[Noisebridge-discuss] A test of Excellence

Danny O'Brien danny at spesh.com
Sun Oct 14 01:17:45 UTC 2012


On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 7:08 AM, Martin Bogomolni <martinbogo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Any good experiment needs a hypothesis, and a way of testing that
> hypothesis with an experiment and a control.
>
> My hypothesis is that the operating principles of Noisebridge are not
> serving to increase, but rather to decrease, the average level of
> honesty and 'Excellence' in the space.   Specifically the current way
> things are set up socially inside of Noisebridge, with insufficient
> negative feedback/pressure on people to reinforce the social values
> that promote that kind of honest behavior.
>
> I have had two people leave five valuable things in Noisebridge.
> These things are useful to different people for different reasons.
>
> Five identical items have been left at the Dallas Makerspace, as a
> second social group with different rules.   Also at UC Santa Cruz'
> workshop as a control, as they have a strongly reinforced discipline
> of object ownership and storage.
>
> All are items a Hacker/Maker would have.
>
> One of them contains something intrinsically valuable if disassembled.
>   It will cease to work if that happens.
>
> All are clearly labeled as 'do not hack', with a name and identifying
> label for which member shelf they should be on.
>
> All have been placed in logical places, but not on a material or
> 'hack' shelf.   None are in their 'correct' location.
>
> None are worth less than $50.
>
> None of those labels has my name on it.
>
> The location of the items will be checked after a day, a week, two
> weeks, a month, and two months.
>
> I will publish the results after three months.
>
> -M

I love you Martin, but this isn't a test of excellence, this is a test
of whether things get moved around or re-used in spaces. You need to
be far far more explicit in what you're actually testing for.

And I'll add this is something that NB is set up to fail at, partly
because of how we work.

Noisebridge has an  *explicit* tradition, explained to everyone who
gets a tour that *everything* in the space is hackable, except (maybe)
for stuff on the hacker shelves. I've actually explained to people
(this is true), why "do not hack" labels don't work, going through the
problems "when was it labelled that? Why was it labelled that? When do
people remember to "unlabel" do not hack items". We regularly deal
with having to throw out rotten food that has a "DO NOT
TOUCH1!!!1oneoneon1!!!!" sign on it. We had to deal with an entire
rack that had stern instructions on it for not hacking, but was taking
up a huge chunk of space. Whatever marvellous and doomed mission that
Noisebridge is embarking on, one of the key points is that we have to
invent methods of dealing with things that would otherwise be
self-evident. (Example: how do we explain that the "no smoking" sign
next to the fire escape is in a different register than the "kittens
inside -- free them!" that bedecks our high-voltage fuse box.)

So, we explain, the actual effective physical rule in the space is
"everything may be turned into a giant robot", because otherwise all
of the advantages of the openness of the space turn into giant
problems, like how the fuck do we get rid of all of this crap that has
mounted up, and how do we stop people going "i can't believe you moved
MY OSCILLOSCOPE (which i sort of lent to NB but put a note on it
explaining how and why it must be used). Case in point, being the
member shelves, which are dusty and full of cool stuff that has been
left by people who haven't been members in years, but that no-one is
supposed to touch; and used as a theoretical place to leave expensive
things in the belief that the magical noisebridge police will laser
anyone who leaves stuff there. In fact, I'd suggest the reason why the
member shelves (barely) work as a "secure" storage location has
nothing to do with the noisebridge social contract, of which they are
-- and again, I've said this in public before, so I'm not just making
this up to critique your experiment --- explictly and madly excluded
from, and everything to do with the fact that if you want something to
stay temporarily safe, burying it in a place full of dusty, weird
looking-crap, is probably a very good place to do it.

I'm interested in your experiment (and resisted the temptation to
announce a Santa Cruz/Dallas/Noisebridge scavenger hunt to run in
parallel with it using the same item descriptions), but it's pretty
much the opposite of why our only rule is "be excellent", and why that
rule is resistant to qualification.

It's like me declaring an experimental test of excellence that
involves sending three key international dissidents to turn up at
Dallas, Santa Cruz and Noisebridge at midnight on a random Thursday,
knocking on the door, and asking to be given a lecture on makerspaces,
secure communication, alternative educational methodologies, and
decentralised engineering challenges. OH MY GOD MARTIN WE TOTALLY WON
THAT

In the spirit of being not just poo-pooing, can I suggest an amendment
that would actually give some useful info for Noisebridge?

As well as the "DO NOT HACK note, could you put an expiry date for the
unhackability and a contact number (mobile) on the item? That's
actually what many of us have found to work, and continue to recommend
people to do if they want to be go against the tide, and be able to
still exert some control of items in the space. I'm actually
interested if people do call numbers if they're moving stuff. I'm less
interested if people pay attention to a blind assertion on an item
that might be out of date, or assert something that may not be true
(and interestingly, in this case, isn't actually true, but a white lie
for the purposes of an experiment.).

d.


















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