Meeting Notes 2018 05 01

RISEUP RECOVERY NOTES

These notes were recovered from the Riseup pad's edit history. The entry for the last-edited form of this date's notes can be found at https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting/timeslider#301690

Meeting Info

Meeting notes are at https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting today, feel free to join in!

Moderator: Beka / @beka Note taker: Kevin / @bfb

Give us money! https://donate.noisebridge.net https://patreon.com/noisebridge - 65 patrons donating $1,538; lets keep it up!

Introductions

• Beka - she/her - occassionally some bullshit AI stuff, hacking on ffmpeg, other stuff that the note taker missed
• Roy - they/them - does a bunch of stuff, including but not limited to teaching laser class, interested in security stuff
• Kevin - he/they - co-host of neurohacking on Wed at 8pm. Everyone is welcome to join, confluence of ML and neuroscience
• Corry - - working on ???
• Alchemist - does crypto things and tech startup stuff
• Evana -
• Mira - she - works at UCSF
• Daniel - musician @ grey area
• Victoria - she/they - baby lawyer in training who sues cities
• Jermops - he/him - does tech things but is leaving right now
• Lorenza - from Italy doing hackerspacing things. Have been traveling since 2012 and this is the 106th space they've visited
• Giulio - also from Italy! Working w/ Lorenza on community economics and non-capitalistic communal models. Wants to make a better world!
• George - he/him - makes mobile games
• Ben - they/them - sells their soul as a software engineer but redeems it with art and physics
• Scotty - he/him - in China and spends time making videos
• Patrick - he/him - computer security by day and marginally better week by week house music
• Bernice - they/she - makes video games and is also working on the NGLAC project
• Matt - he/they - does computer and tech stuff, 1st time at a meeting after browsing the mailing list

Participation

• Beka - you participate by coming and hacking on things @ noisebridge including the space itself; there's no management so keeping the space workable and usable is our project. You can get into the space many ways, ringing the bell and getting let in, hacking your way is grey area awesome, but once you've come around a bunch and gotten to be known as not a 3d printer bandit they'll offer you 30 day access usually using your clipper card which grants access withuot you needing to use the bell. There'll be more later in the meeting about further ways to particpate
• Roy - we love help taking out the trash [monday and thursday nights]
• Kevin - doocracy is one of the 3 foundations of the community, everyone is welcome to come and do things without needing to permission
• Alchemist - noisebridge is not self-cleaning, we are the life-force that drives it and helps it function like a living organism and removing its waste
• Victoria - another thing about doocracy is that it's a great power with which comes great responsibility to be excellent to each other.
• Bernice - Victoria also said what I wanted to say - even though you can do anything you should be considerate of others in the space
• Alchemist - it's important also to be aware of how your helping people is being perceived - help people the way that they want to be helped.

Safespace

• Alchemist - "what is a safe space?" - noisebridge is what's called a safe space, we don't allow people to harass others or make them feel uncomfortable in the space. if you find yourself in such a situation then you can open the safespace page on pegusas (which is posted around the space) and post there to seek help from someone in the community. Noisebridge is a very diverse space with a range of people attending yet for the most part these people mostly get along, which functions by people communicating their boundaries and respecting those of others, and having a balance between them.
• Kevin - beyond "ask to leave" which is what pegasus will get you when you request it, conflicts that cannot be resolved immediately in person can be resolved through mediation which is available to people in the community when you wish to have a further dialog with someone with an intermediary. Another thing I like to mention is that we should be aware of implicit bias, that if someone raises an issue and notes that you might be demonstrating a bias towards them that you should be open to the conversation that this is the case.

Announcements

• Alchemist - the electronics area is currently under construction and being refactored - please be patient as it'll totally be worth it when done
• Victoria - about half this meeting was in the prior meeting, but noisebridge is potentially going to renew our lease so we should be spared homelessness. We expect to receive the lease this week and this would give us another year in which to fundraise and explore options for our next space.
• Beka - on May 12th Arial Waldman will be giving a talk at Noisebridge. Details from the meetup coming soon. Title is: The Hackers Guide to the Galaxy. If you're interested, come out, 7pm in the Hackatorium. Probably stream it live if possible, will be available on yt afterwards.

