[Noisebridge-discuss] Noisebridge is now Members and their Guests only, 24/7 please read and learn about it

Frantisek Apfelbeck algoldor at yahoo.com
Thu Oct 31 08:25:32 UTC 2013


Spending nights at Noisebridge was an overstep which cost me a lot, definitely more than it was worth of because I did not like to stay over night anyway :-) Within half year of being around I would say that the month before last was too much, mostly because I worked to much believe it or not, I guess less than 20 nights within whole six months in total, well over step, no question about that.
 
I personally think that this is an abuse of consensus. Jake was pushing for this for a long time and repetitively many members or people active at Noisebridge were against that, giving valid reasons which by a big deal agree with suggestions for more friendly approach etc. I think that if you see people objecting you should take it in account, not to step up your efforts and wait for the meeting when four people are around so finally it can go through.

I'm sorry to hear that the situation has deteriorated, truly. What I feel about this decisioned and the way how it was reached is that it is against the principles on which the Noisebridge was build up and it is actually taking an advantage of consensus and the flexibility around it, which is not saying anything about the number of members who should be present. Important lesson to learn.

Based on the list reaction before and after it looks like that the majority of the people or at least many (more than one for sure) are not very happy with the change as expected, it looks like that similar principal issue is being risen both on the rule quality and how it was reached.

It will have it's chance, alas it is something was I see as truly sad and actually bad way to go. I'm sorry for not being around, I would do my best to help with alternatives, I was hopping for that when I'm back, now I'm not sure. And yes lets skip the "sleeping under the stairs", I can take a lesson. On the other hand having an apartment next door and spend a night or two in the space to make someone bit "itchy" is mischief which I could consider :-) But the place is not suited at the moment for spending nights and I respect that, as I have mentioned before.

Thanks Rachel for the email, I'm quite sad to learn lately that you are not physically active in the place to often/anymore? I respect your opinion and I know that you are right in many things and I tried and I think managed to respect and fallow what has been changed in the years since I got involved (2009). This is to me the biggest change so far and the worst and I truly hope that it will not be in effect for long and the more open approach will be taken again. It may help it to get to that point but still I'm an idealist and this way does not seem to me principally right. One of the reasons why I do not like that are the rude responses of Jake to people before which I have read on the list feeling the strong push for this, walking over the people, that is not OK, it is definitely not excellent and to my believe that is in a way granting the outcomes. Another thing is that if he doesn't like the atmosphere, he can go to I would say any other
 hackerspace around the Bay if not around the world and they are set up for him already - members only mostly (I've never suggested to anyone leave Noisebridge and this is not the case either). Noisebridge was an amazing exception prised all over the word and yes the members of this place many time had to eat the hard bread but I think the impact was amazing, I have talked to so many people who just wanted to come and see it, experience it, live it, well now I am afraid the vibe will go way down. 

Anyway I will have to calm down and lets see what happens,

Thanks for the reply and I really appreciate it,

Sincerely,


Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck


biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker


http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org


"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi




On Thursday, October 31, 2013 12:14 AM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com> wrote:
 
Frantisek, I am not surprised that you dislike this change.  When you 
lived in SF, you were an excellent hacker at Noisebridge - except, you 
lived there, slept under the stairs, and kept your stuff all over.  At 
that time you were part of the problem.  You had to be asked to leave. 
You personally continued to be a valuable community member and stopped 
being a problem, but I hope you realize that not everyone who was living 
there was like you.  Things got a lot worse later on.  There have been 
assaults in the space.  There have been more thefts.  There were more 
people living there, cooking without cleaning up (rats!), shooting up in 
the bathrooms.

Everyone who objects to this change, consider: Noisebridge is hacking 
itself.  If it turns out that this access system is not for the better, 
it can always be changed again.  It was not done lightly.  It was SUPER 
HARD to get here, it has been discussed relentlessly on this list and at 
meetings for ages.  Jake has been working on this for over a year. 
People have been leaving in disgust, vowing never to return, for rather 
longer than that.

Yes there has been vehement objection.  I have not, however, seen any 
counter proposal.  Objectors, the status quo is not working.  Maybe it 
is fine for YOU, but it is not fine for, obviously, the majority of 
people who go to Noisebridge, because THEY JUST CHANGED IT.

