[Noisebridge-discuss] Membership and Elections?

[Josh Myer]

First, a note to newer people: the best way to be liked in the
noisebridge community is to make cool shit happen.  The second best
way is to help make that cool shit happen.  The third best is to be
supportive of whatever cool shit is happening.  Otherwise, you're best
served to sit back and act hoopy until you find cool shit to be
involved in.  We really want people to be involved; collaboration is
one of the best parts of noisebridge.

Now, let me be discouraging for not-so-new people.  Newer folks might
want to skip this, or at least go read a bunch of list archives for
context.

(And, as someone sent me off-list to my last serious post to -discuss,
"Come and see the violence inherent in the system!")


On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 04:33:54PM -0700, Al Billings wrote:

> And it is better not to play that card every time someone makes a  
> comment about something they don't like, I think. Otherwise, it just  
> suppresses discussion because people will get told that they can't  
> bring up anything without offering to do something about it on their  
> own.
> 

What's the problem with that, again?

People who repeatedly make suggestions without doing aren't typically
helping noisebridge.  While there are some people whose insight alone
could be very helpful (ie: they could help us by just suggesting), all
of them are also doing.

Everyone is more than welcome to keep pointing out ways to make things
"better," but don't get offended when those of us who make shit happen
disregard your input, and especially not when we let you know we're
doing so.  We have our own ideas, our own priorities, and our own
perogatives.  Lots of us would love to help you settle in to making
your own contributions (to make you a part of the "we who make shit
happen" set), but we're not usually going to flesh out and implement
your idea for you, and, until you show commitment to doing, we're
unlikely to entertain much discussion of your ideas: they're not going
to turn into action, so it's so many wasted keystrokes.

If this is another "ZOMG noisebridge is run by a cabal not consensus!"
revelation to you, you should fucking show up more often and become a
part of that "cabal" or stop bitching about it.  Everything that
involves the group as a whole goes through consensus on Tuesdays after
being announced the week before, the rest is simply a doocracy in
action.  The "cabal" is the group of people committed enough to make
things happen, no more, no less.

And we're actually quite friendly and helpful folks if you don't piss
us off over and over and over again.

Kittens and lollipops,
-- 
Josh Myer   650.248.3796
  josh at joshisanerd.com