[Link]: https://www.meetup.com/noisebridge/events/250053449/

• Beka - 2 new subscriptions to periodicals. Sinister Wisdom. 2600.
• Victoria - I'm still gay!

Philanthropists

Bernice - Being a Philanthropist means that you have more access, 24 hours. Will great power, comes great responsibility. Donate more money than ususal, have the responsibility to know how to close down and open up the space. Lights off, locked, nothing can get set on fire, all the safety stuff. Don't use the laser cut to cut things that give off poisonous gas. Beka - How does one become a Philanthropist? Bernice - File an appliction in the binder w/ a member sponsor. Alchemist - Have to participate for a while to earn the trust. Beka - One thing to note, Philanthropy is easy-come, easy-go. One member can unilaterally revoke philanthropy. Beka - No new apps in the binder.

Members

Alchemist - Members are not easy-come, easy-go. More like the senate. Provide continuity. Only practical difference than Philanthropy is on consensus. A member can indefinetley block a consensus from happening. Requires consensus to dismember. Provides a balance/consistent identity. Bernice - Members have more power, but more responsibility. Beka - No new applications in the binder.

Consensus

Beka - Consensus comes in two forms. Little-c and big-C. Little-c is do-acracy, want to turn on music, will make it a little noisey, ask, if no one objects then put on some music. Big changes require big-C Consensus. Put the proposal on the wiki, minimum 2 weeks discussion at meetings, if no significant changes (not typos, ...), on the second week if no changes to be made becomes official NB law. Anyone can participate in discussion on Consensus items, only Members can block. Members can block on behalf of others. For normal Consensus items it's good to have a reasoned opposition to an item and lots of discussion to reach a happy state and move forward. Membership Consensus is different. Blocks do not have to be for any particular reason what-so-ever, could be not having a good feeling about a person that you cannot put into words.

Discussion

eWindow project presentation

• Giulio - traveled to 100+ workspaces. all the spaces face the same problems. fundraising, dealing w/ landloards, etc.. every space tries to solve the problem starting from scratch. no one sends emails to other spaces, just start doing. people usually don't move. all part of a huge family, strange huge anarchist family. very difficult to move and have direct interactions. in comes the window. put it on the coffee area and have direct connection to other spaces similar to yours. informal way to make contact, get working, share projects. different than commercial communication systems. it's decenteralized. make all the fancey stuff, send files, etc.. simple window based on rasp pi. started work on 2011. learn how people interact. found a programer in germeny. belong to space in italey and drezden. fostered direct communication between these two spaces. don't have to establish a connection, always on. really cheap. a way to connect new, emerging spaces in N. Africa w/ hacker spaces in europe. don't have much bandwidth. low consumption, low cost. all made out of new components. works and is reliable. right now we have a basic version, 1-to-1, and a space-shifting version that doesn't work. on May 7th we will try to establish a cxn to a space in LA, Crash, and in Quito. Propose to NB to build a window and help improve it. in doing this we found that there are a lot of security problems. decided to try to use this project as a tool to raise money w/o comprimising the non-capitalistic ideals. everything is free-software. we have to provide tutorials, teach people how to do it. if you are too lazy/dont have time/want to support the project, you can ask us to build one for your in exchange for money.
• Giulio - this is a way to have a community developed project that spaces can also sell as a service, which is also available as free software. we found out there there are a lot of NGOs in Europe that work w/ migrants, homeless, that have multiple places to work (e.g. fancey HQ + remote sites). our system works for them too. Have grants to support the system.
• Frank - look at file manager, in comparison to that the internet archive only has icons to you. as a suggestion support icons and listing view to organize content.
• Giulio - this is something we already had in mind, need a graphics interface designer. we don't currently have the skill set to implement this.
• Beka - At Noisebridge, our take on photography is that it's excellent to get consent before taking a photo. Same applies for any visual or audio recording. What privacy stuff have you thought of for the eWindow project?
• Giulio - developed this in E. Germany where there are lots of privacy conscious people. Implement curtains, close the curtains. doesn't record anything. Code can be audited to confirm. If you put this in a public space, everyone know's there's an eWindow.
• Beka - How to close the curtain?
• Giulio - Design is just like a window, with curtains included. It's very simple.
• Lorenza - Also don't point the camera into the whole space. Go to the eWindow b/c you want to meet someone. You go there, is not showing the space.
• Giulio - You don't point on casual spaces. Connections are intentions. Hackerspaces, makerspaces, fablabs, all join the network b/c they believe the work we're doing is right.
• Roy - how can it both not be recorded and going over the interet.
• Giulio - end-to-end encrypted. can never be sure nonetheless. don't use the eWindow for private conversations. For 99% of the projects, basic encryption is enough to say that it's secure.
• Roy - Does it record audio?
• Giulio - Closing the curtains switches off the power, physical connection unplugs the power. In the Munich version there is a switch (not a curtain).

