Meeting Notes 2011 10 11

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HOWTO run a meeting.

Pick a moderator, and a note-taker. The note-taker should:

  • write notes in this page, put them back up online when they're done,
  • edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is decided to be up for consensus next week (stuff raised for consensus this week should be publicised for a final decision next week)
  • edit the Consensus Items History if anything was consensed or failed to consense this week.
  • tell treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members.

Moderator should:

  • make sure everyone gets a chance to speak
  • speak minimally themselves
  • keep the meeting moving! you're in charge of summarising the consensus, and/or suggesting things that need to be done!
  • get the membership binders and ensure they are returned to the black desk

Agenda

The XXXth Meeting of Noisebridge

Note-taker: Tom

Moderator: SuperQ


Introduction and Names

  • What Noisebridge is about: "Noisebridge is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."
  • Round of introductions: What's your name, what do you do, and if you are new, how did you hear about Noisebridge? Start with the moderator and go left.
    • Ben - moderating, and wishes to remain anonymous
    • Kelly - treasurer, neuroscientist, insane
    • Dan - is 3 months old. likes making servers. develops games.
    • Gavin - can't wait for the next hacker prom
    • Max - just showed up last week. designs digital art & software. wants to play with our hardware (if you know what I mean)
    • Jesse - likes it when computers escape
    • Carlos - can do perl
    • Cynthia - retired physician. looking for an attorney. likes the kitchen.
    • Heather - archivist at computer history museum
    • Tom - breaks things. tries to fix things. better at breaking than fixing.
    • Kaya - takes things apart and makes them in to new things. has been doing this since yeigh high. it person: c, java. disaster technology [hard to find a job]. unemployed. had directive to move to sf and find a job. loves noisbridge.
    • Rachel - builds wearable interface from fabric. does other stuff too.
    • Anders - wants someone to do his job.
    • Jake - made that robot, but not the software. it has loads of stuff. also made the radiation counter.
    • Mike - technowanderer. only ask him second or third.
    • Liz - developer toiling in drupal mines & writer, blogger. has geek feminism stickers. poet, literary translator
    • John - has not picked up a soldering iron in over a month
    • Michelle - does mushrooms
    • Peter - political theory PhD student. wants to be a hacker not a consumer.
    • Megan - wants to build a robot for someone. not experienced. apparently, noisebridge is robot mecca.
    • MCT - is MCT
    • Matt - 60h as community service here. going to #occupy chicago & wall street this week.
    • Jorgen - loves tastebridge. wants help.
  • A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you! Only paid-up members can block consensus.


Short Announcements

Powering the Occupation

Jake, Zak, & MCT have been working on power at #occupysf. Dropped off the first usb charger today. Bike charger too. [1]

Mushrooms

Biobridge is staring up another batch of oyster mushrooms. Have done one batch which were splendid. Want to automate the humidity controls.

Friends of Noisebridge

Photos of folks who rock Noisebridge. Please add your photo & contact info! Friendly for newcomers.

New or Stale Events

Is there anything new happening at the space? Is there anything that has stopped happening at the space?

  • October 12th 19:30 - dorkbot - People doing strange things with electricity

Dorkbot needs Noisebridge volunteers, anyone want to help? Talk to VonGuard or Rubin.

  • October 15th - 16th - Hackmeet - A two-day unconference and skillshare. Food from foodnotbombs. Revolution! [2]
  • October 16th 14:00 to 17:00 - TOOOL SF - The San Francisco chapter of The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers
  • October 20th 20:00 to 22:00 - 5 Minutes of Fame!

Financial Report

Ducats in bucket: $21486.50

Rent paid a few weeks ago. Much of our cash is Noisetor. Have gone a month without touching the $15000 in savings account. PG&E bill is down 700Wh this month (base case of about 3.3MWh).


Membership Binder

  • Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Write a check on every open application.
  • Anyone up for joining this week (ie have four checks by their name + have two sponsors) should introduce themselves then leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime) for the rest of the group. The rest of the meeting should consense on whether they may join.

