[Noisebridge-discuss] Membership Status and Consensus

[Danny O'Brien]

On Monday, November 25, 2013, Lee Sonko wrote:

> Why is having a membership binder physically in the space not a good
> solution? I thought the problem was that bad non-members were causing
> trouble and that making the space 24x7 members only might remedy that by
> raising the bar of entry from "I'm just some guy" to "I'm just some guy who
> got 4 members to vouch for me".
>
>
(I am really unsure of the set of problems and solutions myself at this
point, but that is not actually new to Noisebridge. For instance, in my
time as secretary we were strongly discouraged from having a membership
binder in the space, for fear that would pierce the anonymous veil. Instead
they were hoarded at an undisclosed location. So maybe that remains why
this is not a good solution to the undefined problem.

I guess the idea with using the wiki is that you can bind a PGP key to a
nym identity and therefore preserve anonymity while still proving you
really are a member. I bet, actually his is exactly the kind of solution
that Tom and The Two Jakes could settle upon, if we locked them in a room
with a Tor node and three bottles of whiskey instead of letting them bait
each other on discuss. But maybe that's not the problem being solved.*

In other news, Kelly organized a policy revamp a couple of years ago which
finally got our actual membership list somewhat consistent, which included
expiring out people. If you don't pay dues and haven't been pestered with
emails from her acting as treasurer or Tom as secretary in the last few
years, you're possibly not a member. I'd like to say that it was all
announced in a lavatory with a sign on it that said beware of the leopard,
but actually it was all painfully documented on nb discuss and the wiki and
the meeting notes for months.

D.

What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Good grief
noisebridgekind if you can't take an interest in local affairs, that's your
own lookout. Energize the demolition beams!


* noisebridge seems relatively nice at the moment, incidentally. Hardly any
stabbings at all.


>
While I don't spend enough time in the space on a regular basis to have a
> strong opinion on this, I'm still interested in how to manage such issues.
> I'd love to hear a little about it. The meeting notes<https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Category:Meeting_Notes>don't really indicate the dynamics going on here.
>
> Lee
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Danny O'Brien <danny at spesh.com> wrote:
>
> Just as an FYI, I was moderator at the last meeting, and proxy blocked for
> you Jake wrt the time requirement part of putting a wiki page up (as did
> the other Jake). I said at the time that I see no point in discussing at
> meeting a proposal that is being remotely blocked, and it would be more
> productive to continue the consensus discussion between the proposer and
> the blocking member outside of meeting.
>
> I would add that you both seem to me to be acting in good faith, and are
> closer to consensus than it might appear; your differences are being
> accentuated by the mode of communication.
>
> D.
>
> On Sunday, November 24, 2013, Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
>
> Dear Tom,
>
> Tom Lowenthal:
> > Jacob Appelbaum <jacob at appelbaum.net> wrote:
> >> I directly told Tom that I wanted him to block this wikipage related
> >> outing of members as my proxy. He has failed to do so as a member and he
> >> did not represent my hard resistance, clearly, if this has passed any
> >> consensus process. What petty authoritarianism indeed.
> >
> > Hi Jake,
> >
> > You got in touch with me *after* we had agreed to make the membership
> > list no longer a secret. I proposed it one week, and we agreed how to
> > do it the next. Although it was my proposal, the way that we chose to
> > implement it was not how I'd imagined it. That's fine and good: that's
> > how consensus is supposed to work.
>
> I am objecting to forcing the wikipage disclosure. You are obfuscating
> the discussion by muddling the two issues. I am aware of the "consensus"
> issue that had previously passed and it was my motivation for speaking
> directly with you about my objections to similar future plans.
>
> >
> > You expressed your strong disagreement with the proposal to add a firm
> > horizon for members to make it clear who they were. We noted your
> > objections, and did not record that proposal as consensus. t
>
> I object to the specific methods of outing people, as well as the
> requirement for people to out themselves generally. I object to people
> being forced, especially during these turbulent political times, to
> losing their right to choose who knows about their associations. People
> who support Noisebridge have a right to do so anonymously and similarly,
> when there are challenges, we can solve the issues in a privacy
> preserving manner. Forcing, under threat or no threat of removal, the
> publication every member's status, name/nym and more on the wiki as the
> canonical source is wrong. As Andy has stated, it is fuzzy for a reason
> and your attempts to remove this fuzzy part of the system show a total
> disrespect for those reasons, as well as a total lack of acknowledgement
> about the harms that your "solution" presents to our community.
>
> >
> > If the torrent of abuse you threw at me by IM counts as a request for
> > a proxy then sure. Would that I were a time traveler, but going back
> > in time to proxy your objection is not within my skillset.
> >
>
> This is so riddled with inaccuracies, I'm not even sure where to start.
> Still, I'll try - I made it clear, via IRC, that I objected to the spat
> of recent "consensus" decisions, that I felt your "leadership" at
> Noisebridge was upsetting a lot of people and that I personally wanted
> you to block any forced outing of members on the wikipage. That was not
> a matter of time travel - it was discussing the recent past with a
> specific request to change the future discussions to be more inclusive
> and specifically to stop taking away the privacy of Noisebridge members
> in an effort to "do something."
>
> >
> >> Everyone should ignore this "consensus" item as it was clearly not a
> >> matter of Noisebridge consensus. If anyone is removed for not following
> >> these wiki related rules or they are not allowed to participate by
> >> someone citing these rules, I move that we remove these petty
> >> authoritarians from Noisebridge.
> >>
> >> This wikipage stuff is not in the spirit of Noisebridge, it is the
> >> spirit of someone who is vying for power and man, to do that at
> >> Noisebr
>
>

-- 
Sent from my phone
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