[Noisebridge-discuss] Junk units, a donated random junk organizational guideline proposal for 83c

[Rubin Abdi]

This started off as a reply to the Printer thread, but it's gone  
wayyyy off topic now. My apologies if this sounds disjointed and  
rather long winded. See this as a meta solution to a physical problem.

By using the word junk I'm talking about stuff that is found on the  
street, pulled out of someone's closet or dumped into our laps by a  
random company doing house cleaning, of which a *current purpose* for  
that/those items isn't apparent or established or no one takes  
ownership. By ownership I mean if you bring it into the space and  
leave it out in the open (let's say on the hack or share shelf), not  
placed in a project box.

Why am I bringing this up?

A good example is the safe that was dragged into the space about a  
month ago. It was rather big, and heavy, broken, and locked. No label  
was placed on it as to what the intended purpose of said object was or  
if it was up for grabs within 83c. The night after it's arrival  
several boys dressed in black spent a hand full of time prying the  
safe door open, destroying a hammer while going at it, only to find  
it's inners empty. The safe then remained, broken hearted and sad, on  
the floor near the Northern wall for about a week or two. No purpose,  
no spoken intentions from anyone to take ownership, something that had  
gone from junk status to trash status of which no one wanted to deal  
with anymore. Eventually Andy and I got extremely (fucking) tired of  
seeing it, we picked it up and removed it from the space. Thus ending  
the saga of the safe at 83c that was totally (in my humble opinion)  
pointless to have in the first place.

 From my observations of the space since it opened, and my previous  
experiences being a teenage electronics pack-rat living with my mom,  
the issue with getting stuff donated to the space is going to turn  
into more and more of a bigger problem of dealing with space and crap  
disposal in the near future. I propose that we put into place a system  
that deals with junk units...

* If something comes into the space and doesn't have a place to live  
(i.e. with the tools, or with the spools of solder, or in someone's  
project box), it is deemed as a junk unit.
* Only members are allowed to bring in junk units, if you're not a  
member and would like to bring in some units (as you think it's a  
great idea), find a member to co-sign for you, like via email.
* Junk units *must be labeled* with the date of which they entered the  
space, optionally the person(s) who brought the unit in could throw  
their name(s) on it, just in case someone would like to know where it  
came from or the story behind said unit. Recommend that labeling  
should happen with a sharpie right onto the unit itself, as it saves  
paper and is harder to fudge up.
* A place for junk unit storage and organization is established (we  
already have that, the hack/share shelves).
* Junk units *MUST BE KEPT TOGETHER* with all the other junk units (we  
currently don't do that 100% of the time as there is junk *EVERYWHERE*  
on many of the shelves both on the first and 2nd floor).
* Anyone is free to take a junk unit away from the junk storage area  
and use it for whatever they want or stuff it into their project box.  
If parts are removed from the unit, the remaining parts should be  
dated and placed back in junk storage.
* If a member brings junk in OR utilize/grab any junk from storage,  
you must be an excellent member by dedicating some time to do some  
housekeeping when needed (see next bullet).
* Housekeeping! On a set schedule (weekly?) and when one feels the  
need to, a review is done on most/all items in junk storage. If the  
date on the unit is moldy and stale (let's say two weeks) it is then  
labeled as "outbox" and tossed into the outbox (see next bullet). If  
during this time any members doing the review find something they  
think needs one more chance (two more weeks), that member should cross  
off the old date and put down the current date. The old date should  
not be removed as to give a way of tracking how many 2nd chances a  
unit has been given.
* Outbox! Junk getting ready to be removed from the space sits in an  
outbox (shelf?) for a few days, last chance to grab it before it's  
gone! Items in here are only allowed to go into someone's project box  
and not allowed back into the junk shelf. If you really think the  
space should use it, it had time. If you really want it you better  
take it or find a home for it, the junk storage doesn't want it anymore!

These guidelines/rules I just proposed here, what does this all do? It  
makes it harder to pack rat stuff as a group.
* By keeping dates on things and forcing housecleaning on it all, it  
requires the mass/group to concisely remind themselves that this junk  
still exists. As opposed to bringing junk into the space then never  
caring about what happens to it, or how it effects the space ever  
again. We have to in turn put effort into having junk still continue  
living in the space. This prompt people be like like holy shit this  
has been here for months for sure, time to go!
* It gives the open option of having people take ownership when they  
feel a junk unit is still something valuable to the space. I keep on  
hearing of how printers and scanners contains some amazing parts.  
That's great! If you feel that religious about it but don't want to  
keep 3 dead scanners and 2 broken printers in your project box, strip  
what parts you think others can use, store them along with all of our  
other parts and materials that get used in the shop and remove the  
rest of it from the space. I have a bunch of filthy broken tents from  
Burning Man that I'm sure someone could use the fabric from for random  
projects. The space isn't going to progress if (each time someone asks  
WTF IS THIS NASTY HIPPIE SHIT TAKING UP SPACE?) I defend the need to  
keep this crap there on the off chance that someone at some unknown  
point in time in the future MIGHT end up using any of it.
* Establishing a place where junk should be kept, so that others can  
have room on the (loads) of shelves we have. I would like to take the  
frames that I donated to the space a month ago which no one has  
grabbed yet and place them in a project box on a shelf to use in the  
next month. I don't have a project box or a shelf to put it on because  
there's way too much crap all over the shelves that no one wants to  
deal with and/or clean off.
* A holding place is created for things we know for SURE that we'd  
like get the hell out of the space. Less time is taken into scrounging  
around shelves for trash and more time put into figuring out where to  
take trash unit X to get recycled.

If you've gotten this far in reading this, thanks. I'd appreciate  
comments, discussion and constructive negative feedback. Depending on  
what I hear here I'm willing to make a cameo appearance at the meeting  
on Tuesday, to pitching these guidelines to the group.

--
Rubin Abdi
Rubin at Starset.net