Meeting Notes 2023 02 21

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These are the notes from the The 713th Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date: 2023_02_21

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

Note-takers: Mark, liz, E

Moderators: TJ

Meeting Summary

FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST

TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update
• Announcements:

   * * 3d printing class sunday at noon
   * * Hardware security hacking class in march
   * * Movie night on Thursday
   * * pop up sewing events are happening! (check meetup)
   * * coffee roasting workshop is coming back
   

• Finances:
• New members:
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• TJ - he/him Organizer for the weekly AI meetup on Wednesday evenings
• Max - mostly in the woodshop, sometimes in 3d printer room
• Elan, ML, Graffiti, and Wikipedia, Bikes
• Colin - use the laser cutteer and suchnot
• John - wood shop guy, artist builder of things
• Mark - Games and organization stuff
• Al - solar architect, working on architect / engineering nonprofit project, working on metric to see who deserves solar panel and home rehab help
• EJ: new to NB? Learning Web Dev, formerly AI safety student
• Emeline - sewing guild, treasury department
• Loren / Mcint : Around for computing / electronics , infra , helping out with treasury
• Lizzard - they/them- bureaucratic stuff, game dev, writing, zines
• Dana - CHM, electronics LEDs and such
• Sam - hackin a bit of everything, Unreal engine Thursdays @6:30PM, CNC milling nullpontersf on Discord
• guy - 3d printers, rugyoga online
• Dashboard T. Cat - meowing, hunting mice, extra dinners

Short announcements and events

• Guy: 3D printing class Sunday at noon

question: Do you have any recs for new people who want to use a printer?

• Guy: Ones that are newly upgraded, treat like laser cutter (instruction about how to use them; quite a lot of work to do them, don't want to undo it)

• Mark: Hardware security hacking talk, sometime in early March
• dana: Revive coffee roasting workshop (from ~10 years ago, need to update: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Coffee_Roasting_101). We have all the supplies now, just need to set the date!

• Movie night Thursday night (maybe Saturday?)

• Emeline: Pop up sewing events by members of the community are happening.

• We can now set payments of fees for classes on Meetup! This means people who are commited will actually show up. It's set to wire through PayPal.

Board elections! https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/2023_board_election

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

(What does that mean? Everyone is expected to follow the Anti-Harassment Policy, please familiarize yourself with it.) TWO MINUTES MAX

TJ- conflict and problem solving. Suggest read that. Sleeping , taking pictures without consent. Frown upon. clean up after yourself

Guilds

• What are guilds - briefly describe (much like the previous section on "Excellence")

• TJ- subgroups. flat hierarchy. Different interest groups take care of themselves. ..
• Wood shop, sewing, laser cutting, 3d printing, music, AI. They self organize to take care of those areas/equipment
• Contact members regarding questions and before making donation. Wiki for each
• Check (or set up/revive) discord , slack, wiki pages for each guild!

New Members/Associate Members

What are they? Is anyone trying to become a Member or Associate Member? If not move on. No long discussions. 2 membership applications

• TJ - Associate members 24 hour access. Needs member to sponsor you. $40 to $80
• 2nd tier , membership, after you've been an associate for 4 weeks, get a Second member to sponsor you. Final say in consensus items.

• If you sponsor someone for associate/membership, please go over the things they should know (a basic list is on the back of the form)
• That application form is Taped to top of 3D printing room, and you can also print new ones from our wiki, at https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Membership

• Mark - 2 applications.
• * Sam who is online. They have setup their donation. No one blocks. Sam (nullpointersf) is now a member!
• * Max (mjo) - membership through Benevity (match funds?)

Mark - what have you been doing? Coming since the end of 2022. Mostly wood working Person X - What are you most proud of?

• Max - Reading furniture - repurposed chest drawer . storage
• Person Y: Discuss keeping place safe
• Mark - invite to Slack ?

Max is now an associate member!

• Person Y: Funds to address the noise. Discuss Sawdust?

(lizzard: Board elections)

• Person W: if you nominate someone, they need to accept nomination

supposed to have board elections once a year

Financial Report

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo.

• Funds in bank:
• Noisetor (See the bulletpoints at the bottom of http://noisetor.net/finances/#summary):
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials
• The latest financial reports from the treasurer are available at https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

Spending Needs

Gotta spend money on XYZ (i.e. Gate, wiring etc.). WHO CAN SIGN THE CHECK OR LEND THE CREDIT CARD!?!?! It doesn't matter if we agree to do something and it can’t be paid for.

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

Let's set up better, more secure, more obvious donation boxes in key spots around the space, especially soon bc upcoming events w/ outside folks are happening!

