Meeting Notes 2012 02 07

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Agenda[edit]

The 203rd Meeting of Noisebridge

Note-taker: User:Malaclyps

Moderator: Rachel and Tom


Introduction and Names[edit]

  • 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.
  • A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you! Only paid-up members can block consensus.
  • Rachel --- works on stuff!
  • Christopher -- managing spacebridge up to 100,000 ft
  • Zephyr -- he's ... shaolin?
  • Jake -- playing with videocamera and TV, so you can see who you are buzzing in
  • Leif -- into bytebeat, bitshifting to make music
  • Jorgen -- cooks, and taste bridge
  • Rayc -- teaching lasercutting class on Thursdays!!
  • Dana -- fixed her laptop, working on crazy LED things
  • David -- I do iOS development
  • Garrett -- makes robots, new here
  • Daniela -- freegan, if you need anything for free, ASK ME
  • Laura -- doesn't like speaking in public
  • Jimmy Flowers -- graphics at digital compassoin
  • Tom -- fight for the user
  • Danny -- I'm writing this
  • Jared -- Used to be around more, wants to come back more
  • Rebecca -- mostly sews
  • Corey -- makes mistakes
  • Matt -- combines information systems and ecology
  • Gavin -- helping with the zine
  • Dan -- fixing my stuff
  • Will -- does 5mof
  • Daravinne -- does 5mof yelling
  • Justin -- I follow lots of fashion blogs
  • Augustine -- like to be around people smarter than am
  • Kelly -- I'm Kelly I'm the treasurer and doing laundry
  • Shannon -- I'm stirring up trouble
  • Alex -- the physicists
  • Neil -- umm
  • David -- does web programming

Short Announcements[edit]

Zach has been fixing laptops for Noisebridge. Couple of others that are working, but they need a PCMCIA wifi card. Got any? Send 'em in.

Dana is ordering LED blinkies and stuff from sureelectronics.net -- if you'd like to join in, contact her

New or Stale Events[edit]

Rachel says, hey we're doing an unconference at NB.... it's at Represent Yourself

Daravinne says 5mof! Come to [1] and sign up for speaking. Weird, and/or naked.

Tom says Policy Wonks meeting next 5.30PM on Saturday.

Zine get together on Tuesday, Feb 14th -- next week, 6 to 8pm b4 the member meeting! My Noisy Valentine: Zine Release Microparty

Membership Binder[edit]

  • 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.


REMINDER: You may be awesome, but if you don't have sponsors, you can't be a member. Go meet people!

Financial Report[edit]

Funds in bank: $21,612.51 and all the bills are paid!

Noisetor (http://noisetor.net/finances/): about $4000

Consensus items[edit]

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

We discuss Shannon's proposal to spend $100 out of noisebridge funds to buy more keys.

Shannon: I believe there is a larger discussion to have about letting people in the space. I think there are simple actions we can take. But I think the bigger discussions are a rathole.

Alex wishes to state the obvious. Alex is from MIT. He states an obvious thing about keypads.

Kelly says "there's no way I would spend $100 on keys. I WOULD TOTALLY BLOCK, because Noisebridge doesn't spend money on small amounts of things, which could be collected from the community".

We collect money from the community. We reach $100. It is done!

Jake says he will bring his key copying machine in. Shannon and he obviously have things to discuss.

Discussion Items[edit]

The definition and use of membership hiatus.

Tom says read the Talk:Membership and see if they any questions about that. There is a discussion to be had about hiatus and consensus and how the interrelate -- there will also be some discussion on nb-discuss and Talk:Consensus.

Alex announces: I sent an email yesterday about cosmology. How many people would be interested in pending changes in our cosmological model.

Personal safety in the space.

Will says: a number of events have happened-- first Jon, who came in and said

On Monday night I got a message from somebody on IRC, and said he wanted to leave, but somebody had come in with a bunch of friends, and they didn't feel it was safe. I know people have been saying they don't feel safe in the safe, especially at night, especially when there are a lot of people they don't know. Has anyone noticed more craziness than usual?

