Meeting Notes 2021 05 11

These are the notes from the The XXXth Meeting of Noisebridge.

• Live notes
  • https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting
• Virtual Meeting (jitsi mic/cam off by default)
  • https://jitsi.noisebridge.io/hackitorium#config.startWithAudioMuted=true&config.startWithVideoMuted=true&userInfo.displayName=%22n00b%22

Date: 5/11

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

Note-taker: Pyconaut

Moderators: James

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

FIXME FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update
• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• pyconaut- he/him- phone lurker today, excited for Noisebridge in person stuff again, playing games and stuff. I first came to noisebridge for the gamebridge in 2015.

James- been around a while. brought here by open source and free software. read nb was in a financial crisis in the local paper.

Sophia- came in jan 2020, fav story is coming to noisebridge late at night after a movie, And talking tell 6am.

Tj- noisebridg since 2019 became more involved during pandemic Spend the night at noisebridge learning flashen taschen.

Dan- