[Noisebridge-discuss] Be Excellent to one another

[Elmar Lecher]

Hiho. I am german so please excuse my language :)

I do follow your discussion on mailinglist and irc - or at least try to.

For me it is a very familiar discussion. The Hackerspace in Hamburg is 
more than 20 years old and we have this discussion from time to time - 
usually after some "incidents".

As far as i see it the problem you have at the moment comes down to some 
few points.


How should one behave in a shared room.

There are very many expressions about this point. Its about smoking, 
about drinking alcohol, about being loud, creative, destructive or whatever.

The common way is to set up rules.

That works on the short run but not on the long one. And there are 
reasons for that.

Like CCCHH Noisebridge is a hacker space. Well, at least 83C defnetly 
was. I can't judge the new space as i have never been there but i assume 
it is one too.

Hackerspaces tend to have hackers around. And hackers are people who 
tend to work around rules. They see them as limitations which are ment 
to work around. You want to do what you want but also bend around the rules.
You pick rules, turn them around, bend them. Throw stuff against it and 
see what is happening. Look for the wholes and try to dive thru them.
The worst thing is: you don't do that to break the law or be malicious 
but to bend around them.

Furthermore you have the problem that you can't enforce rules 24/7. 
Think about it.

So we found out after a while that rules are not helping on the long 
run. You can do better.

Try to find solutions instead of setting up rules.

For example in hamburg we had a smoking problem. That did include 
smoking tobaco and weed.

Some people demanded the right to have a non smoking room. Some people 
claim their freedom to do whatever they want.

We have different solutions. For the main rooms people can call themself 
non smoking sign. That works surprisingly well.

Smokers are asked to go to the kitchen or smoke outside (which very 
often is not a option due to noise emmisions). We have proper 
ventilation. Think, you are a hacker.

That is not always very easy. Sometimes it is even very difficult to 
find such a solution that smokers can smoke and others can sit inside, 
not getting cold, not smelling smoke inside, not getting high on the 
passive way. But be a hacker. Pick the problem. bend it, turn it around, 
do stuff and see what is happening. solve it and be prowd on it.

You can't solve every social problem technically though. People who 
smoke in the non smoking area even when there is a smoking area. People 
who drink and become assholes. Solve that problem socially. That - btw - 
is way harder than technically.

You will run into those problems from time to time in a way that they 
become issues. Keep calm and friendly. It happens at it goes away. We 
had 4 fistfights in ccchh in >20 years, none of them lasted longer than 
5 seconds. It was a issue on the short run but all those problems are 
solved today. It will happen again. Thats live.
We drink beer and other alcohol at the space. That is usually not a 
problem. If someone gets drunk that is mostly funny. It it becomes a 
problem talk to the drunk. Be friendly and so one, but i am sure most of 
you know how to deal drunk people.
If its filthy and dirty try to clean up and get the proper tools. If you 
have some people who seem to like to clean up give them something. A 
club mate or anything for cleaning up maybe?

Anyway i am sure most of you get the point. You will solve that problems 
as we did also. You can be sure that its not the first time some 
hackerspace has run in problems like that and it will not be the last.

I hope that if i come to SF again i still will be able to go to 
noisebridge and sleep there for a night, drink a beer, maybe smoke - 
without disturbing anyone there. I liked your place.

greetings from hamburg

mc.fly ...