[Noisebridge-discuss] Sleeping at NB

[Jacob Appelbaum]

On 12/22/2010 04:30 PM, Rachel McConnell wrote:
> Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
>> On 12/22/2010 03:22 PM, Patrick Keys wrote:
>>> Nobody likes a snitch.
> <snip>
>> It seems that it still holds true now. Photographing sleeping people at
>> Noisebridge is a total dick move. Putting it on the wiki is doubly so.
> 
> It's been discussed to death on the list and in person at meetings, that
> we do not want people to sleep at Noisebridge.  My impression is that
> nobody really wants overnight sleepers, although opinion is divided as
> to daytime naps. (Presumably this is with the exception of those doing
> it, who haven't to my knowledge said anything at all.)

Actually - there are exceptions to people sleeping if they miss the last
train but we feel rather self-righteous about class divisions. It's OK
to sleep on the sofa if you have a home and you just made a "mistake" -
whereas it's not OK to sleep on the sofa if you're making a series of
"mistakes" by some random person's judgment call.

Perhaps I'm the only person who thinks this distinction is horse shit
but I'm happy to reject the "nobody" business. There have been many
Noisebridge sleepers over the years and often it has been a net
positive. Anyway...

> 
> Jake, you are one of the few people I know who sometimes have really new
> ideas about things.  What should we do to discourage overnight sleepers?

Ha. I think lots of people at Noisebridge have a great set of ideas. I
hope I'm not really one of the few that you know... :-)

> In the absence of any official anything, social pressure is the only
> way I know of to change people's habits.  The mildest form of this,
> simply waking them up and saying, please don't sleep here, has not been
> effective.  Public shaming is obviously much more extreme.  Have you got
> any ideas for what we could do, in between?
> 

Yeah - I agree - social pressure will change people. So the change I
propose is that we discuss it with them, that we do not shame people by
photographing them, we do not name them, we do not attack them, and
rather we try to understand why they're asleep.

So I propose a radical idea:

Try to understand the reason each person in our community sleeps on the
sofa. I'm not talking about people wandering in off of the street but
rather people in our community who are on the sofa. I'm pretty sure
sleeping on the sofa isn't the same as community membership unless
they're sleep hackers. :-)

In many cases, it's totally reasonable - the annoying part is that
everyone has reasonable reasons. So in that case, I'd ask you to find
the change within yourself and accept that there is no perfect system
that also perfectly accommodates for any deviation.

Noisebridge is all about deviation from the norm.

All the best,
Jake