Meeting Notes 2023 08 29

These are the notes from the The 738th Meeting of Noisebridge.

• Live notes
  • https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting
• Virtual Meeting (jitsi mic/cam off by default)
  • https://meet.jit.si/noisebridge

Date: 2023_08_29

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Next Meeting

Note-takers: Mark, Loren, Peter

Moderators: Cloud, Kelsey

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST/SLACK/DISCORD Include: TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update:
  • Kelsey has not made socks yet.
• Announcements:
  • From Kelsey: A new meetup request ! Transit hacking - tentatively Wednesdays @ 6PM, including TOMORROW!
  • From Peter: For setting up the meeting in the future, you will need a google, github or facebook account to open Jitsi meetings in the future (policy side from Jitsi, nothing we can change without hosting our own jitsi!)
  • From Emeline: please tip our muralist! Donations to noisebridge and she redistributes, or direct to him
  • From Loren: please channel requests for NB infrastructure things to me! I want computers better serving us and the space! We want people to have access to things and power to do-ocratically do stuff!
• Finances:
  • We have a Certificate of Deposit now! Expires in June. Should help shave off a little of the monthly burn. See #finance-wg in Slack
• New members: None
• New associates: None
• Consensus Items:
  • Updating Membership Application Process: PASSED
  • Renewing Farley's Consensus Item from May 23, 2023 - "Updating blocking requirement for big C consensus items from 1 to 2 people.": Advances to week 2
• Discussion Items:
  • Maker Faire Bay Area: October 13–15 and 20–22. Ticket prices go up Thursday, August 31! Talk to pyconaut/#makerfaire if you want to help out. Ferry schedule to Vallejo sucks; expect to drive/carpool.
  • Loren demoed wiki administration

Introductions

• Ask people to share their name, access needs, and preferred gender pronouns what they do at noisebridge

• Kelsey - access needs (great so far, to be heard). Working on a bike gizmo, and soon, some meetups.
• Cloud - she/her. 5MoF, How to get lucky scientifically
• Ben - he/him. (You all know me) CNC guild.
• Peter - they/them (mostly working on accessories for film photgraphy)
• Mark - do video game stuff and janitorial
• JD - do stuff and things (lazer training and CNC, etc etc)
• Loren - he. I also clean up the 'bridge. Rack/ Infrastructure meetup on Mondays!

Short announcements and events

• 60-second description per item in bulletpoint.
• Copy-paste any pre-announcements for the upcoming meeting from Announcements.
• After announcements, copy them to the past Announcements list. Retire any from the Next Meeting list that aren't marked ONGOING.
• (See https://www.noisebridge.net/ and https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Category:Events for events, and welcoming people)

• A new meetup request ! @ Kelsey Transit hacking - tentatively Wednesdays @ 6PM, including TOMORROW!
• From Peter: For setting up the meeting in the future, you will need a google, github or facebook account to open Jitsi meetings in the future (policy side from Jitsi, nothing we can change without hosting our own jitsi!)
• From Emeline: please tip our muralist! Donations to noisebridge and she redistributes, or direct to him

• Loren:
  1. want to do a rundown later of how to approve new users for the wiki
  2. please channel requests for NB infrastructure things to me! I want computers better serving us and the space! We want people to have access to things and power to do-ocratically do stuff!

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other. (On first Tuesdays, seek a few definitions. Other Tuesday, give a 1-3 sentence summary.)

What does that mean? Please see our page on excellence https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Excellence!

As in, treat the space well, treat eachother well, try to help out when you can. Don't let others do dumb stuff! If you see people doing fun things, maybe consider joining them!

When you see something that needs doing, do it! Be nice. Respect people's boundaries.

(Follow the Four Agreements. look it up if you're not in the know ;)

Anti-Harassment Policy & Community Standards of Excellence

Noisebridge has an Anti-Harassment Policy https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Anti-Harassment_Policy Everyone is expected to follow the Anti-Harassment Policy, please familiarize yourself with it.) TWO MINUTES MAX More approachable & specific guidelines, https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Community_Standards

Brief Kudos

Emeline and Liz made Certificate of Deposit happen - our savings are more secure and accruing better interest now!