Startups want to give us $5k/mo and want something in return

• Victoria - In the   meeting, someone shared they have been talking to a friend that runs a start-up that wants to give $5,000/mo. as a vague sponsorship thing. And we need to figure out what to sell them on. Im skeptical, but open. It would grow our bank account, not something to be relied upon long-term. Not in the spirit of NB to give up control by throwing ourselves at the feet of capital. Some ideas I thought about during this meeting, been looking at corporate sponsorship agreements. Kindof in line w/ how we might want to approach this. Money per month, let them host events at our space, either side can cancel immediately. No guarentee of availability. We make a best effort to enable product promotions. What are our boundries on this?
• Roy - great to fundraise, too vague to make a call atm.
• Victoria - what will/will not people accept
• Mark - What will they expect to get beyond simply coming here?
• Beka - They can already promote events at NB, but they don't realize it. If they want to give us $5k/mo. to do this, that's great.
• Patrick - When I first came around NB, this seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't be accepted. Looking at spaces, need revenue. NB is okay w/ these kinds of things as long as it doesn't detract from people's ability to use the space. A good way to think about it is in terms of availability/accessibility to the space. What underlys our feelings about this? What are the trade-offs?
• Victoria - I don't think this is a radically new idea. We kind of have the upper hand in this one. In the lifetime of NB, we've had many corps. come to us to host events in the space, etc.. We'd talk about it. What we usually come to consensus around is that of course you can use our space. It'd be cool if we could ask for a donation. This is along that pattern. Difference is that this is a long-ish term, on going thing. You guys can host your events and donate some money provided you adhear to some other stuff. Looking at template for sponsorship agreement, assigning point of contact. Can describe it as a grant. We simply exist, and you help us to continue to exist.
• Bernice - what's the start-up do?
• Victoria - They are proposing a version of Alexa that dosen't feed data to the NSA. https://snips.ai
• Roy - Mary uses Google text-to-speech API
• Victoria - We also had an umbrella named Mary that you could talk to

On going mediation process on Lizzie's membership - community lift a little weight off that

