[Noisebridge-discuss] MonkeyBrains donates a new uplink to Noisebridge
jim
jim at well.com
Sun Nov 29 22:23:43 UTC 2009
my comments interspersed...
On Sun, 2009-11-29 at 13:39 -0800, Christie Dudley wrote:
> See, here is where I'm confused. There are actions taken every day
> "in the name of Noisebridge" as people tell their friends and new cool
> people they meet about us. Do we need to have each of these
> interactions approved? No?
JS: seems worthy of examination. my opinion:
people inviting their friends to join NB seems not a case of "in
the name of noisebridge". setting up a partnership or customer
relation with another entity does. (just for clarity, anything a
member does to hack something, perform, create, etc., is done
personally; NB provides a venue in which people can do their
things.)
>
> So what happened here was a subset of us accepted a donation. Does
> the action of accepting a donation require consensus? We're supposed
> to turn potential donors away or put them on hold until we've aired it
> for a couple of weeks and talked about the pros and cons of accepting
> things.
JS: accepting a donation may or may not be "in the name of
noisebridge". people bring by tools, equipment, materials,
and general crap. mostly these are just dumped in the space,
maybe neatly. these are not "in the name of" nor "on behalf
of" noisebridge in any significant sense.
Note that as NB is a 501(c)3 corporation, in the case of
donations by parties declaring their donations as 501(c)3
deductions on their tax statements, NB is bound by some
restrictions as to what we can do with the donations: we
can't just sell them, nor can we turn them over to one or
more members as their new personal toys. it's unlikely
but possible that the IRS or some other entity may want to
audit the donors and verify by inspection that NB has not
violated our legal restraints. in the case that NB no longer
wants a donation, dispersal must be done within legal bounds.
there may be costs NB has to incur, for example for some
donation that requires a lot of power to run, or something
that must have natural gas (NB may have to incur costs of
running gas lines), or there may be known safety hazards
that require some kind of improvement or that are disallowed
by the coding ordinances for this building....
> Although I've actually seen this happen, I believe it's bad for the
> group as a whole as we're exceptionally good at picking each other
> apart. We will effectively choke ourselves off from all resources if
> we continue to play this game.
JS: i don't think we're so bad. we've had some email wildfires,
but seems to me things have simmered down reasonably well in
previous cases, and tho' a lot of us get bored or frustrated
with the volume, the air does get a good clearing.
Summary: "in the name of noisebridge" means noisebridge incurs
some legal or financial other formal obligation.
"on behalf of noisebridge" means that noisebridge incurs some
spatial or labor or cost responsibility.
if the implications of members' actions have insignificant
affect in either regard, we're an anarchistic do-ocracy that
deprecates labels.
my opinion, of course.
> What Ani's original post fails to acknowledge is that nobody made any
> commitments for anything in the name of Noisebridge. Although it
> implies differently, there's nothing else that happened here.
>
> Christie
>
> ---
> Why I take the road less traveled? Oh, that's easy. I'm
> claustrophobic.
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:27 AM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
>
> seems clear and good to me: i don't care to know
> about much: before action is taken on behalf or in
> the name of noisebridge, the plans for the action
> should be opened for discussion.
> with respect to actions not in the name of or on
> behalf of noisebridge per se, i would only care if
> they were interesting to me personally, and then
> grateful to those who'd let me in on things. the
> more people tell me, the greater the pool of
> possibilities from which i can choose. i'm up for
> hearing about anything (as long as i can walk away
> from the conversation when i'm bored). i generally
> announce whatever i'm up to on the list and then
> continue on.
> as to the criticisms of others, seems to me the
> best course is to develop thick, fire-proof skin--
> let 'em bitch and don't let it bother you.
> it would be nice if criticisms were generally
> deprecated: if you don't like something, focus on
> what you do like and don't make things unpleasant
> for others; and don't encourage others' criticisms.
>
>
>
> On Sun, 2009-11-29 at 00:53 -0800, Rubin Abdi wrote:
> > jim wrote, On 20091128 205549:
> > > my concern is that people might be secretive
> > > about taking actions in the name of or on behalf
> > > of noisebridge. before action is taken, issues
> > > should be made plain and open for discussion. i
> > > would like to know about risks of accepting a
> > > gift, if there are some.
> > > that people are discrete about making plans is
> > > not of much interest to me.
> >
> > One of the most lovely things about Noisebridge, I find, is
> being able
> > to do things discreetly, without inviting criticism or the
> input of
> > others. If I knew about everything going on, there wouldn't
> opportunity
> > to be surprised. Things would get boring rather quickly. If
> everyone
> > else had to know about everything I was doing, I wouldn't
> have time to
> > get things to a finishes state.
> >
> > Be mindful of what you're actually asking for here.
> >
>
>
>
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