People in Process of Appying for Membership

  • Sebastian Lane
    • first time read
    • sponsors: none
    • not present
    • Wants to be a member. wants to learn to sew.
  • Todd Eisenberger
    • has five tickmarks
    • sponsors: none
    • not present

People Potentially Joining this Week

  • Dan Cote
    • sponsors: Miloh, Danny
    • Comments & Response to questions:

Loves noisebridge. opened doors. enjoys noisebridge. Boxors or briefs: bike shorts. Came from Boston. Has only applied to ycominator once. Thinks that consensus is hard to sit throughv but cuts through bullshit & gets things done. Will only block things that he really disagrees with, that affects him (like banning inline skates). Would like to talk with people before it gets to the formal part. Refuses to disclose hacker news comment score. Defines community as: where we each other out, care when we're hurt, and don't fight over nonsense.

    • Discussion behind Dan's back:

Kelly thinks he understands consensu. Miloh has spoken highly of him. Jorgen lived with him for a month: he is excellent. It is the consensus of Noisebridge that Dan is a member.

Consensus items

Power & Lighting

Request: to spend an amount not to exceed $1000 net after rebate, on a $2000 float to pay a contractor to install more efficient lighting throughout Noisebridge. The contractor -- Mark from newlighted.com -- is certified by the SF Department of Environment and by PG&E to get us a rebate on our power bill. He will be performing doing non-inspection-required retrofits. Jim & SuperQ will subsequently move fixtures, though the PG&E money does not depend on this. This budget also includes the installation of dimmable LED spot-lighting to supplement the straight tube retrofits. The fluorescent lights will be ambient and the LEDs will be work lights. It is the consensus of Noisebridge that this work be done.

...to ban Rob 2.0 from entering Noisebridge or participating in the community

Rachel - Have had problematic interactions with him consistently. Many have experienced this. He has not been cooperative, and has always deflected discussion about his behavior. Has slept here. Has been found on the roof, putting his clothes on with some chick. Has refused to attend meetings 3 times. Many folks have worked hard to try to persuade him to behave well, but he has refused. Until he is ready to contribute, he should not be allowed to use the space. Do not have photos of him; he wears saggy pants; talks fast, does not make eye contact; like many noisebridge folks, he is an interesting person.

Gavin - Has been talking to Rachel about this. We find it hard to kick people out. Perhaps we should encourage mentorship/sponsorship.

Rachel - Does not think that Rob wants to engage with the community.

Jake - On Sunday, spoke to Rob, told him to show up, warned him that not showing up might risk banning.

Duncan - Is Rob's proxy.

Jake - On Sunday, ... if he did show up, he became agitated, and stormed off after Jake explained about possible banning. Jorgen pleaded with him to come to the meeting. Jake also pleaded with him to come, and speak up for himself. Stated that he was unsure whether he wanted to be part of our "thieves guild". Threatened to "shut NB down", and to recover "as much as was taken from him" (re: his servers which were thrown out).

Jorgen: Reiterated Jake's Sunday account. Every time Jorgen asked him something, he cooperated. Has brought coffee when asked nicely.

Duncan - Asks that the fact that Rob is not here not be held against him: he has an important but personal reason not to attend. I witnessed the Sunday interaction, and last night's. People have attributed him to saying that he will steal from us: that is not what he said. He is protective of NB, he is a hacker, he likes it here. Jake blackmailed him yesterday, stating that Jake would arrange for someone to rat on him in jail.

Rachel - That's not true.

MCT - Not fine to watch the Blue Angels on the roof. Is fine to work on antennas. How did you become proxy?

Duncan - Spoke on Sunday with Rob. Does not know if he has a recurring conflict on Tuesday. Does not know if Rob can arrange to be here for discussion at other times. Rob is very anxious, and finds it hard to talk in meetings.

Ben - Thinks he is a hacker trying to hack Noisebridge's social system. Has repeatedly stated that he would come to meetings. Has consistently failed to do so as far as I know. The fact that he has consisently not showed up to meetings should say something about him.

Liz - Part of the concerns is that he was running a server with illegal stuff on it, and when called on this threatened us with black hat attack. I support banning him.

Mike - Did destroy two donated footscooters. Destroed Quagga, a computer containing many people's work.

Ben - It's possible that I contributed to Quagga's downfall.

Mike - No, Quagga was all him.

... Ben concurs...

Jorgen - I may have been involved with the scooters, though not completely.

Rachel - Large than any specific negative incident (many of us have broken things or been rude), the material issue is appearing not to care and being unwilling to engage the community. I disagree with some of Duncan's account. I believe that the proxy does not have a full picture of the events, because he was standing across the room at the time, nor have enough info to be a useful proxy.