Make some cool donation jars! https://learn.adafruit.com/matrix-portal-money-sensing-tip-jar

Big C Consensus Items

1. "The Treasurer will provide up to 15k USD to the Noisebridge 3D Printing Guild (to be matched or otherwise) for the purchase of a replacement printer in place of the Stratasys Objet 1 that was recently smashed and sent to a waste removal junkyard. "

• Mark - items for meeting should go on the draft wiki, not the "current" wiki page

??? - not sure printer is worth the 15k requested

• several people say they would block this large budget (TJ, Dana, Emeline, Mark)

Liz: If the group of people who want to use it have a specific machine they want to buy they should bring that proposal to the meeting

2. "CONSENSUS OR DEMONSTRATED EFFORT TO FIND A GOOD LOVING HOME FOR EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT BEFORE WASTE DISPOSAL Expensive equipment should go through the 2 week big-c consensus process or have a demonstrated good-faith effort made to find a good loving home for it before it is gotten rid of through waste disposal. An example might be a piece of equipment worth over $20,000 USD when it was new. This is both out of respect and to save the reputation of Noisebridge for future donation of expensive equipment."

• Idea to label big items with what guild they are maintained by. Loren volunteers to make labels

• Mark - totally agree, HOWEVER: telling people to label their stuff all day long but it doesn't always work. Labels are an imperfect solution

• Lizzard: We actually need a culture where you CAN get rid of things and keep the space clean and less cluttered (ie something like a purge shelf) Most of the time,that's smaller things, but when it builds up, we feel like we need to clear the decks and it's more likely we make mistakes like this

• Emeline: guilds could be responsible for these large machines (example of various things that were around for months )

• Mark: emotions do sometimes cloud our judgement. the printer WAS owned by a guild (3d, fabrication) but it was still hastily thrown out. organizing better may not prevent that

• Emeline: this also happened with a super nice sewing machine.

• Elan: Guild ownership can be more explicit

• Loren: I would block this motion for not being actionable. and for steering discussion to post-hoc blame as opposed to building toward proactice solutions. Let's create better norms. Whoops we had a bad side effect to a very good thing. Let's be more excellent in the future

• Max: A lot of the discussion hinges on whether we consider the printer as a "tool" or as "someone's project"?

• Loren: Build solution, rather than be stuck in blame

• Guilds need to claim things. (but also maintain them)

Mark - I'm not convinced that this is a practical solution.

• guy: consulting guild maintainers is the solution.

TJ: A game of telephone is happening and having a more publicly recorded conversation which shows intent to throw away and proof of said intent can go a long way towards rectifying such miscommunications.

• Discuss status of projects / equipment in General chat ON DISCORD AND SLACK for 2 weeks before "trashing" the item

Consensus Items

Only for talking about Big C consensus items, small c consensus items should be discussed with people at the space at the time of the change

Discussion

Discussion Item 1 - Big 3d printer

Liz called for Trash pickup for junk around the front of the space (ATM shell, wooden boards, vending machine, etc) In the process the Connex printer was wheeled out and trashed by some others, some folks had communicated with the person working on it and were under the impression that the project was abandoned, others are very upset that this was done without greater notice or consideration for Magnet who was working on it (or pyco or the rest of the fab/3d printing group). Action item: better notice and communication before trash and equipment removals. Better indicators of in progress projects.

Mark - Should ask resource maintainers (to say it in guild terms). TJ - What could have done better?

• clear signs (with dates) on equipment (ie the connex) from the maintainers
• liz could have tagged things with parking tickets and mentioned on slack exactly what was planned for hauling off. and checked in with fab guild
• Mark - Put a label on it, "Project in Progress"
• John - a discussion item for his art/sculpture projects

Discussion Item 2 - Issue with certain community member(s?)

• Emeline: 10 days ago we were rearranging the 1st floor gaming lounge space, and bureacrats stuff wa happening as well. It was an intense afternoon. Claus was being intense. I ended up having a panic attack and yelling at him. Elan and Mark took me away to calm me down.

I later realized I was not the only person who had been in that situation before where I could just feel like I could just come to NB and do a thing ;without being bothered/harassed]. This kind of harassment just can not happen. Mark suggested I go through private mediation however I dont think it helpful in this case as I believe this is harassment. This has happened to multiple ppl. I do not want this kind of thing to happen again and it seems that if we do private mediation, it doesnt get documented in the same way... the community isnt made aware of certain things.

I am asking Claus to take a break from the space for a bit. And that we should try to ensure that this kind of thing doesnt happen again.

Lizzard - When I have gotten into it with Claus in the past, it was just him getting mad at me and kind of had a stomping around, and eventually we chilled out and were able to talk again, so I figured it was resolved. As I've seen him doing that kind of behavior towards other people, I was a bit worried. Especially when I saw the build-up to stuff last week.