Kelsey for taking out the trash!

Kelsey, Cloud and Ben for helping get the meeting running today!

Kelsey thx ppl for helping her get access/ helping figure out how to use Meetup.

Guilds

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

Noisebridge has guilds - join one!

Loren: Wiki and Infra are getting people more excited about participating in editing and maintaining our digital presence!

New Members/Associate Members

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

Financial Report (first Tuesday of month only)

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

• Monthly revenue, expenses. Big projects. Big fundraising events. Reserves in bank.
• 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.

Ben looking for some new equipment for the CNC machine.

JD: Go ahead and purchase and we will reimburse you one way or another.

Peter: Could use a webcam for the upstairs computer? (which we were using to host this meeting)

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

Kelsey - have not made any socks for NB yet! D'oh

Big C Consensus Items

Nobody likes 3 hour meetings, only explain if people ask. https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Current_Consensus_Items

1. Updating Membership Application Process - Week 2

Proposal:

1. Amend the Feb 2022 Membership process Consensus item to say "oh shit" period is no longer necessary,
2. Amend the Membership application form and associated documentation to state clearly that all sponsors must be Full (Big M) Members in good standing.
3. Require that during active application status, it be noted in each weekly meeting notes during review the prospective Member and their sponsor, (write down the date of each meeting when it happens).

Discussion notes:

Defintion of OH shit period was a two week period post membership approval period where the membership could be revoked. It was a grace period created in 2018. It was implmented last year to change the process for application + the timeline which includes additional timeline to review the application -> required to add this second item below -> so this all happens in clear communication.

• Kelsey flags a small concern of wanting a sponsor to have a relationship with tha applicant so that person can guide them through the space.
• Mark doesn't think 2 months is too long of a time to go through a process to be thought a good steward of the community. Went through a longer process for a college club. Would much rather have Associate Members be sponsored by someone who's been around at least that long, rather than *potentially* being "let in"/sponsored by someone who's only been here a week and has no idea of the history of this space. Doesn't trust that a fledgling Associate Member is aware enough of a lot of the potential issues with sponsoring a fledgling Associate Member.
• Loren: Consider it as an introducer option on the form which would allow to denote the more personal connection on how someone is introduced into the space. Request for mechanism to contact.
• Jd talking about how access is one of the largest incentives for people in the space more than the title -> trying to get people the 30-day access to the shed.
• Kudos to Daniel, working on new access system. (and efforts of Rob and Paul).
• Mark holds that Membership should be a responsibility, not a privilege; the emphasis should not be on the title.
• Kelsey likes the introducer option. We want to continue discussion on that later.
• Loren changes wording, to be more concise.

Movement has passed! Consensus has been reached!

Ben voices concern that we want to ensure we're getting people to donate. And titles, "membership" does this. People care about access. Let's get donations from more people.

2. Renewing Farley's Consensus Item from May 23, 2023 - "Updating blocking requirement for big C consensus items from 1 to 2 people."

Currently in order to block a big C consensus Item, we need only 1 member to block. Would like to update this number to 2 members. Perhaps the 1 member to block made sense when the community was tiny. It doesn't make sense anymore in our much larger community. If you cant convince anyone else to block with you, then maybe you just have bad ideas. The community should not have to make changes only folks with bad ideas think are good.

This change would be provisional for 3 months. Also would only apply for member proposed consensus items, non-member proposed consensus items would still be block able by a single member. Also only 1 member would be required to block new membership. Also if any one member would like to block, but cannot because they are alone, they can request a 1 week hold to defer decision for an additional 3rd week. Finally being able to articulate reasons for blocking is required. Good faith blocking is the only acceptable kind of blocking. If no 'legitimate' reasons for blocking can be supplied then they community can override the block. Obviously this is subjective. However blocking just 'because' is not considered viable reason to block and wont be honored.