Give it a chance.  Maybe the thefts and assaults will decrease!  Maybe 
some of the women who left due to harassment will revisit the place. 
Maybe the hacking quotient will go up!

Or maybe not.  We don't know.  Let's find out.

Rachel1.0

On 10/30/13 5:05 AM, Frantisek Apfelbeck wrote:
> Just to keep it simple, from yesterday on Noisebridge has become members
> only hackerspace, correct? If I come alone and I'm not a member (or
> associate member) and no one vouch for me after someone asking me and
> deciding that I do not do anything creative based on his/her judgment, I
> have to leave.
>
> Well that is definitely a change which I'm truly sorry for, the negative
> impact of this decision will be really big within the whole hacker
> community not just in USA. I wonder how many people who believed in the
> openness of the place will quit or at least become much less passionate,
> the second will definitely apply to me. There were thousands and
> thousands of people who have heard me championing the place for years
> stressing the openest as the key factor and I know there were many more
> doing the same but this is really changing the whole paradigm.
>
> This makes me very sad I'm truly surprised that after so much of
> negative feed back which I have seen on the list it was pushed through,
> that is not the way how the consensus should work I think. I can hardly
> imagine that the situation would be so bad that no other solution could
> be found with people still physically active in the place.
>
> I respect you Jake for trying to help to keep the place running but this
> is bad turn, bad decision, more easy one sure but leaving the ideal way
> aside. For me the atmosphere will change tremendously.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> FAA
>
> Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck
>
>
> biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker
>
>
> http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org
>
>
> "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
>
>
> On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 5:26 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
> tl;dr - if you are not a Member or Associate Member, please learn about
> Noisebridge policies including the latest consensus items so you can keep
> enjoying noisebridge at all hours.  You can become an Associate Member
> with four signatures from Members and then you can be There any time.
>
> Hello,
>
> This email is addressed to everyone sharing the concerns that Mario
> brought up about non-members being asked to leave at 11PM or anytime.
>
> You should read about the consensus items that just passed at tonights
> meeting.  There are some major changes.
>
> Certainly no one who is doing creative things in a positive way should
> ever have to leave noisebridge, but due to ongoing realities we have
> agreed to new ways of extending invitation to nonmembers such as yourself.
>
> We are doing away with the "schedule" of members-and-their-guests hours
> and changing Noisebridge to be that way ALL THE TIME.
>
> This means that the next time someone asks you what you're doing at
> Noisebridge, you should tell them about it, and then (if they're a member)
> ask if they will vouch for you being there.  Hopefully they will say yes,
> and hopefully it's not 11PM at the time.  People become more skeptical of
> people wanting to be at Noisebridge after 11PM, because it is such
> valuable hacking time.
>
> When you get a member to vouch for you, that means they are your
> invitation into noisebridge while they're present.  You should fill out an
> Associate Membership form and ask them to sign it, so you can move toward
> becoming an Associate Member (which can happen after you get Four
> signatures)
>
> Once you achieve Associate Member, you will be entitled to be at
> Noisebridge any time you want, without anyone present to sponsor you.  You
> can even get your own door code to get in, AND you can invite anyone you
> want to be present at Noisebridge as long as you are there.  Indeed that
> is an important responsibility as an Associate Member or Member - to share
> the joy of Noisebridge to others who can properly make use of the space.
>
> There is no financial requirement to be an Associate Member or even a
> Member (anymore).  You just have to meet enough people who are members in
> order to get there.  This might be challenging for a while but keep at it.
>
> If you choose not to become an Associate Member (or Member) you will be
> allowed at Noisebridge only when someone volunteers to be your sponsor,
> which should be easy to do (especially before 11PM).  But if you are in
> the space and there is no Member or Associate Member willing to stand up
> for you, and someone asks you to leave and no member offers to mediate
> that request, you will have to leave.  This does NOT mean you have done
> anything wrong, only that there is no one to sponsor you at that time.
>
> If you are asked to leave Noisebridge, it is considered Excellent to do so
> without unnecessary delay.  It is acceptible to ask for a Member or
> Associate Member to mediate the request (if one is not already present)