I think in his mind he sees certain people (me, emeline, dana) as being too uptight about certain things, they don't understand anarchism, etc... Later I told him "I think what you are doibng is making me uncomfortable" and I set what i think was a strong boundary with him. I've seen him being angry towards others, often not men, which kind of irritates me. And saying that women and their children mess up the space

I'd add the worst part of this is how it looks when new people walk in. I would support asking Claus to take a break

L : In conversation you have to admit some kind of fault in order to improve, and with him a lot of the time, I find it hard to get much of any kind of concessions with him, and we just kind of end our convos and walk away. I would love to see him improve on this with others, as I would like to work with him on stuff like projects in the future and improve our conversing.

Elan: This does appear as a repeated pattern of behavior. Multiple people have had interactions with him specifically and seem to have left the space as a result, not wanting to make a big deal of it. In retrospect I should have spoken to him directly maybe in those instances. But point is, this now seems not to be an isolated incident, and perhaps he should be told these are things he ought to work on before coming back.

Dana: Seeing the impact on new people really sucks. I think he should break for at least a month or two and these behaviors should stop. You can see his behavior in the ways he talks online as well, like in slack and such.

Elan: He has crossed the line multiple times in some way-too off-color comments towards people shouldn't be. (Specific example of "joking" that he would follow someone down Mission? what?)

Mark - asking for a specific list of grievances to bring to Claus. Will summarize these notes and format for clarity.

TJ: Also to repeat: so it is clear, this is a consensus to ask to leave based on a violation of the anti-harassment policy. Not a mediation.

Mark: I will specifically point that out to him.

From the policy: "Harassment includes *offensive verbal comments related to gender* [...] , deliberate intimidation, sustained disruption of talks or other events, persistent uninvited communication."

Resolution: Someone sends this info to Claus. We ask him to consider what he has done wrong. Give him a month of leave time? (No one seems to object)

Claus appears. Says some of what was said was lies. Says Mark should know. Encourages everyone to end the meeting because he is leaving the space and not coming back (unclear if he means for all time or just for a while). He leaves.

Discussion Item 3 - Selling / Finding Interest in Woodshop Projects

• John is absent so may not have discussion item*

Discussion Item 4

Elan: Noisebridge started under anarchism. "Be excellent" is catchy, but vague. Have some guidelines on how to be excellent in the Guidelines, but would be nice to have it printed out.

I'm more interested in Noisebridge as a group of people doing things rather than a social experiment / radical space. That's my bias.

Max: Like giving a tour

Elan: You agree to specific bullet points w.r.t. rules at Noisebridge. Not following this would be unexcellent.

???: anarchy is a big part of Noisebridge

Elan: Not to me Mark: Some people would say foundational principle

Loren: In spirit of anarchy, don't call it "rules", something we opt ourselves into. Sign into space, saying that one will hold themselves to these standards, and will make sure others follow

Mark: consensed upon rules of Excellence

Loren: People rule by positive example

Elan: Walk into the door, remind people what the guidelines for Excellence in order to get along. Shouldn't be nebulous

Al: Venn Diagram between anarchism and Excellence, world needs new ideology from Capitalism / Socialism? Excellent Anarchy

Loren: Anarchy is not always Excellent, and Excellence is not always Anarchy

Mark: Let's say Adaptive Standards of Excellence, derived from the will of the Community

Loren: Fresh Reaffirmation is good

Elan: One of guidelines at Noisebridge is do-ocracy. I agree with what you're saying, rules is too strong, just have current guidelines that Noisebridge wants to do

Loren: I'd love it if once a quarter, we set up a re-agreement of Excellence, invite others. Like specific, frequent reaffirmation

Elan: "Every 19 years, we'll redo the US constitusion, and it'll be great" - Thomas Jefferson

Elan: I'm happy to put together draft, and send to Discord/Slack

Loren: Let's cut it down, keep it short, readable, relevant. Wiki is there, keep this as fresh reference

Is there interest/willingness to put together a Noisebridge Code of Coduct? This would expand upon expanding upon existing Excellence guidelines/anti-harassment policy/guild-guidelines.

Goal would be to better define what is meant by excellence/unexcellence. I don't expect this to be all encompassing but provide a list of things that we aspire to and that are absolutely unacceptable.

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Excellence#Guidelines https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Anti-Harassment_Policy

Do-ocratic Task Board

Kudos & tu-dos

Brief comments: good and bad Loren: Patio is beautifully clear, trash and stuff moved out. Kudos to Miss stencil, appreciate new stencil on door. Tu-do: Get the former Tor box into Monkeybrains datacenter Mark: Kudos to Jay, who helped Mark clean up electronics room a bit today. Also he worked on the book scanner. Emeline: Tu-do on organizing the hackitorium in the corner, ceramics tools

Participation also means doing stuff to contribute to the space. Propose new tasks or pick some tasks from Github, from what needs to be done around you, or whatever, and see if someone will sign up to work on that task. Anyone can sign up and it's a great way to show you are contributing!