[Noisebridge-discuss] noise at noisebridge

Quinn Norton quinn at quinnnorton.com
Sun Mar 1 21:33:14 UTC 2009


this thread is getting very hackier than thou, which i find dissapointing

On Sun, 1 Mar 2009, peter wrote:

> Re: Josh's comment.
>
> Thank you for reminding us all that this is meant to be a space
> specifically for hacking projects. While I am not a great offender on
> this front, I, at times, find myself treating noisebridge as a hangout
> space. We can all hang out anywhere! Let's try to keep a space
> dedicated to hacking for hacking.
>
> Which is not to say that there is no place for socializing at
> noisebridge, but srsly, let's try to focus on hacking at the hacking
> space, shall we :)
>
> Best,
> Peter
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Paul Böhm <paul at boehm.org> wrote:
> > Well,
> >
> > personally i've managed to tell people clearly i don't want to listen
> > to their bullshit - and that works.
> > having to overhear nonsense is hard, but headphones work.
> >
> > however i'm worried that if we have too much nonsense-talking people here, then
> > only people with a very high tolerance for nonsense and bullshit will
> > stick around.
> >
> > this is especially true since the people i'm thinking about, almost
> > hunt after newcomers, who are too polite to verbalize that after 15
> > minutes of nonsense they are feeling really uncomfortable.
> >
> > paul
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Josh Myer <josh at joshisanerd.com> wrote:
> >> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 06:54:36PM -0800, Paul Böhm wrote:
> >>> ok, my brain is about to explode - there's people here at nb who
> >>> constantly babble nonsense because they are attention starved
> >>> this alienates newcomers (since they haven't learned to ignore these
> >>> people yet) and makes me want to avoid noisebridge
> >>>
> >>> opinions on this?
> >>
> >> I totally agree with the frustration, and feel it acutely.  As for
> >> fixes: Wear headphones?  Set expectations that you're not someone
> >> who's going to just listen?  These two strategies have served me well
> >> thus far...  Then again, I'm pretty comfortable with being a jerk.
> >>
> >> In the same vein, we have a lot of people who think of noisebridge as
> >> a place to hang out, not a place to come and hack.  It's frustrating
> >> many of us, especially because we haven't found a good way to say
> >> "It's awesome that you're here, and we'd love to help you work on
> >> stuff.  What do you want to work on, and how can our community help
> >> you accomplish that?"  It's sort of insidious: there's nobody who is
> >> clearly abusing the space, it's just that people's behaviors are
> >> shifting the way people use the space.  noisebridge is inadvertantly
> >> becoming a place to come and surf youtube in the evening instead of a
> >> place to hang out with others who are soldering, coding, or sewing.
> >>
> >> Personally, I only come in to work/collaborate on specific things.
> >> It's kind of a bummer, but it's not so bad.  I wind up being a
> >> floating question-answerer (or, at least, reference-pointer-outer)
> >> anyway, so I get sucked into interesting things beyond my little
> >> focus.  If I was less flexible or pragmatic about how I used my time
> >> in the space, though, this would be incredibly frustrating.
> >>
> >> I think the general problem of people-who-are-distracting is solved
> >> with a single question: how do we integrate people into our do-acracy
> >> and minimize idle hands at 83c?
> >> --
> >> Josh Myer   650.248.3796
> >>  josh at joshisanerd.com
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >
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