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

[rachel lyra hospodar]

I love what christina has said here.

I think that duncan is extremely defensive about this issue because he has
set up a semi-private personal office station at noisebridge, and uses it as
something of a home base. He and I first met by conflicting over a
semi-private personal office station he had set up in the sewing area. He
suggested we bring it up at a meeting, and when I did everyone at the
meeting told him that semi-private personal office stations are seriously
deprecated at noisebridge. He simply relocated it.  I believe that he walks
a thin line of Not Sleeping At The Space but I don't believe that it solves
this problem, and I believe that internal tension over this drives some of
his more defensive responses to things. I think defusing this situation
would aid him hugely in his ability to integrate into this community.

I agree with what christina has said about trust being a throughline issue
for all of these social conflicts.  Exclusion, in a sense, is what defines a
community, and I believe we are at a point where we need to flex our social
muscles and exert control over the direction our social animal takes.

mediumreality.com
On Oct 12, 2011 10:20 PM, "Christina Olson" <daravinne at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >>>
> >>
> >>
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