[Noisebridge-discuss] talked about the hackmeet incident in meeting today

Ronald Cotoni setient at gmail.com
Wed Oct 24 17:08:23 UTC 2012


Thank you very much for doing this write up Danny!  I appreciate the way
this situation was handled.

On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 1:48 AM, Danny O'Brien <danny at spesh.com> wrote:

> I'm sure Tom will be along in a bit with some notes (he's your new
> secretary, by the way), but I thought I'd quickly post something about
> what I saw today as the moderator.
>
> It was a good meeting. We spent a lot of time with Susan and others
> talking about what had happened, other hackerspaces where this was (or
> had been) a problem, and grinding over solutions. Nobody was sucky.
> There were no trainwrecks or raised voices. Everybody was unhappy with
> how the mailing list discussion had played out.
>
> It was a bit uncomfortable in parts, and we didn't laugh much. Someone
> came up to me afterwards and said that it was the best case of a
> community coming to terms with issues of harassment they had seen (and
> I got the feeling they had seen a lot). It didn't feel very exemplary,
> but it was a lot better than I thought, and far better than it seems
> some people expect of us.
>
> I think for me, the key point was the connection between exclusion and
> potential harassment. We talked about how it is people aren't
> connected with the main community that are the most vulnerable, and we
> often don't get to hear about them. We thanked Susan for standing up
> and saying what she said. Daravinne's point about solutions lasting
> two days or so at Noisebridge before it fading away was taken on board
> with no argument either.
>
> Rayc and others talked about the idea of increasing our mentoring of
> new people, and both being more welcoming, and more explicit about the
> kind of attitude and involvement we expect from new members of the
> community. Martin talked about ATX Austin's experiences, and how
> they'd actually had to do a mirror approach when they hit similar
> issues -- circle back among the existing membership to renew  and make
> clear to them the ideas, expectations and obligations that they take
> on when they are part of that hackerspace (and actually, of the
> society they live in beyond that hackerspace).
>
> The word that kept cropping up with everybody was "systemic". People
> also noted that the issues we struggle with are not just systemic to
> Noisebridge.
>
> Anyway, the important thing is not the ideas, but that we proceed with
> them.
>
> The meeting's biggest idea (and probably long overdue) was to begin
> mentoring more consciously. We're going to start having a
> meet-and-greet/orientation event on Sundays. It'll be the sort of
> explicitly social event that Tuesday meetings were intended to be, but
> we also want to include elements of teaching people about how
> Noisebridge works, too. It won't be obligatory or anything, but I
> think we all hope that if you*haven't* been to a Sunday meet, many of
> your answers about how Noisebridge works, who you should speak to if
> you have a problem, and how best to resolve things without resorting
> to hammers will be aided by you attending the Sunday Syslog (or
> whatever we call it). And if you do attend, you'll feel a lot better
> about asking those questions. We'll also be inviting some external
> people to speak about solutions to what ails us. It might take us a
> bit to boot this up, but that's the plan.
>
> Rayc was asked to start collecting a list of members who wouldn't mind
> being contacted by him to spend some time with new people one-on-one;
> I think we may have to group together a bit to remember what that
> actually does mean before that helps, but if people want to volunteer,
> that would be great. We'll probably be mailing members to talk
> one-on-one to them about Noisebridge, and try to bring them more into
> active involvement.
>
> The other feeling was a bit harder to wire into the existing
> Noisebridge structure, which is more explicit roles. Hackmeet, weirdly
> is an exception to this, we knew the organisers, and could probably
> have found them in a pinch. But often it's hard for people to know who
> is running what, or who to turn to if they are in the space and
> something bad (or good) happens. The membership hide away because we
> want to encourage independence and prevent hierarchy, but new people
> don't know what to do without a hierarchy, and it's remiss of us to
> not help them.
>
> Do-acracy is something we should be *teaching* and sharing, not
> throwing people in at the deep end, and watching them do or drown. We
> all *do* have roles and strengths, and we might as well let people
> know who they are. Just because we don't want permanent titles doesn't
> mean we can't offer temporary roles for people to latch onto. Consenso
> can't do it all.
>
> Anyway, my personal commitment to this is that I'm going to reboot
> soceng. I know I always say this, but I will be restarting the week
> after next, when I get back from Mexico. I'll think a bit more about
> the format, but it'll be on Thursday evenings. And I'd like to openly
> offer to mentor people in moderating Tuesday meetings. People have
> said I'm good at it now, but I used to suck, and I have some ideas
> about how that changed.
>
> I'm sorry if this all sounds terrible po-faced. Somebody I know also
> mailed me today saying that he wanted Noisebridge to be a bit more
> fun, and I think that's important too. I've said before that the
> Noisebridge community is self-trolling, and self-gaming: we look to
> find out and exploit our own flaws before anyone else does. I actually
> think we do this both for entertainment and for our own sense of
> safety. We think if we don't expose the weaknesses of each other,
> someone nastier will. The risk is that after a while, people don't
> want to admit their weaknesses, in case others will leap on them. And
> others start attacking everyone else, forgetting or betraying their
> original good intentions. We end thinking we're being friendly, but in
> fact we've just become the nasty ones, and claiming that we're doing
> it ironically or for the lulz isn't going to cut it any more.
>
> When I left Noisebridge at 11, Jake was talking to Susan about power
> conversion, others were drinking beer with Brandon our new member. A
> completely different group of people were in the kitchen talking
> technical, and the Dorabot was gently heckling the humans. The new
> paintjob looks amazing. The buzzer was broken, but folks were trying
> to fix it.
>
> Stuff is always broken, but that's okay, because we like fixing things
> here.
>
> d.
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>



-- 
Ronald Cotoni
Systems Engineer
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