Justin -- wanted to say these are very tense topics, let's try to be as respectful to one another. Justin asks us to all be non-violent.

Ben -- there has been a significant increase in people who are not regulars, and unfamiliarity is scary, especially when you end up with one person who we had to forcefully eject because they are completely off the wall. It takes time to deal with unfamiliarity.

Rayc -- so safety in the space? I think that definitely having more cool people working on projects helps deflect shanty people because like people attract like people. Jon was a person who was living continuously here. If he wasn't here, the debacle wouldn't have happened because he wouldn't have concentrated on Noisebridge.

Zephyr -- so we've kicked out Jon multiple times, somebody undermined the two people, second time somebody let him back in the space. Apparently he was here last night. This has come about because of increasing levels of extremeness.

Corey -- last week, a couple of weeks before, there has been increased weapons play -- staves and etc. It made me very uncomfortable when people were swinging around swords. Should we ask that weapons not be brandished at NB. There was one guy marching around with a bokken.

Christina -- I have a thought related to the amount of people who come here who are homeless or unhoused. It seems like people at homeless shelters are being sent here. So we should put up more info. Dara and Christina!

      • POTENTIAL SOLUTION -- MORE RESOURCES MADE AVAILABLE **

Danny -- said that he came here at 7AM and there were a bunch of people REALLY NOT SLEEPING HERE.

Eric -- I don't think anyone explicitly let Jon in. As to why people display weapons -- they did it because it was cool. I don't think that homeless resources will make a difference. One guy said "I'm not a shelter kind of guy". Noisebridge is way cooler than anywhere else, and a homeless shelter is not a comparison. Homelessness is not a problem that is in NB's scope.

Daniella -- I'm with Food not Bombs. I'd be willing to write down the guidelines we go by. I think the camera is an excellent idea. Only members can let people in. I feel 100% safe at FnB. We have degrees of sketchiness.

Rounds of applause for the only members can let people in.

Zach -- I introduced Jon. I spent six hours fixing his laptop.I told him it's awesome, and told him that NEVER SLEEP HERE. He definitely knew resources, and was just exploiting his resources. Jon's a smart guy, he knew he was bending the rules. I will say for myself I haven't felt safe, though it's a lot safer in the last few nights. But it's not the homelessness, it's the drug use. People are crazy on drugs.

Aria -- We need to know what these people look like.

Neil -- camera will be huge help.

Kelly

Dan

Jorgen -- the door is jammed open, so talk of the buzzer is misguided.

Leif -- 1) I don't think membership is a good criteria for who lets people in. 2) I don't think the camera is a good idea -- because what does it solve? Also: I've heard lots of reports of people saying they rang the buzzer, and couldn't get in.

Jake -- Shannon and everyone else agrees on a bunch of things. I'd like to talk about stuff. People talked about resource guides. They're not here because they don't know about places. We should say people if they sleep here, we should say they can't come back. We can't convince people to not come back. We can just not let them in. If we let them in they will deal in meth, or EVEN WORSE sleep. We talked about members only would open the door. What if we had a log, we could enter in who you were. Maybe we should let people type in who they are. It's totally a police state.

"It's a lot easier to not buzz someone in, than to get them to leave when they come in."

"If you can't be bothered to deal with who you let in, don't let people in."

What Noisebridge needs is a PERISCOPE. If people rip things down, it's entropic. I want to reply to Leif: bad people are coming in, and it's often the case that we won't let them in.

Kelly -- there's already a bunch of resources. It's not just a question of them not knowing resources, it's a social courtesy. The members opening doors is thing is silly. A bunch of people he asked to leave a few days ago, and that came back last night. Let's invite them to NB, especially Amber. I like the fact that NB is open, but it puts a big responsibility on us.

Access control.

Tom wants to propose a consensus item.

Jared wanted to talk about access control.

Shannon wants to talk about access control.

