[Noisebridge-discuss] ? should members on haitus be reinstated since dues is no longer relevant?

[Tom Lowenthal]

On 18 November 2013 13:23, Paul Monad <immonad at yahoo.com> wrote:
> How about former members?

Hiatus has not changed much. It's still there for folks who will be
taking some time away from Noisebridge, traveling, or so on, and it's
still up to a particular member to decide whether they wish to go on
hiatus.

Two weeks ago, we agreed a slight change to the way you go on and come
off hiatus. Previously, you had to contact the treasurer and
secretary. Now, instead of doing that, you should add or remove the
Hiatus category on your wiki user page. This is very similar to how
members are expected to identify themselves in general.

I don't see any reason why members should be taken off hiatus without
their request and participation. Hiatus has a semantic meaning, and I
think we should generally respect members' right to decide whether
that applies to them. I also don't see why this change would make
people who are not members into members. There's no change to the set
of people who are members, we're just changing the way that we're
asking them for things going forward.

Folks have no *obligation* to pay dues *as a condition of membership*,
but that doesn't mean that folks shouldn't continue to support
Noisebridge. I hope that members who are here regularly continue to
donate regularly, but I'm not going to be checking up on who does. I
think it's reasonable that people on hiatus should feel less of an
ethical obligation to make regular donations. After all: they aren't
using the space.

-Tom