• Patrick - been a long time since I've been rubby, sorry. ruby is rubby. After a couple weeks everyone in mediation sounds like their feeling high-stress. Perhaps mediation is not the right place to solve the broader consensus question. Solve that here w/ creative problem solving and allow mediation to proceed unhindered. What do folks present here think?
• Jarrod - Has mediation failed?
• Patrick - What's mediation supposed to accomplish in the first place?
• Jarrod - If mediation is not going to resolve this, then the block stands and we're done.
• Patrick - This is a seperate question and in flux.
• Victoria - Can we have background on mediation? Who's involved?
• Kevin: mediation began a month ago; MY self, jade, isis; Lizzie, mitch, and then scotty in mediation. With Mitch, conversations are slow. Jade and I meet with Lizzie for an hour, Kevin calls with Mitch over the weekend and speak to him for an hour or more. There was a two week period when Mitch was unavailable, but we've now re-established this. With Scotty, we've had full online hangouts. We've had three online mediations there. Patrick joined for one conversation in the space. Jade and I will follow up with Lizzie on Thursday. My goal in mediation is to build / reach empathy for the people involved. Mediation has not failed yet.
• Corry - suggests community board
• Jarrod - are we taking this too seriously. This is Noisebridge membership. These are so high stress, but this is just Noisebridge membership. Somehow this is way outside the level of discourse with which we should have.
• Victoria - I understand that, but there's also hurt feelings; for better or worse there is a process. It didn't work out and it's split people. I don't think this is actually about membership.
• Kevin - this is about membership alon. It is not agreed upon that some block occured. Do we want to set the precedent that we can retroactively block things.
• Patrick - splitting the problem gives the best
• Jarrod - we're not setting a precedent. We're just making a decision in a difficult case. We've never been a super consistint organization. I don't think allowing this block to exist is precedent setting. If in the future, there is a retroactive block, we'll remember how rough a time this was.
• Scotty - I'm having a hard time with presenting this as a retroactive block. It wasn't the intention that it be retroactive. Mitch asked Victoria to block, but did not manage to. I totally understand how, from some peoples perspictive, it seems retroactive. Direct response to Jarrod's why so serious: part of the seriousness is, there are multiple blocks, Mitch and, if not Mitch, me. If the decision is to not respect those blocks, there's a feeling on both sides that it would be hard to continue in the community. To be fair, there's a lot of stress for Lizzie and whether she can continue participating. It's a large part of our social network in San Francisco for all of us.
• Jarrod: to go back to the first spot, are we trying to agree whether the block stands. And if either, Lizzie or Scotty and Mitch has to leave, that is pretty serious
• Bernice - If Lizzie can't be a member, why can't she continue to participate in the space.
• Patrick - No one suggests this
• Scotty - Nobody involved that I've talked to wants Lizzie to stop coming to NB. That's not what this is about. Seperately from there, this doesn't feel great from Lizzie's perspective. One of the primary concerns is that she would feel unable to continue to participate. This is only about membership. I think Lizzie should continue to be a Philanthropist. If the end result was the NB decides to not honor my and Mitch's block, that would feel like NB is not living up to the values that I have in the community. Right now, I don't know how I'd continue to participate. Don't want to make a hard committment to that right now. Feels really shitty, don't know what my ongoing participation would be like. Mitch is more clear, it would be hard for him to continue if his block wasn't honored.
• Beka - this is now a big community conversation/decision, which is interesting and weird to me at least. 2 positions that can be withdrawn. given that neither side as volunteered to withdraw thoes things, and given that this is now a community conversation, it feels to me that the community is being asked to make a decision w/o understanding people's motives for not withdrawing their thing. I'm not sure it's fair to ask the community to make a decision w/o understanding the perspective of the two parties. i'm not sure the community can make a decision. asking the community to take sides in a sense. not just about following process. dispute over whether the process was followed to begin with. there's too little information. understand the membership blocks do not require a reason. here we are having a meeting. can the community do mediation as well? seems hard for that to happen w/o people understanding both sides.
• Jarrod - this has been ongoing at several meetings now. doesn't seem that this is going to end in any way other than it just being a block. no progress happening at these meetings. now we're talking about people leaving the community, just getting work. i don't like the idea of blocking Lizzie's membership, regardless when the block happend, it exists and obviously it's real. i don't see a way forward where this block doesn't eventually get upheld.
• Roy - I don't think the block disappears. It's more that a block has to be brought to a meeting. That's the other option.
• ...more discussion
• Ben - My perception of the motivation behind the consensus process is that in the end the members of the community would be able to be comfortable with the direction the community went. there might be a process to follow to get there, it seems if you say the process wasn't followed it discards the motivation to make sure the motivation in the first place.