> but they will most likely ask that you respect the request.
>
> If this happens, you are encouraged to come back to the General Meeting
> which is every Tuesday night at 8:00PM.  The general meeting will strive
> to help you understand what is required of you to keep using Noisebridge
> in a way that's acceptable and excellent.
>
> If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me or any Member of
> Noisebridge, on or off this email list.
>
> sincerely,
> -jake
>
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2013, Mario Landau Holdsworth wrote:
>
>  > It happened to me also. I was working late at noisebridge, i.e. the best
>  > time to hack. And someone I'd never met before told me that unless there
>  > were two members to sign for me I had to leave at 11pm. This made me feel
>  > incredibly uncomfortable and really killed my creative buzz. This had
> never
>  > happened to me in the 4 years I'd been sporadically working at
> noisebridge.
>  > I wasn't yet familiar with the new policy. My experience had always been
>  > that Noisebridge was a place that was always open and free. It is a safe
>  > place where I can come to focus on my work and meet other great, bright,
>  > creative individuals who are also working on cool projects. I tried
> being a
>  > member, but decided I'd rather use the space and donate than hold an
>  > official membership because my use is sporadic.
>  >
>  > More to the point: closing off the space to everyone new or old but
> not yet
>  > anointed into the new system is collective punishment of everyone new or
>  > sympathetic, or supportive, just because there have been problems
> with some
>  > individuals. This is just wrong. Hackers who are working should never be
>  > told to stop working because some random person wants to enforce some
>  > pointless arbitrary rules. I am not aware of all the arguments for and
>  > against this 11pm policy, but I think this policy sends the wrong
> message to
>  > many who love Noisebridge for its open and inclusive nature.
>  >
>  >  I had support from at least three members (none present) and politely
>  > declined the suggestion I leave. And then I kept working on my project.
>  >
>  > I understand that sometimes people do things that are unacceptable
> and need
>  > to be escorted out, etc. Still, I think that as a community we should
> assume
>  > the best, not the worst of people. By maintaining this policy Noisebridge
>  > risks alienating individuals who are not in the loop / read the discuss
>  > list, potential new members, and people who like to work late at night.
>  >
>  >
>  > On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org
> <mailto:jake at spaz.org>> wrote:
>  >      This is a repost of my consensus items from last week.  Please
>  > discuss it at the meeting and consense on it.
>  >
>  >       A new Tier of Membership to Noisebridge shall exist, called
>  >      Associate
>  >       Member.  People can become Associate Members through the normal
>  >       membership process.  Associate Members are not required to
>  >      contribute to
>  >       Noisebridge financially, only to "contribute regularly" to
>  >      Noisebridge.
>  >
>  >       Associate Members, while present, can host non-members in the
>  >      space just
>  >       like Full Members.  But Associate Members cannot block
>  >      consensus like
>  >       Members.
>  >
>  >       Also the policy of Noisebridge as a space open only to Members
>  >      and their
>  >       guests shall be changed to 24 hours a day instead of 23:00 to
>  >      10:00.
>  >       This means that at any time, a person who is without a live
>  >      sponsor in
>  >       the space can be told that if they cannot find a new live
>  >      sponsor
>  >       promptly they should pack up and come back another time,
>  >      perhaps Tuesday
>  >       night.
>  >
>  >      This may look like two proposals but they work together and
>  >      should be kept together.  The idea is that we need to remove the
>  >      mistakenly applied "after hours" component from the Members and
>  >      their Guests policy, and make it 24/7 so it works properly...
>  >
>  >      but in order to do that, we need to encourage more people to
>  >      become "Members" so the flow works properly.  Since there was a
>  >      lot of opposition and complexity to loosening Capital-M
>  >      Membership requirements (mostly because of fears that the power
>  >     to Block will be abused) I invented "Associate Members" which
>  >      can be thought of as "Associates of Members" so that people can
>  >      "join" noisebridge as a "member" without having to meet the
>  >      strict requirements associated with Regular Membership.
>  >
>  >      Please pass these proposals so noisebridge can start working its
>  >      way back to 24/7 excellence.
>  >
>  >      -jake
>  >
>  >      On October 21st Jake wrote:
>  >
>  >      tl;dr at the end of this post is the amended consensus item for
>  >      this week
>  >
>  >      I just found out that an excellent hacker was working on stuff
>  >      late at noisebridge last night, and was asked to leave at
