[Noisebridge-discuss] NoisyCalendary

[Jacob Appelbaum]

Ever Falling wrote:
>> Leif Ryge wrote:
>> My objection is that it encourages people to think that groups belong to
>> or are led by individuals, which need not necessarily be the case.

[...]

>  there's no proof that a
> simple optional contact field encourages people to think a certain way about
> group leadership so why worry about it until it arises?

There isn't direct proof of your statement. However, I think there is
sufficient anecdotal evidence to support Leif's claim. I support the
spirit of what Leif stated: It isn't always the case that groups or
events belong to or are led by any specific individuals.

Circuit hacking Monday is a good example of an event that isn't owned,
Python class is an example of an event that feels as if it's owned by a
specific person. Neither is of course owned by anyone. You can hack on
circuits or python whenever you'd like. You can share that information
with anyone, whenever you want.

However, this Way of Noisebridge isn't always clear to people outside
the main core of familiar-with-Noisebridge people. Some event
organization is less chaotic in nature. This happens with good events:
Karen runs Dorkbot, when Karen isn't around, Dorkbot is unlikely to
happen in San Francisco. But that doesn't mean all events have to be
that way.

An example (with a slight tangent):

How many times have you heard that Python class has been canceled? How
many people didn't show up to hack on Python together as a result? I can
think of a few people who felt discouraged. I encouraged them to go hack
on Python in the space anyway. Who _needs_ a teacher to spend time
hacking on or learning about Python? Not too many people and those
precious few can ask the other Python hackers gathered together in one
space... Still for the people I spoke with, it was counter intuitive to
go to a canceled class.

Part of this event cancellation is an assertion of ownership of an
event/gathering/sub-group. Part of it is an assertion of intention by
the organizer.

I'm not so happy with the former but I respect the latter.

Canceling the event seems silly. The night of python hacking is still
possible without the teacher. But obviously, it's good when the person
wanting to skill share sets expectations for people who want to listen.
There's an unintended consequence in this set of events. It's
non-obvious that it's still cool to show up and hack away on Python even
if the "teacher" isn't around.

For people who are making their intro to programming and to Noisebrige
in general, I'm certain that this is counter-intuitive.

Some (many? way too many?) people seek permission and have a
deny-by-default auto-pilot policy. So it's clear to me that when there's
a point of contact, it will continue to encourage people to think that
they're the leader or that if the leader can't come, the group might not
meet. I think it also encourages people to wait for someone else to take
the lead.

If the point of scheduling is to ensure collaboration about a topic of
some sort, blocking out the room for a given topic should be good enough
to get the discussion going. People will self-organize by default when
they arrive...

( Failing that, it's often possible to just look into the wiki edits and
see who was interested enough to insert an entry into The One True
Calendar. )

Best,
Jake

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