[Noisebridge-discuss] Can Mothership HackerMoms visit again?

[Andy Isaacson]

On Sun, Mar 04, 2012 at 03:19:30PM -0800, Eric Vinyl wrote:
> I disagree. The primary benefit of membership is being able to block
> consensus,

I disagree.  The *only* benefit of membership -- by longstanding
tradition -- is being able to participate fully in our consensus
process.  This means that a member's concerns cannot be overridden in
the course of a discussion at meeting.

If a nonmember has a concern with some discussion or agreement, that
does not necessarily have to prevent consensus -- the membership can ask
the nonmember to stop participating in the discussion, for example if
they're being disruptive.  A member is inherently allowed to continue
the discussion until their concerns are completely satisfied.  (This
would eventually lead to a block if the proposal cannot be rectified to
address the member's concern, but that should be a pretty rare state of
affairs.)

Relatedly, members in good standing are the voters in our annual board
elections.  So I suppose that makes my "only" above not completely
correct.  Darn the state for requiring we have a board.

Being a member also gets you a key, for sure, although of course many
awesome people who aren't members also have keys.

-andy