Jake - Told him that bad things would happen if he *messed with* us, not if he just came to NB. He has a patern of saying "I'm not going to do what you say", then making threats whenever someone trys to engage him on something. We had one demand: that he comes to the meeting. To say that he has a secret activity rght now is BS. He never suggested that he had a conflict: he just doesn't want to be here and to participate in the remediation process of our community. If you're not willing to come to the meeting...[Jake trails off] We're trying to decide if we're going to let this stand, to let someone behave like this here.

Duncan - What about a chaperone, as a compromise, or just at meetings.

Sam - Given that he has a resistance to perveived authority he might resist anyone like a liason or chaperone.

Jorgen - Is only willing to chaperone if he comes to a meeting.

Ben - If the space is being disrupted - by anyone, we need to deal with that. In Rob's situation, we really need to deal with that. He'l ignore a liason.

MCP - We learned from the banning of Patrick that we don't want to ban someone unless they're present or have a chaperone present. I'm not comfortable banning him today andwant to have him come to a meeting first.

Jorgen - He must come to a meeting. I may offer to chaperone at that meeting.

Kelly - When we originally went over banning Patrick, we proposed mediation, and we haven't used it in these recent conflicts. Mediation is somewhat vague term. A neutral third party mediates a discussion between the complainant and the complainee. I was out of town and am happy to mediate. Mediation is really valuable in these sorts of situations. I know I feel more comfortale considering a ban when mediation has happened.

Rachel - I think that mediation only works when he wants to engage. He doesn't. He doesn't want to come to the meeting. Mitch spoke with him a great deal, and that didn't even help. No engagement. This is a part of the conflict process. My concern is that him coming at 4am and fucking some chick on the roof is not productive or acceptable.

Kelly - Sounds like mediation has started, but not finished.

Mike - A UN diplomat suggested that mediation happen on a third, neutral ground. mediation should happen someowhere outside Noisebridge.

Liz - Likes mediation. Wants mediation before he be allowed to return. At some point someone offerred to give him something equivolent to what was thrown out. That might help a lot

Ben - If what was said about him making an effort to show progress. He hasn't followed through on any of those efforts as far as I know. He keeps saying he'll come to meetings, but he never has. He's never come to meetings, nor engaged in mediation. He has a pattern of not engaging in any process to fix things.

Warren - I mention mentoring rather than mediation. Mediation is a conflict. Mentoring is support, rather than conflict.

Dan - The chance of him coming to any meeting are slim. We should make him come to a meeting before he comes back. He may be anti-social, arrogant, but he may be able to hurt us.

Ben - We must not fear him.

Kelly - I think that we should foward with asking him not to return until he seeks mediation, or comes to a meeting.

Rachel - What if nobody with a problem with him are at that meeting?

Jake - You're saying that people with a problem with him need to come to every meeting forever, on the off chance that he shows up?

Kelly - Fine, he needs to give notice.

Ben - Some people have anxiety. Perhaps he can either come to a meeting or come to outreach?

Kelly - Mediation or a notice & meeting must be complete before he comes back.

Lillia - He's been told this before. He hasn't cooperated. What's the change here?

Gavin - It seems like a lot of problems happen at 4am.

...SuperQ proposes a consensus item wording... we gradually modify it over the next few minutes, with some additional discussion...

SuperQ: Ws the value of having him around worth this time spend discussing it?

Rachel: We value the process, and it is important that folks not come here and be poisonous.

...SuperQ agrees.

Ben - His personal problems do not interact with this problem. His disruptions far outweigh any good he could do.

Jake - After Kelly meets Rob, we won't need such long conversations, because she'll agree.

MCT - I am not comfortable with the idea that he needs our consensus to return. this is basically a ban.

Rachel - I agree witht he semantics. but...

MCT - I don't see the fix.

Rachel - He tries to impress people, and we want to make it hard.

...we haggle over the wording of proposed consensus until we find something with which all present concur...

...The following is agreed:

Be it the consensus of Noisbridge that the issue of banning Rob 2.0 (a.k.a. Dank) be deferred until either he or his advocate Mitch or Kelly, gives fair notice and attends a meeting. Until that time he is unwelcome at Noisebridge.

... we are briefed on the 311 system ...

... we need to contact Rob and inform him of this decision...

Discussion Items

None

End of Meeting

  • PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
  • Put back the membership binder in the black desk.
  • Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
  • Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
  • Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
  • Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.