[Noisebridge-discuss] Are people okay with people sleeping at the Noisebridge space?

Thu Oct 13 05:19:56 UTC 2011

I thought a bit more about the ideas I put forth earlier, and a
component of tribalism, and maybe a more widely understandable concept
in general, is the concept of trust.  We consider this concept a lot
as members/participants of a hackerspace: trust in computer security,
trust in information collection, distribution and management, trust in
government and media, and most importantly, trust in each other.

So, the discussion about sleeping at the space is a vehicle for a
bigger discussion that we keep having which is actually about trust
and how it relates to a radical inclusion atmosphere.  If we radically
include EVERYONE, we put everyone on a level playing field, and apply
the same amount of trust equally to everyone.  This is a warm fuzzy
goal we all hope can one day be applied safely in the world but in our
current reality it's kind of a dangerous thing.  An
"institutionalized" atmosphere of trusting everyone, or trusting no
one, leads to a situation where individuals can't trust each other,
and trying to artificially create the thing we call "sense of
community" breaks it down in the long run.  Trust is built over time,
through consistency in actions and situations.  We wouldn't wake Miloh
up if we saw him sleeping, why? Because we've seen him and talked to
him and formed a model of him in our heads.  His actions are
predictable, strongly trended towards positive towards the space and
the members who know him.  We TRUST him.  Some random person who walks
in for their first meeting, or attends one class, or comes in and
starts bothering people or stealing things, they are (you guessed it)
NOT TRUSTED.  They have to prove over time via actions and presence
that they can be trusted.

Trust defines ingroups and outgroups.  Trusted networks have computers
that you can connect to without worrying about firewall restrictions;
similarly, trusted individuals are ones you can express more
vulnerabilities in front of. A state of trust carries with it
privileges endemic to the ingroup, and removing that state of trust
relegates the trustee to the outgroup.  This is a necessary social
function, which prevents humans with their current set of wetware,
from being either too vulnerable to the point of danger, or so closed
off that survival (formerly life-and-death, now social survival)
becomes impossible or extremely difficult.  Food and resources are
shared with trusted members of a group; the group members have proven
that they are contributors and not simply leeches that make the lives
of the other group members harder.

All this abstraction is leading back to a specific response to Al.  I
believe that the trust model being applied to sleepers at noisebridge
is correct and valid, for the reason that it preserves and nurtures a
sense of community, and a subtle but necessary active and evolving
in-group/out-group state.  The extent to which Noisebridge opens
itself to all and practices radical inclusion leaves a few serious
vulnerabilities that are easily taken advantage of, which have been
experienced as theft, druggies and homeless people using the space as
crashspace, and strange people making community members feel
uncomfortable.  Keeping an unwritten, nebulous, movable and mutable
trust code will not only keep us a little safer and more tight knit,
it will incentivize people who want to become trusted and be part of
the community, and dissuade unsuitably-motivated outgroupers, and by
the way this is NOT WRONG and is a GOOD THING.

So:

1. We absolutely should be okay with trusted community members taking
naps at the space because we know *they will not abuse this
privilege*, or any of the other privileges they accrue through
maintaining their trustability.  If they do things to degrade their
own trustability they should be handled individually and accordingly.

2. We should also feel free to wake up people who are NOT trusted
community members and ask them who they are and why they're here.
Some people will give satisfactory answers; some will not.  This is
where you all have to put on your Big Kid Thinking Caps and use good
judgement on the fly.

And yes, I think you all who want to make rules for dumb shit like
sleeping on couches are intellectually lazy and don't want to bother
to do the critical thinking required to keep your community safe.  Eat
it.

I disagree with Duncan's reply that was sent before i finished typing
this one, that there is "no problem to be solved"; however I think the
problem to be solved is not "should people be allowed to sleep at
noisebridge" but rather "how do we constructively and comfortably
integrate two apparently conflicting concepts: a policy of radical
inclusion designed to draw in new members, and maintaining a strong,
tightly knit community with a high level of trust".  Sleeping, kitchen
use and cleanliness, resource usage, theft, harassment, signs,
welcoming committees, the doorbell, are all subtopics of this
continued internal debate.  There's no magic bullet, guys.  We all
have to keep practicing trust and trustability.

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:57 PM, Al Sweigart <asweigart at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rubin, I want minimize drama, which is exactly why I'd like people to
> talk about this and try to resolve it instead of it being a perennial
> conflict like it's been. Right now it's not about a specific person,
> which is a perfect time to talk about it. This way it doesn't
> degenerate into "I like/dislike person X, which is why sleeping at the
> space is fine/a problem."
>
> I don't want to bring it up at a meeting because it'll probably be a
> long conversation and I didn't want to force everyone to sit through
> it (or force people to chose between staying at a two hour meeting or
> going home and being excluded.) Email's great for this kind of
> discussion: people don't have to immediately respond to everything and
> only the people who want to participate do.
>
> And from the number of people on this thread, people apparently do
> want to talk about this. A few people are saying "sleeping overnight
> is not a problem" and others are saying  "even napping is a problem",
> but the way the issue is, if we shut down any discussion about it,
> it's essentially giving the sleepers a free pass except for the rare
> occasions when the Noisebridge-is-not-for-nappers folks are there to
> wake people up.
>
> I want to hear people's reasons why they think napping is okay because
> I don't think there are any valid reasons (but maybe I'm wrong.) What
> I don't want to hear is people saying "let's stop talking about it" or
> "it's not a problem and this discussion should end". There are people
> who have a problem with it and it's not fair to ignore their
> complaints by trying to get them to shut up.
>
> I'm against napping in the space, but I don't want to get my way
> because I was able to badger enough people into submission or get a
> loud enough group on my side. I want to listen to other people and
> encourage them to speak their mind. It's clear there's no consensus on
> this, but maybe we can figure out some kind of middle-ground besides
> people continually bugged about the sleepers and the sleepers
> continually bugged about being woken up or told to leave.
>
> It doesn't need to be resolved ASAP, it just needs to stop being put
> off. So let's talk about it.
>
> -Al
>
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Just Duncan <justduncan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> AMEN!
>>
>> Very well put, Rubin!
>>
>> To those whose view of Noisebridge is primarily through the discussion list,
>> know that Noisebridge is excellent.
>>
>> As someone who is a regular part of the Noisebridge community, people
>> sleeping here is not a problem.  Culturally, the community here handles
>> things quite well using thoughtful, situational ethics and is strongly
>> protective of the space, the community, and each other.  Noisebridge works
>> and doesn't need chaperones or self-appointed draconian authoritarians whose
>> sole purpose for a visit to Noisebridge is to tell people what to do.  If
>> people in the space need help, we have the new 311 system on the red
>> payphone to get assistance and it works brilliantly, when needed.
>>
>> Unless Al's answer to Rubin's question is "yes", let's let this thread die a
>> drama-less death.
>>
>> This thread is in no way relevant to Noisebridge at present.
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 5:05 PM, Rubin Abdi <rubin at starset.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Why are we having an email discussion about this?
>>>
>>> Al: Have you been to Noisebridge recently, has someone sleeping in the
>>> space offended you?
>>>
>>> Is there an apparent problem that needs attention ASAP?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Rubin
>>> rubin at starset.net
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
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