[Noisebridge-discuss] Let's talk about: Noisebridge Membership

[Al Sweigart]

There's a lot of talk on the mailing list about the latest board policies.
I'd like to focus on segments individually so that discussion can happen
about which parts people agree with an which parts people don't.

Do not be mistaken: the membership still has the power to change
Noisebridge policy with a 2/3 consensus. Policies are not written in stone
and are open to change, just as they have always been.

This thread concerns the "Noisebridge Membership" section on
https://github.com/noisebridge/bureaucracy/blob/master/membership.md which
reads:

=====
There is one category of Noisebridge membership.

Noisebridge membership dues are $80 per month. In case of financial
hardship, the treasurer may choose to allow a member to pay dues at one
half of the normal rate.
=====

My own commentary about this section:

This is a change from the two-tiered membership that was created by
consensus last year. I'm very much in favor of this part: I understand that
the two-tiered membership was created because the barrier to becoming a
capital-M member was very high, but the concept of a hierarchy of
membership has always bothered me.

The dues part is also a change away from optional member dues. This part
I'm less enthusiastic about. I know Kevin wanted to roll back the consensus
item that created optional dues. My concerns are that 1) I'd prefer if
members chose themselves whether or not they paid the "starving hacker"
rate instead of the treasurer and 2) I'm okay with mandatory dues for
membership but the fact that Noisebridge is members only means that money
does technical come into access to the space. (Only technically though,
members can brings guests as always and, let's face it, no one really
enforces the members-only policy.) I think this is something that could be
changed.

Any other comments about this section?
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