[Noisebridge-discuss] It has come to my attention that...

macegr garrettmace at gmail.com
Fri Jun 21 01:18:50 UTC 2013


On Jun 20, 2013, at 5:55 PM, Danny O'Brien <danny at spesh.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 6:47 AM, Bill Gag <billgag11 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The fact that this discussion has gone from Dru's behavior to more people bitching about their stupid science lab being used as a resource by homeless people is disgusting, Dru's behavior is terrible even if the space was a fucking office. 
> 
> The fact that every discussion has to be used to define the space is irritating enough but this discussion is no place for that shit, get the fuck out of here and be safe at home. 
> 
> Hey Kim,
> 
> You're right that it's important to make the stupid science lab safe for everyone. But, speaking personally, I can't do that *and* make it as a resource for homeless people or people who are just generally hanging out. It's too much. It takes a lot of time and energy to deal with the normal traumatastic drama that emerges from dealing with all the problems that hacker culture has, *and* deal with people who are trying to deal with a bunch of other societal issues, like poverty, homelessness and mental illness, *plus* the people who prey on open spaces and open communities in general.
> 
> It's a stupid science lab, but that's all it is meant to be. We had a science lab experiment trying to make it welcoming by just being open all the time so that anyone could come in at any time, but in the end that just end up excluding whole classes of people (including a lot of whiteboy hackers, but also hackers of every other kind), and constructing an atmosphere of entitlement with a bunch of people who aren't doing the stuff that the place is designed to encourage.
> 
> I'm burned out, because the place needs smart, enthusiastic, vaguely sane people to help things run smoothly, and a great deal of my time is dominated by the consequences of people who clutch hold of it for other reasons than it was designed for, and need to, frankly, sort their shit out somewhere else. 
> 
> You've only just subscribe to nb-discuss, Kim, but you know that I've invested a lot of time social sysadminning trying to sort out problems among people and mediate solutions. I don't really often go off on one like this. But really, I have to draw the line somewhere.
> 
> So here's one the new lines I'm drawing for myself. If you think that this is a "stupid science lab", please leave.  Anyone who seriously says that for a moment is not welcome by me, anymore. You should go. There are other places you can go, less full of horrible science geeks. There are other places you can build yourself, that might be more welcoming. 
> 
> We have a lot of problems, and we can't solve them all, and right now, we can't solve yours, particularly when you're actively scorning the very reason we wanted to share our space with you.
> 
> I'm sorry. Please go.
> 
> d.

Keep this up, Danny, and I may actually start coming in. I know how to design a PCB, run ugly welds, bake a cake, operate power tools, stay up 36 hours to make a useless crazy idea work, AND respect people's boundaries. I love the idea of working to make someplace awesomely weird, and safe for everyone to release their inner mad scientist without worrying about alley drama. But not while people working directly against that goal are tolerated.

Make a space where people earn respect for what they actually DO, rather than who they are or how loudly they can talk, and the hackers will find you.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20130620/4a53dbaa/attachment-0003.html>


More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list