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

Sat Oct 15 00:42:30 UTC 2011

I really advise the whole dumping-water or
drawing-on-their-face-with-sharpies approach. One, it'll cause a lot
of drama and two, it's not really necessary because we can just wake
them. Even if we have the option of calling the police if they get
violent, I don't want to provoke anyone to that point.

But the other problem is, say one person asks someone to leave, and
then another person says they don't have to leave. Then we have a
stalemate and it just comes down to who has the stronger/more
dominating personality to get their way. When I woke people up and
told them to leave, on some occasions they just stay there anyway
after giving me a "you're not the boss of me" spiel, or they're just
back sleeping there the next night. It's easier for crashers to keep
sleeping at Noisebridge than it is for people to wake them up, so
they're going to win that war of attrition in the long run. Also, it's
really intimidating to wake people up (and more so to ask them to
leave), so most people don't want to do it even if they think someone
should.

The core of it is that you can't *make* anyone do anything at
Noisebridge. And there's no system of punishments/warnings short of
banning or temporarily banning people, which is a big deal and kind of
a nuclear option. (This is both good and bad, in that we don't waste
time on minor "rule breaking" but also don't prevent problems before
they get really big and dramatic.)

I think the members-hours thing would be a good way to short-circuit
the whole thing. It prevents sleeping overnight by people who don't
even want to become members, and nobody has to directly confront
sleepers. And I think if we plan it out, we can work around any of the
downsides to members-hours too.

-Al

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Ronald Cotoni <setient at gmail.com> wrote:
> You know what the solution to members sleeping the night at noisebridge is?
>  Not sleeping at Noisebridge.  The lease clearly states people cannot live
> there.  The problem being if Joe Bob sleeps there today, Billy tomorrow, Sue
> the day after, Jimmy the next day and so forth.  It is not really ONE person
> living at Noisebridge.  It is different people living there every day, or so
> our landlord or a judge will see.   Seriously take a step back, look at the
> big picture of how other people see it rather than your own views.   In all
> seriousness, I want to start Sleepbridge where we post signs and make it
> known that if we see you sleeping at Noisebridge we will wake you up in a
> not pleasant manner and ensure you cannot sleep there.  The methods could
> include pouring buckets of water on you, playing loud music right next to
> your head.   We would then record the results of how groggy you were when we
> woke you up and create nifty graphs of the "willing participants" of our
> experiment.  If they get violent, call the police.
> Regardless of what Al, Rachel or anyone else thinks or has opinions on at
> the space, we need to look at this from a legal standpoint.   If we are
> doing something that jeopardizes our lease, we should stop.  If we are not
> then we should STOP TALKING ABOUT IT and not care.  It is then a do-acratic
> thing to do is if you do not feel they should be sleeping there, ask them to
> leave.  If you disagree with someone being asked to leave, then do the
> do-acratic thing and stop them.  Noisebridge is simple, keep it that way.
>
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Al Sweigart <asweigart at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I just want to clarify this some more. So the members-only hours thing
>> would be a solution to people coming to Noisebridge who keep crashing
>> and sleeping overnight at the space (which has almost always been
>> non-members). This has some apparent downsides, but I think we can
>> hack around them so they won't be significant obstacles.
>>
>> We could hold off on implementing for four or five weeks (or even
>> longer) so that current non-members could go through the membership
>> process. That way we this plan doesn't interrupt non-members from
>> being at the space late at night.
>>
>> Noisebridge intentionally made as painless a membership process as
>> possible. You just fill out a membership form with your name (or even
>> pseudonym) and get two members to sign. After four weeks, show up to a
>> Tuesday meeting and people consense on it. In the last three years, I
>> think only two people have ever been rejected for membership.
>>
>> And if membership dues are a problem, there's a clever hack that they
>> can just put their membership on hiatus after becoming members.
>>
>> So this seems like a lot of work, but it's not really: we do nothing
>> for the first several weeks, people fill out a form and get a couple
>> signatures, and then they don't have to pay dues.
>>
>> For people who are introduced to Noisebridge later, I don't think this
>> would scare them off. If anything, if they were hacking on stuff until
>> midnight and saw that the space was closing for non-members, they
>> would probably want to become members and more involved with the space
>> (especially if they didn't have to commit to $80 or $40 a month as a
>> prereq). (Though then the month-long thing _would_ be a pain. Maybe
>> have it as hours for members and applicants then?)
>>
>> And remember, this is just an idea for a way to encourage people to
>> use the space to hack on stuff rather than as a bedroom. I'm just
>> mentioning all this hiatus membership and what-not stuff to assuage
>> concerns that members-only hours would be an unnecessarily large
>> obstacle. It's way easier to prevent people from crashing at NB at
>> midnight rather than booting out sleepers at 7 in the morning. But if
>> there are other ways of encouraging people to not crash at Noisebridge
>> that other than having members-only hours, then we can just ditch this
>> idea.
>>
>> -Al
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Dan Cote <terminationshok at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I think a "membership" option for people who can't pay could be a good
>> > thing. It shouldn't be a mandatory precursor for participating in the
>> > space
>> > though. You are suggesting that people should have to go through the
>> > month
>> > long process to be accepted as members and then go on hiatus before
>> > hacking
>> > after a certain time? I think this is bureaucratic procedure for
>> > procedure's
>> > sake. This can scare off some cool new members. I also think that the
>> > proposal would radically alter Noisebridge's entire method of operation
>> > in a
>> > negative way.
>> > I agree with what Liz said as well.
>> >
>> > When you see someone who may not belong in the space, you make a
>> > judgement
>> > call and take action. Ask for help and opinions from the others. If the
>> > person fights back or keeps returning, we talk about it at the meeting.
>> >
>> > On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Al Sweigart <asweigart at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I've got the solution to that side too.
>> >>
>> >> If it's just the $80/$40 membership dues that is keeping people from
>> >> becoming members in the membership binder, then the hiatus membership
>> >> hack would work perfectly. We could hold off implementing it for four
>> >> or five weeks to give people time to put their names in the binder.
>> >> People who are regulars wouldn't have any problem at all finding
>> >> signatures.
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:29 PM, Andy Isaacson <adi at hexapodia.org>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 02:03:21PM -0700, rachel lyra hospodar wrote:
>> >> >> Maybe you find it odd that I think it would be an asshole move to
>> >> >> kick
>> >> >> people out at midnight,
>> >> >
>> >> > I think it would be a *terrible* idea to try to kick non-members
>> >> > (whatever the heck that means) out at midnight.  That's the peak of
>> >> > productivity at Noisebridge.  Pretty much every time I'm there at
>> >> > midnight there are dozens of people happily hacking away on useful
>> >> > projects; it doesn't quiet down until much later.
>> >> >
>> >> > Most of the people who do cool shit at Noisebridge aren't "members".
>> >> > This is a big part of our secret sauce.
>> >> >
>> >> >> 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.
>> >> >
>> >> > Our radical inclusivity's a huge part of why I'm here, too.
>> >> >
>> >> > -andy
>> >> >
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
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>> >
>> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Ronald Cotoni
> Systems Engineer
>