[Noisebridge-discuss] A test of Excellence

[D J Capelis]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Dean Mao <dean.mao at hackerdojo.com> wrote:

> Hm perhaps it's just issues with SF.  NB seems to have a much bigger theft
> issue that we at the Hacker Dojo have.  I remember seeing an email a few
> weeks ago about some guy named "eric" who stole someone's laptop.
>
> I bet if NB moved to a less seedy area, the thefts wouldn't be as rampant.
>

NYC Resistor has no trouble having nice things around and they're in NYC.
The differences between NYC resistor and Noisebridge are huge, but I'd
guess the difference has a lot more to do with culture than with location.
(They're also not an open-access space, which is definitely a huge cultural
difference.)

Just saying "oh hey maybe it's just the location" is a convenient way to
pretend that brokenness isn't broken, IMO.  And really saying that anything
is "only reason" for stuff like this is a pretty aggressive attempt at
demolishing nuance.

Of course broken is all in the eye of the beholder.  If folks are okay with
a hackerspace that can't be used to hack on anything that requires nice
things (in this case, we're not even talking nice things like real
equipment, some of which actually manages to stay around, but nice things
like... power drills or even being able to expect to find a hammer in a
deterministic location when you need one) then you know, maybe noisebridge
doesn't have any problems.  I've been trying to figure out how noisebridge
could fit into my life and benefit my hacking, but I've been struggling to
figure out how a space where keeping a power drill around is regarded as a
risky move fits into things.

My tentative conclusion so far is that it doesn't.  (For that and a few
other reasons.)  Which seems a huge shame.  And full disclosure: maybe I'm
a little bitter about it.

But thanks to Martin for taking time and expending effort and energy to
give the conversation some data.  Whether or not the data is perfect or
whether or not the methodology is perfect (neither of them are, but neither
of those things are ever perfect) is irrelevant to the fact that there's
now a bit more actual data than there was before he posted these results.
I hope the community takes the opportunity to think about it all for awhile.

~DJ
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