[Noisebridge-discuss] All I want is 51% :)
Dana
dana-lists at sonic.net
Fri Mar 28 21:37:12 UTC 2014
Al, I appreciate you laying out your thought process on this. I wish a
conversation about how Noisebridge can move forward could have started
from here instead of from unilateral actions on the part of the board.
What is called consensus at Noisebridge is broken, I think many Members
and community members agree. When I learned about consensus I was told
blocking was something serious and rare, reserved for circumstances when
you fundamentally believe a proposal undermines the integrity of an
organization's values or there is improper process. If you don't like
something you articulate your objection, dissent with a stand-aside.
In January I shared alternative consensus model we used at student
co-ops. At the meeting, on-list and privately I received an exceptional
amount of positive feedback (then, I got busy and did a poor job at
following up). I don't think end-point but another option worth working
from:
Weekly meetings - 1 block or Math.round(Members*.1) stand-asides stop a
proposal. Those blocking have a responsibility to try to work with
proponents towards something mutually agreeable (outside of the meeting)
If an issue can't be resolved it can be brought up at a quarterly
membership meeting where it goes to majority or super-majority:
https://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/2014-January/041803.html
- dana
p.s. Running something at the intersection of hacker culture & public
space, with a funny decision-making model, in a city under a lot of
social and economic pressures is not easy. I think it's ENTIRELY
REASONABLE to just want to hack without all that, a more 'normal' model
would thrive in this city too, maybe even eclipse NB in popularity or
equipment or technical accomplishment (oh, what I'd give for a nice
laser cutter that wasn't (a) at Tech Shop, (b) in the East Bay, but I
digress).
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