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

[jim]

+1 with cheers and wild applause. 

   per your penultimate remark, i disagree: i propose 
that there are no comments or suggestions or negative 
criticisms and that we adopt this as our junk policy. 



On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 17:40 -0800, Rubin Abdi wrote:
> 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
> 
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