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

[Al Sweigart]

I think my track record has been pretty good. When there was a person
living at Noisebridge for months last year, I was the one who brought
it up and it was widely agreed that people living at the space was
unacceptable. People were very disturbed by Patrick's behavior, but
nobody really pushed to ban him from the space until I started pushing
for it, and even then I was the one who had to put my name down on the
actual consensus item to make sure banning him actually happened.

I was unsure how people who respond when I started showing up at 7 in
the morning and asking sleepers to not only sleep but to leave the
space for a few hours (so they wouldn't just go back to sleep after I
left, which is what happened in _every_ case when I didn't ask them to
leave.) I thought that might be "playing asshole" too much. So I
brought it up with the board & other members and they agreed with me.
On some occasions people did get a little nasty with me when I woke
them up, but the membership still backed me. In one case, a sleeper
who had shouted at me in the morning later apologized for it. When I
have to "play asshole" I try to still be polite but firm.

In each of these occasions, most people seemed to be large agreement
but nobody wanted to be the first to point it out. I think my attempts
at engineering the social aspects of NB have been pretty mild: I want
to talk about it first before do-acratically implementing things
precisely to minimize drama. That's why I want to talk about the pros
and cons of membership hours. I don't think, "it's too hard to
implement" or "Al isn't a part of Noisebridge enough to suggest these
things" are valid cons. Closing off the space to members-only is
itself a valid con, but I think we can mitigate that by making it
rather late. (Maybe even later if we can get people who are at the
space at those times to help out.)

Maybe there are other approaches to the sleeper problem? I wouldn't
want to get rid of the couches, but I also want to solve this problem.

-Al

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:03 PM, rachel lyra hospodar
<rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe you find it odd that I think it would be an asshole move to kick
> people out at midnight, because you are rarely there at midnight to sample
> the culture at that time.  I disagree with your guess at the way things will
> go down; your track record of predicting how people will respond to your
> attempts at social engineering is poor.
>
> I am not burning bridges, but trying to make it clear how fundamental I
> believe radical inclusivity is to Noisebridge. It is part of what we do, and
> it is part of why I am here.
>
> R.
>
> mediumreality.com
>
> On Oct 14, 2011 1:49 PM, "Al Sweigart" <asweigart at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If the only problem is that someone would be needed to, as you oddly
>> put it, "play asshole" then I could volunteer for that. Actually,
>> implementing that part is not only feasible but it's the easiest part
>> of this suggestion.
>>
>> The hard part is that I would need the backing of the community so
>> that I don't have to get into nightly arguments with people who say
>> that Noisebridge isn't closing down. I'll only get that if we talk
>> about this and come to a decision as a group. There might still be a
>> fuss some nights, but being able to say that it isn't just me
>> do-acratically closing up Noisebridge for the night but this is what
>> the membership decided adds a lot of weight.
>>
>> I'd only have to do regularly for a few weeks, then it becomes just
>> another part of Noisebridge culture and other people can make the
>> announcement. If we miss it some nights, that's not going to be a big
>> deal because by then the people who come to Noisebridge regularly
>> expecting a place to crash will have realized that that isn't a
>> reliable option anymore.
>>
>> Change seems scary at first because we have a lot of wild speculation
>> about how it'll destroy everything we like about the space, but
>> Noisebridge will still be Noisebridge. I don't see a reason why we
>> have to be as conservative as we are.
>>
>> Rachel, I'd hate to see you leave over something like this because you
>> make a lot of valuable contributions to the space. I don't think this
>> is something to burn bridges over.
>>
>> -Al
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:21 PM, rachel lyra hospodar
>> <rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I am unwilling to tell people who are working on projects to leave the
>> > space
>> > at any time and would rather break off my relationship with noisebridge
>> > than
>> > support changing the way we function to require this.
>> >
>> > We could try cultivating a situation where if you are not a member AND
>> > not
>> > visibly hacking (how the hell do we police that?) then at midnight
>> > somebody
>> > has to play asshole... honestly i'd like to see *someone who is
>> > regularly
>> > there at that time* suggesting this is at all feasible or desireable
>> > because
>> > my experience suggests otherwise.
>> >
>> > R.
>> >
>> > mediumreality.com
>> >
>> > On Oct 14, 2011 10:40 AM, "Al Sweigart" <asweigart at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> It would require buy-in from the community, which is why it's
>> >> something we'd need to talk about and agree on rather than just
>> >> implement do-acratically. At ten to midnight or whenever, members
>> >> would announce that Noisebridge is closing up to guests in ten
>> >> minutes, thank them for coming by, and tell them it'll open up to the
>> >> public at 7am, and also mention the membership binder and the process
>> >> on becoming a member. (If we do this do-acractically, there'll just be
>> >> nightly arguments between members trying to close up and members
>> >> telling people they can stay.)
>> >>
>> >> If the membership fee is too much for them, they can put their
>> >> membership on hiatus after becoming a member. (The reason people
>> >> haven't done that before now is because there's no difference between
>> >> hiatus members and non-members, except that the former has passed the
>> >> membership process.) Also, to give people time to become members, we
>> >> could make this effective four or five weeks after we agree to it.
>> >>
>> >> I think this would single-handedly fix 90% of the sleeper problem (in
>> >> my experience of waking people up in the morning, it's almost always
>> >> non-members) and also encourage people to become members. I'm not sure
>> >> what percentage of the thefts happen at night, but I'm fairly sure
>> >> they aren't done by members or the regulars (who would become members
>> >> at this point).
>> >>
>> >> -Al
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:09 AM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > This is actually a serious question, not (merely) a rhetorical
>> >> > device.
>> >> > We could simply say, X-Y times are "members only", with no
>> >> > enforcement,
>> >> > and let it self-police as we do with Be Excellent.  In that case, all
>> >> > the people who are excellent, and are not members, would comply, and
>> >> > not
>> >> > come during those hours, to our loss.  People who are willing to
>> >> > steal
>> >> > things, leave messes behind, and/or sleep there overnight, are not
>> >> > going
>> >> > to comply voluntarily.  Such a rule would require enforcement.  How
>> >> > could we do that?
>> >> >
>> >> > Rachel
>> >> >
>> >> > On 10/13/11 3:34 PM, Andy Isaacson wrote:
>> >> >> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 01:44:31PM -0700, Jonathan Foote wrote:
>> >> >>> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Gian Pablo Villamil
>> >> >>> <gian.pablo at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> >> >>>> Well, I'm seriously suggesting "members only"! :)
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> I am as well. As are a lot of other people who have resigned out of
>> >> >>> exasperation (I'm close).
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I'm sorry to hear that you're thinking of resigning, Jonathan.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I'm in favor of continuing Noisebridge's open access policy.  I
>> >> >> don't
>> >> >> think that changing to "members only" (I agree with Rachel, how the
>> >> >> heck
>> >> >> would that work!?!?!) would improve the space.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> -andy
>> >> >> _______________________________________________
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