>  >      11:00PM.  This is terribly sad and should not have happened.  I
>  >      consider it to be a serious bug in the system.
>  >
>  >      I tracked down the cause of this crash to the horrible mutation
>  >      of my last proposal, specifically, making the members-and-guests
>  >      policy only take effect after 23:00 (11PM) until 10AM  (I had
>  >      wanted it to be 24/7)
>  >
>  >      With this current borked policy, people continue to come into
>  >     noisebridge without meeting anyone, without getting a sponsor,
>  >      no tour and no introduction. And regardless of whether they're
>  >      hacking or abusing the space, they are asked to leave at 11PM by
>  >      the same anonymous unfriendly mystery that let them in. This is
>  >      total shit.
>  >
>  >      So, I think we need to end the limited-hours policy and change
>  >      it to a full-time policy, something that we can maintain at all
>  >      hours.  If members of the space want to ask people to leave at
>  >      11PM (or 2PM or noon or anytime), they can still do so, if those
>  >      non-members are without a live sponsor at that time.
>  >      Importantly, this means that Members and other people who
>  >      understand the policy will explain it to people coming in the
>  >      door, regardless of what time they came in.  That way, if
>  >      someone is working on stuff and it starts getting late, they
>  >      will be able to ask someone to sponsor their continued hacking
>  >      rather than just be carelessly booted out.
>  >
>  >      In order for us to move to full-time Members rule, there need to
>  >      be more Members.  I have a solution for that which should be
>  >      less objectionable than the proposal i've put out there for this
>  >      week.
>  >
>  >      I propose that we add a tier of membership, called Associate
>  >      Member, which is a person who has been consensed upon to be an
>  >      Associate Member.  Their duty to noisebridge does not include a
>  >      mandatory cash donation but a general "regular contributions to
>  >      Noisebridge".
>  >
>  >      Associate Members will not be able to block consensus items.
>  >       But they will be able to sponsor guests while they are present
>  >      in the space, like full members can.
>  >
>  >      At the same time I propose that we remove the time restriction
>  >      on the policy of Members and their Guests only.  This may sound
>  >      like it will create a problem when there are not enough members
>  >      around the space, but in practice it should encourage members
>  >      and guests to get to know one another at all times, rather than
>  >      only at 11PM when guests are being asked to leave (which is how
>  >      it is now)
>  >
>  >      When it is normal for every guest to be introduced to a Member
>  >      or Associate Member, when night falls and the membership wants
>  >      to ask some people to leave who are without sponsors, there will
>  >      be enough awareness of the guest sponsorship policy that guests
>  >      who want to continue to stay will be aware that they can ask
>  >      members to sponsor them so they can continue hacking.  This is
>  >      the intended goal - to increase the connection between guests
>  >      and members (not to just kick out non-members all the time)
>  >
>  >      the amended proposal should be worded as follows:
>  >
>  >       A new Tier of Membership to Noisebridge shall exist, called
>  >      Associate
>  >       Member.  People can become Associate Members through the normal
>  >    membership process.  Associate Members are not required to
>  >      contribute to
>  >       Noisebridge financially, only to "contribute regularly" to
>  >      Noisebridge.
>  >
>  >       Associate Members, while present, can host non-members in the
>  >      space just
>  >       like Full Members.  But Associate Members cannot block
>  >      consensus like
>  >       Members.
>  >
>  >       Also the policy of Noisebridge as a space open only to Members
>  >      and their
>  >       guests shall be changed to 24 hours a day instead of 23:00 to
>  >      10:00.
>  >       This means that at any time, a person who is without a live
>  >      sponsor in
>  >       the space can be told that if they cannot find a new live
>  >      sponsor
>  >       promptly they should pack up and come back another time,
>  >      perhaps Tuesday
>  >       night.
>  >
>  >      The spirit of the last paragraph is not to exclude people but
>  >      rather to encourage a connection between each guest of the space
>  >      and at least one Member of the space at all times.
>  >
>  >      -jake
>  >      _______________________________________________
>  >      Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>  > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> <mailto:Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
>  > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > --
>  > Mario Landau-Holdsworth
>  > EverCharge
>  > www.evercharge.net
>  > (510) 394-4582
>  >
>  >
>
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