• Scotty - frustrated by the ongoing push that this needs to be resolved through mediation. there are 2 seperable issues. there are interpersonal conflicts, also a question to the communit of a consensus crisis. we're trying to solve both through mediation. feels like a rough thing to put on everybody in mediation to solve the NB consensus crisis. it really is something that is decided by the community. speaking personally, hard for me to openly engage in the mediation process while the consensus issue is outstanding.
• Beka - if either party withdraws their thing, the consensus crisis is solved.
• Scotty - biggest issue now is the question of Lizzie's membership. hard to see past that to the other stuff. been so much focus on this, feels pressing. what you're saying is logical. withdrawing my block on Lizzie's membership doesn't seem like the right thing to do. not the right decision for NB.
• Mark - 2 things; 1. regarding general policy of blocking - is it possible to regard a delayed block w/in a timeframe as valid?
• Beka - yes, it just pushes the date of regret back
• Mark - for members abroad, tech is unreliable
• Beka - 4 weeks as is, adding a 5th...
• Mark - it went over by a day or two?
• Victoria - kindof, but it's been debated ad nausem
• Scotty - Victory, you knew about this weeks in advance. not trying to shame you. this was a communication failure, not a retroactive block. mitch asked for a proxy in advance.
• Victoria - that's my read, been maintaining that from the beginning. it's 10:22, i'm going to head out. i myself have lost interest in resolving this. enough people on it already. from where i am i don't see how it impacts me or my involvement in NB. i'm going to continue hacking, fundraising for the new space, no part of this has impeded my ability to participate. come here on tuesday night to talk about feelings + notes, etc.. perhaps a meeting is not the right forum to resolve this. not interested in pushing this along myself. going to pretend that things are fine. have faith that the process works itself out.
• Mark - I am with Jarrod in the sense that if someone believes that a block exists, then a block exists. I want to believe that someone who is already a member has that right. earned by becoming a member.
• George - just started coming here recently, dont know much about the issue. sounds to me like it's a block and that lizzie can reapply when the block goes through.
• Scotty - I agree, Lizzie is welcome to reapply at any time.
• Scotty - This is exhausting. I'm running out of energy on it. My fear is that we will all burn out on this before we resolve it. We will make a decision out of exhaustion and frustration and not a deliberate decision.
• Roy - We are already making something out of a lot of exhaustion and frustration.
• Jarrod - I think consensus does take a while, but to also recognize when a decision is intractible.
• Roy - can we stop talking about this?
• ...more discussion
• Jarrod - Is there a strong compelling argument against the block standing?
• Roy - The argument that I have been putting forward, that I'm still thinking about, not certain it's right, I have said before that part of the limits on the process that keep consensus tied back to NB has a physical space is that blocks do have to come to meetings. If we honor a block that was brought to a meeting significantly after the process had already ended we open up a lot of issues.
• Scotty - Interested to hear where Kevin's at?
• Kevin - I stand aside.
• Patrick - NB has gone in spirit, NB generally as a community doesn't go strictly on rule precendent. Consensus is the procedural thing that is wraped around feelings. Procedure is the implied momentum of consensus. Procedure is the process that gets us through scribing, doing all the things around it. Consensus exists in a more wide sense, rely on principled based, rather than rule based decision making.
• Roy - What does spirit over rule based mean?
• Patrick - Did the intent of the block exist before it reached the table (spirit)? The block did not hit the table during the 4-weeks (rule).
• Roy - My feeling of spirit is that there is something important about it happening at NB. Maybe I should understand NB as a spiritual? org?
• Patrick - The anti-harssament policy describes that NB exists beyond the doors of 2169. Run it self w/ minimal rules, maximum principle. If we had to go through torte, nothing would ever get done. What are the things that drives the community forward? If consensus is the thing that's special, it is to me, we should lean back into it. has produced innovate results before. makes nb different.
• George - I don't think what Roy is saying is a vaild argument against this case. The topic has come to many Tuesday meetings. Discovered there was a block that was supposed to go through. If we agree that it is a block, then it should go through. Not secrative anymore. Very open now.
• Giulio - we use consensus too. basis of consensus is that you don't want the minority to feel overwhelmed by the majority. feel at home in the space. norms, rules, processes to make basic principle in action. When something new happens, that's the moment to create a new rule. What we could do is not to ask the community to solve the specific case, it's devisive, rather ask the community about the new topic, should we as a community privillage the rules or the spirit. Apply the new rule to the past case.
• Mark - Consensus item for how blocks are handeled?
• ...more discussion
• 23:14
• ...more discussion
• Jarrod - Can we put this in the notes that we'll push this back to mediation and allow for the mediators discresion to bring this back into a meeting?
• Scotty - Engaging in these discussions takes the majority of my work day.
• ...more discussion
• Jarrod - We'd like to let mediation proceed, without pressure from meetings