[Noisebridge-discuss] articles of incorporation submitted today

[grey]

Noah, I was there as well, and while I appreciate that we're all
individuals and that our perception of reality is subjective, and that
this issue while not on the initial agenda (brought up by Shannon, and
seconded by many including myself) was discussed at length and
consensus was asked for and achieved without David, me and from what I
gather many other people hearing you or anyone else voice an objection
before it was recorded in the minutes.  I was sitting on the chair
five feet from where you were standing on the stairs and certainly
heard you at other points in the evening, but I did not hear you voice
any final objections to the call for consensus.  Also, this was hardly
the only issue brought up at the meeting on the spot that reached
consensus or otherwise, yet it is the one that you and you alone are
taking issue with.  I think it is important to note that the other
dissenting voice with Rachel was stated very differently, that she
acknowledges that consensus was reached and that she has had a change
of heart.

While neither one of these approaches is respectful to the group and
our process, you should be very clear (as I and others are) that you
are currently the only one claiming that consensus was not reached on
Tuesday evening, while the perception of me, and many others I've
discussed this with is that we did indeed have consensus to the point
where this was recorded in the official minutes, and David even
explained on the mailing list how key distribution would be handled in
the interim prior to you or Rachel voicing objections.

I do NOT see this as a failure of process, I see this as a failure of
the individual, in this case specifically you.  You are failing to
respect the process and your place in it and are attempting to assert
power that you should have no rights to given the charters of this
space.

Keep in mind, that on our wiki the intent for the group as a whole is
to also reduce any potential liability that may reach the board
members or lease signers (not that they need to be the same, but they
are in this case).  I think you are treating the people who are here
to be in your court with disrespect by not returning the goodwill that
the rest of us are expected to give you.

I also really don't appreciate insinuating statements like "though
they weren't all people I know."  There are lots of people within
Noisebridge we all know and don't know, and to imply some level of
inherent distrust as a result of that is demeaning.  I can't say I
know you well either, but from what I do, and judging by how you've
been treating this situation I'd recommend you steer far clear of any
ad hominem attacks.

Here we are, on Friday, with a weekend ahead of us and people
motivated to get work done.  We need to strike while the iron is hot
and get things moving as fluidly as we can for our members as
possible.  Andy and Jake have been doing an exceptional job at being
in the space as much as possible to allow work to proceed, but to be
held at the schedules and whims of the 'keyholders.'  It is one thing
to be held at the whims of the bureaucracy that is holding up the
process of incorporation, but to hold up our own paying members in the
interim is preposterous.

Anyone with life experience realizes that it unfolds in unexpected
ways, who would expect that after months and months suddenly in less
than a week we have a space and a marked jump in interest and
participation from good intelligent creative people to whom you are
providing quite the litany of excuses despite remaining unheard on
Tuesday over this issue.  I understand there was a lot of shouting at
times, but consensus on interim _temporary_ key distribution was not
one of those.  I would have much rather heard your objections loudly
and exhaustively as you're listing them now behind a keyboard, when
you were standing there in person, and I would not be taking issue
with things now if that were the case.  But as it is you are
absolutely undermining our process in a deleterious way and you need
to own up to that and decide where you stand and what actions you will
take to rectify it.

The only respect I view this as a failure of process is that our
process should not allow an individual to dissent AFTER THE FACT and
act as an obstacle to everyone else.  I can see something more akin to
a "hey we reached consensus, we tried this, it isn't working, let's
figuring something else out" type appeals, that sort of thing is
absolutely necessary for any organization which wants to change and
stay dynamic, but your current approach is not that by a long shot in
that you are not giving a chance to let the membership try and see if
there are failures or not that need working around.  You are acting
with no formal backing or guidelines and are instead attempting to
flaunt powers you haven't been granted.  This is really a losing
strategy for -you-, the internet isn't the only thing that routes
around damage, people are far better at adapting to and avoiding
malfeasance once they encounter it.  Particularly the sorts of hackers
we have among us and want to encourage to participate in this project.

So I'm going to propose an agenda item for Tuesday, and I'm sure it
will be addressed in the board meeting you will be attending prior to
that.  In two parts, one - how do we allow for access to the space in
the soonest possible manner to all members.  And secondly, how do we
address this kind of dissent and disagreement from our members (let
alone board members) from a consensus process after the fact.  Is that
enough of a heads up for you?

-grey







On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Noah Balmer <noahbalmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:14 PM, David Molnar <dmolnar at eecs.berkeley.edu>
> wrote:
>>
>> grey wrote:
>>>
>>> Rachel, with all due respect, neither you nor Noah are the sole lease
>>> signer or board members, yet you are the only two who have taken issue
>>> with the consensus reached on Tuesday.
>>
>> For what it's worth, Noah's position seems to be that he does not feel
>> consensus was reached on Tuesday. I do remember him raising concerns, then I
>> remember a lot of discussion. After the discussion, I thought, and I wrote
>> down, that we reached consensus about the keys. That does not match Noah's
>> feeling and recollection. (Noah, let me know if this is accurate or not.)
>
> What I recall I this:  at the time we signed the lease we said "let's get
> keys to the people on the lease, and figure out who gets keys once we figure
> out membership".  I the time my understanding was that we'd have
> incorporation almost immediately (it's, once again, taking longer than we
> thought), figure out who our members were (most of us) and then figure out
> keys.  Key's weren't on the wiki agenda for tuesday's meeting, I didn't find
> out about that we'd been talking about them until immediately before the
> meeting.  In the meeting, the idea of giving keys to everyone immediately
> came up, and I said several times that I wasn't comfortable with that.
> someone said "who actually wants keys?" some hands went up, we all stopped
> talking and looked around.  It seemed like a small group and for what it's
> worth I had no particular objection to any person in it, though they weren't
> all people I know.  Then everyone started talking again in a bunch of
> fragmented groups, then got shouted down and we moved on.  I was pretty sure
> that a number of people, including David, had heard me object (as he says
> above, "I do remember him raising concerns"), and had seen that my objection
> hadn't been addressed, so I thought we were just punting on the issue until
> we could talk about it in a smaller group, perhaps in the subset of  people
> who wanted keys.  I must not have been listening to the right
> sub-conversations because the next morning I was really surprised to see
> "everyone who wants a key gets it" in the notes.  I had objected, we never
> addresses that objection, and while that policy is fine with me in a
> post-incorporation, defined membership context I don't like it until then.
> I could have done things better, I could have anticipated that other people
> would interpret what happened differently from how I do, and I could have
> been more assertive.  I think this is primarily a failure of process
> though.  the suggestions I've been hearing about to make every decision more
> deliberate (as we did for several other things on Tuesday), to put things on
> the agenda beforehand so people have time to think about them, and generally
> keep things more formal, are good safeguards against these kinds of
> misunderstandings.
>>
>>
>> While I did take notes, I recognize that I'm fallible, hence the request
>> at the top of the notes for corrections or different views. I recognize that
>> many, many people thought we did have consensus, but I also believe Noah
>> when he says he didn't think we had it. Not sure there is a lot to be gained
>> by rashomoning the meeting on this point.
>>
>> So we need to make sure this kind of "yes it was consensus/no it wasn't"
>> does not happen again. I like the suggestions I've seen from Rachel, Andy,
>> and others here. We can and should follow some of them at our next meeting.
>>
>> -David Molnar
>>
>>
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>
>