[Noisebridge-discuss] consensus proposal - associate members and 24/7 hours

[Jake]

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