[Noisebridge-discuss] Fundraising and membership at NB

[Sai Emrys]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 9:55 PM, Christie Dudley <longobord at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, by having a lot of people with only passing interest on the books who
> we collected only a month's dues from is not only administrative overhead,
> but a real issue when it comes to choosing directors and stuff like that.

Could be lessened by lessening the everybody-must-vote requirement for this.

> There have been hot debates about specifically voting vs. consensus.  It
> takes some people quite some time to get that part, but a lot of us existing
> members are really adamant about remaining a consensus organization to
> protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority.  We've lost more
> than one or two over that, but I don't regret that.  I'm appalled at the
> politics that arise when every member doesn't have a voice.

Majority vs everybody-has-veto are not binary. One could, for
instance, have a 2/3 majority rule; a rule that everybody can delay a
decision by one week; etc. Or, y'know, just have a culture of *not*
brushing off people with dissenting opinions...

... which ironically I think is currently the case at NB, and which
fosters the excessively conflict-oriented use of veto power (or
threats of veto), because it's the only effective way to make people
listen.

> It seems to me what you're advocating is bringing in people
> who are not interested in just participating for a while before they dive
> into shaping things.

He explicitly wasn't.

Steve: "If we streamlined the membership process, and only imposed the drama
and high financial obligation on people who wanted to /shape/ the
space, rather than people who might want to incidentally /participate/
in the space, we could greatly increase our membership."

I'm pretty sure what he was saying is that this new status - of
"affiliate member" that is $20/mo with no 1-month joining delay -
would *not* give someone veto privileges.

> Dude!  This already exists.  Do we need membership cards?  If you want to
> become an affiliate member, just click the link, pay your money, and you're
> an affiliate member.  I think it's actually codified somewhere.

See my response to Rachel.

But more to the point: do you think we should *not* do this, rather
than merely being skeptical that it matters?

If the latter, fine, let's do it and find out. If the former, you
should probably give a better reason than "I don't think it'll work".
(Perhaps something like "... and I think it'd be bad because ___".)

> Did you miss what we've been saying?  Affiliate memberships have existed
> over a year.  People don't care about them because the critical point is the
> consensus rights to membership.

Did you miss what I said when saying I, for one, don't give a shit
about veto rights?

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this point.

- Sai