as they consent to it. Anyone can nominate anyone. It'd be good to ask first.

• Torrie - If you're nominated you can either decline it or consent to it. The Board is of great responsibility and little power. The Board is just you saying "I'll be legally responsible for Noisebridge", but it really stops just there. You don't have any special power. If you want to be on the board you're the least likely person to be on the board. If you don't want it, you're perfect.

• J - This is just because by law we have to have a Board right?

• David - What's the deal w/ Board insurance?

• Patrick - Should we close nominations next week?

• Kevin - Maybe we should develop a consensus proposal for the process and set dates. How about we close nominations on the 17th of March, and then have the collection of ballots on the 14th of April. That'll be the end of the election. I also propose we use the approval voting scheme, where you mark who you approve of and the top 5 become the board.

• Torrie - It's important that the Board is not important.

• Kevin - Consensus proposal for the Board dates and for myself as the Electioneer. I ran it last year and the Board tried to take over noisebridge :( I felt awful.

• Torrie - We're here today because of that.

• Kevin - I'll decline my nomination to let this happen.

Greeter schedule: Schrodinger's Noisebridge - Open or closed?

• Harry - Schedule for gatekeepers. It'd have to be developed, something that'd take 2-3 months to happen.

• Torrie - If you can find people to dedicate hours of their life to Noisebridge, then the best of luck to you. You should win a Nobel Peace Prize.

• Harry - The idea would be to make it a sure deal that someone would be here.

• Garry - You can show up here and it not be open; makes the space less useful. You can never be sure at Noon. The website says 11-11 but that is offputting if you've not been here before. Maybe we could set up the red phone too.

• Jay - At another hackerspace I was at recently, we had a lot of discussion about privacy concerns about folks listing the fact that they'd be around. They instead developed a physical switch in the space that shows the space is open.

• Patrick - I would instead like to propose that we implement a technical solution w/ the RFID access control system to show the status of Noisebridge as open or closed.

• Jenn - We have a system where some folks can come in as long as the door is open. It's $6/month.

• J - We give out keys to folks who are known to be awesome.

• Torrie - We have $5 RFID access tokens which you can get which'll give you access during "open hours". The idea is to make it accessible for folks but also encourage their investment in the space.

• Kyle - What about renewing the tokens?

• Torrie - They do expire after 30 days, but you won't be charged for a second time. It's an incentive to come back to the space, to get to know people.

• Kevin - Is there any info recorded about the token bearers?

• Patrick - Nope, only the member who added you. Nothing about the token bearers themselves.

• Henner - We only store the hash of the card, so it's hard to reverse back to the actual RFID identifier. The tokens are anonymous, thus they expire after some time. But we can add your name and email address, tying it to that hash, and this makes it a permanent token. Then it becomes easier to revoke known bad actors. I think we have a good balance between being anonymous at the space, and being more active with your name recorded. If you're a member, then we record your contact details and put them alongside.

• Kyle - All members can refresh the tokens?

• Henner - All members with recorded RFIDs can add people / refresh people, but not all members yet have RFID tokens. Adding new users is very simple, a 2 second thing. Many members don't even have a key to the upstairs. Those who did didn't feel compelled to have an RFID key, so they might not be able to add you yet.

• Torrie - The downstairs key is different to the upstairs key. Also don't lock yourself in the elevator gate.

• Kevin - I'm in the latter category, without an RFID key but with a physical key. Is it possible to have an anonymous member key?

• Henner - Yes it's possible, but part of the system is accountability. If some person FOO, who seems to be a member and is adding shady people, then we'd like to be able to know. If you're invested in the space it'd be great to have at least a name you're known by for us to know you. I use Henner. We can hash out the details; it's software.

• Harry - To clarify, if I have an RFID token then I can open the top and bottom door during open hours?

• Torrie - There's 3 levels. Anonymous upstairs and downstairs which expire. Full time users who can't grant tokens but have "extended" hours, and then Members who can give out anonymous tokens. We should put Tripwire on that thing, now that I think about it.