• Kelsey asks whether this has been a real problem. What's the backstory on this?
• JD: Sometimes you have some people working on a thing, then someone shows up unaware of that collaboration and says "I'm going to block that" without understanding what was being discussed. Recent example was the lock on the sewing room door. That was done with consensus, and someone intervened to block it without knowing that it was the same key as the front door, so it was just to keep intruders from damaging/stealing stuff, not to keep Noisebridgers out of the room.
• Kelsey: Wants to confirm that she's reading the right thing (referring to the quoted item above). With the backstory, that makes sense. Folks in Noisebridge tend to be on the same page about things. Seems like there would be more than one blocking vote if something were really bad.
• Ben: I feel the example JD gave is worth examining. Someone blocked without knowing the story, was told the story, and withdrew their block. I feel that's the one-block system working. In courts, the jury has to agree in order to convict. One vote against means that it doesn't go through. I think that's a fine standard. At Noisebridge, we should all agree on changes that are being made. We don't need lots of top-down rules unless there's consensus among everybody that we should have them.
• Mark: What this is trying to address is that someone can stonewall items based on pure ideology.
• Ben: In theory. But then other Members could vote to disbar them. We're talking about extreme hypothetical situations here.
• Mark: This happened recently with a ... Member? ex-Member? Not sure their current status. Not saying it's a perfect solution, just want to explain that.
• JD: There's a difference between consensus and unanimity. In terms of the organizational structure of egalitarian collectives, many of them run on majorities or supermajorities along those lines, because allowing complete veto power to one individual is antithetical to a flat hierarchy. I'm surprised it's stayed in effect for so long considering the rhetoric of our space. It's not a big reach to say hey, find someone else to implement this. You can't just arbitrarily block; you have to articulate a region.
• Mark: It forces the conversation to continue and the blocker to really, sincerely consider their position.
• Loren: I share Ben's concern. I feel like if there's another positive vision that we could move to [unfinished]. This is a band-aid. I want to pass this again for like 3 or 6 months. It's a little bit of a weird rule that if we don't renew it, it lapses.
• Mark: I have a question. The premise of the question is, we have no data on how this works and what it does. We have not actually put it into practice yet. Until we have data on it and have data on how it works in practice, we should keep it so we can try it, right? That could be 3 months from now, or 6 months from now, or whenever a Consensus Item finally triggers this. So the question is: Should we make it until a Consensus Item finally triggers this?
• Mark and JD agree they'll forget all about it six months from now.
• Ben: Kick that can down the road.
• Peter: Can we include it in the Consensus process on the wiki?
• JD: "This is currently the policy and will be reviewed on [date]." February 23rd? 27th, 'cause that's a Tuesday.
• [someone]: OK, I'm editing the page.

Discussion

Discussion Item 1: What is the status on MakerFaire participation?

• October 13-15 && 20th - 22nd weekends Fri/Sat/Sun
• Pyconaut is the person to contact about this !!
• See #makerfaire channel in Discord!
• Peter was looking at ferry schedules to vallejo and you will probably have to drive bc the ferry is not promising
• Must announce ticket price increase in 2 DAYS!! 20 seconds !

Discussion Item 2: Brief wiki demo

• Approving user account requests
  • Endless stream of requests, many of which are bogus/spam/maybe LLM-generated and have blatantly spammy HTML tags in the sign-up description. If you know someone is a real person and Noisebridger, you can approve them on this page.
• Adding permissions
  • We use bureaucrat and administrator user groups for all new users.
• Other... user page.

When Loren took over the wiki, he deleted 50,000 accounts from 10 years that had never made an edit. Sadly there's no "clear all" button.

• Peter: Are all these new users getting the admin and bureaucrat powers?
• Loren: No, those have to be manually conferred.

Do-ocratic Task Board

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!

End of Meeting

Note taker posts the notes

• Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
• Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
• Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.) https://www.noisebridge.net/index.php?title=Last_meeting&redirect=no
• Email the meeting summary to Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge Announce lists.
• CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
• Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
• Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

• Do a 10 minute cleanup, bring dishes up stairs and wash them, clean the bathroom
• Have some beers on the patio
• Prepare the next weeks' meeting notes
• Lick the walls. Or just draw on them
• sing the Hackernationale (this almost never happens)