[Noisebridge-discuss] Noisebridge-discuss Digest, Vol 32, Issue 10

[Jack Perkins]

Jim,

I hear your concerns. I see the squabbles and argumentative chit-chat on
this list too, and I'm not the kind of person who enjoys such things.

However, I am also someone who has actually been to the space. I think if
you drop by, say on a Monday night, you might find a very different
noisebridge than the one you like to imagine.

If you come by on a Monday and find me, I'll be happy to give you a tour and
introduce you to some incredible people.

-Jack


On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 8:12 PM, - <noisebridge at splattercast.com> wrote:

> Hi.  You don't know me, and at the risk of making enemies of people i've
> never met, I wanted to say something about this recent thread.
>
> I moved to SF in January and have been looking for a good place to hang
> out, learn more tech skills, and work on "stuff". I checked out the Hacker
> Dojo down in Mountain View - and found it to be really cool in its own
> disorganized ad hoc busy-busy-busy way. I would be glad to pay $100/mo to be
> able to plop onto a couch with my laptop and work there, go to the informal
> classes, meet people. I need to meet people. Good lord, do i need to meet
> people. But its way too far away. Parisoma and the other places like it are
> much too expensive for my casual needs.
>
> Noisebridge sounded a lot like Hacker Dojo, and that was exciting,
> especially because other places "like" Hacker Dojo, here in SF, seem to have
> fallen apart and gone away.
>
> And so i write this note only cuz I loves ya, even if i doesn't knows ya:
>
> What i've seen on this list is tons of squabbles, people correcting one
> another in public and not in a happy way, someone accusing someone else of
> "illegally" offering accounting advice while not being a CPA (that's not
> illegal unless you charge for it and/or advertise that you're a CPA) and now
> someone is in trouble for trying to raise money for an organization that, in
> my limited experience, is about to face a cash crunch. I have a sense of
> who's senior and who isn't, and frankly, senior persons, take it from
> someone who has been "senior" in many roles - the most gracious way to be a
> senior person anywhere is to do it in a way that is not noticeable by
> anyone.
>
> All this grumpiness makes me sad.
>
> I've been involved with a number of nonprofits (formal and otherwise) over
> the years, from grunt to board member to president, with budgets from
> $-infinity to $millions. Some worked better than others. Some really were
> not very great at all.
>
> Anyway, I hope you guys can get back to having fun, because what I see
> (only through this list) is kind of off-putting and a little bit
> intimidating. If I was afraid of saying the wrong thing before, and not sure
> I'd ever want to enter the space. But i hoped that maybe an outsider's
> perspective might be useful. This is all I'm going to say about it.  My
> hunch is that someone who sees this will want to respond with a curt
> "goodbye" and ejection from the mailing list. I can't do anything about
> that. I just hope that there is some hope for a chill gathering place in
> bicycle range of SF, not just for my own sake, but for all the people like
> me, and this town is full of such people...
>
> Best
> - jim
>
>
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