Laura wants us to practical.

Shannon wants to speak.

WillS wants to move on to access control.


Neil -- camera advantage. I don't know what Jon looks like. There's this thing about stuff disappearing. The camera will be useful.

David -- I don't know much about this system. Why wasn't gatebot not working. Gatebot is a good guard for it.

Brendon -- propose two different systems. A night policy, and a day policy.

Shannon -- I have two things. Places I have worked before like foodbanks shelters -- 1) someone in charge; 2) a set of procedures for when things go wrong and training. We don't have either of those things. We resisted the first. Rather than shout down ideas, and resolve to pick an idea. I think that would get us a lot further.

Rayc -- think a camera would be a great deterrent. Second point would be a time log. Would help identify people if we had some photographs next to the camera. I hopped on IRC right after the incident, and there was a whole bunch of negativity. In addition to the current access, there needs to be outreach to people to let them know it's safe.

Kelly -- I want to describe an access control system. There a place called Essex in Berkeley, it's potentially creepier than noisebridge. They have an inner circle of people like our membership, and they give access codes to people, and they pass the access codes on. And they can see who has those access codes, and revoke those access codes. Since we are committed to hard copied keys. It might work well as a buzzer replacement.

SuperQ notes that we can revoke the keys.

Jared -- I think that there needs to be a balance and making the space accessible to newcomers that are awesome. If you had to know someone to get in here, I'd not be here. I think a compromise would be access control that is open during peak hours to walkins, but more restricted later in the evening.

access to people with keys. I like Kelly's idea of the buzzercode system, than making the physical key lock.

Danny -- Thinks the camera won't work. Thinks we need more training. Man, that guy is such a hippy. I bet he's a closet fascist.

Eric -- putting pictures up. The wiki is a great resource. It's kind of scattered. There is a page on the wiki called 86. Buzzer not a reliable deterrent. How can we not someone in if they're going to keep buzzing? Something's gonna happen.After midnight, people came up and said WE WANT A SOLDERING PROJECT. It was super-inspiring! We want to allow that.

Tom: We need CLEVER TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS to the problem that people don't want to let people in, but let people in.

Leif -- a list of people coming in, or a timelog, we shouldn't be keeping more data. We should be keeping a good example. I don't want there to be a log of when I come into NB. The premise of a CCTV is based on a bad premise of being able to recognise people through a TV whether they're good or not. Talked about The Paradox of the False Positive.

Eric -- agrees that bad people aren't recognisable. Should have off button.

Jake -- I want to talk about a camera. I care about Noisebridge. I see that the vast majority of Noisebridge think its a good idea. You keep saying "what about other people". In 2 in the morning without having to deal with this problem, you're making them deal with it. This is an electronic periscope, a video camera with a TV set at the other end. Objecting to this is about as reasonable, as complaining if we have a peephole.

Eric -- I just want to point out that the fact is that these people are repeat offenders.

WillS -- I'm worried about people tweaking out, and people c utting themself. The problem is the worse case scenario is if someone is on drugs, bad things can happen. 1AM soldering is not a big deal, they can deal with it later.

Corey -- Idea brought up by shannon, of potentially having someone on the floor. I bring this up because we would have the maker board. This idea of some sort of floor authority would allow these things to be addressed.

Tom asks for specific proposals:

Kelly: there was a guy earlier who said who wanted to work on gatebot. David. So I think that it's nice we have the hard keys, possible permanent way. The more I think about it, replacing the buzzer would be a good idea.

Leif: At night, people who don't want to deal with crazy people, shouldn't answer the buzzer. Leif is going to put up a sign by the buzzer.

Shannon: People will let people in, and won't talk to them in the door.

Daniella: About the camera, I understand they don't like it. Ask what their name is. It's very rare that we turn people down, but if.

WillS: Can we please mail their picture to nb-discuss.

Leif: Danny, Miloh, Andy, Snail, Liz are the new board.

End of Meeting[edit]

  • 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.