[Noisebridge-discuss] A modest proposal.

[Danny O'Brien]

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Will Sargent <will.sargent at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>> Like many proposals currently being kicked around, this is perfectly
>> reasonable one, which has been somewhat discussed to death in previous
>> rounds. A lot of NB members really like it being open late, and it's one of
>> the things that a lot of people want to keep that there's somewhere in San
>> Francisco where you can hold a soldering class at 4AM.
>>
>> It, and the related one of it being members-only after hours gets
>> discussed a lot in meeting, carefully considered, and then rejected.
>>
>> I know, we is crazy. But we're very picky in what craziness we want.
>
>
> I don't remember anyone rejecting or moving to block it, and I don't see
> anything in the notes about it.  There was a "well, the community wouldn't
> go for it" -- but that's a self fulfilling prophecy in that it shuts down
> discussion of "unacceptable" topics.  Case in point -- no-one thought we
> could get consensus on banning Patrick at the time, but I saw over 30 people
> in the room that night and everyone was on-board -- philosophically
> disgusted, maybe, but on-board.

I wasn't actually referring specifically to last night, but this as an
ongoing proposal that gets brought up from time to time, and has done
since time immemorial.

The last time that really stuck in my mind for obvious reasons, was
when *I* proposed it, at least in its "members after hours" version.
After circuiting it around then, my conclusion then was that it wasn't
likely to pass consensus.

The Patrick case felt very different -- a lot of people had concerns
that would have led to them blocking, and we spent a long time
addressing those concerns so that they felt better. My belief is that
people would object to a proposal to close NB after hours on
principle. I might be wrong though, and you can easily proposal this
for discussion next week. It would at least, as you say, bring the
objections out to the fore.

I'll say here that I wouldn't block, but I'd want a lot more detail
about how to do this. I don't think there's anything basic about
Noisebridge that requires it to be open 24/7. I think it would be
logistically hard to achieve (previous objections: how and who closes
the space? If it's members after hours, how do we enforce or even know
that), but sorting out those logistics could conceivably be better for
the community as a whole. I'd want to spend a lot of time listening to
people who work at Noisebridge after hours, who are generally poorly
represented in our system.

I might even suggest that if this goes up to consensus, we should have
at least one meeting (maybe not *the* meeting) at 1AM in the space.
For all people have an image of NB-at-night as being a den of
iniquity, it has its own constituency, and they should organize.

d.

>
> Noisebridge may be crazy, but it does act in the furtherance of having a
> good time.
>
> Will.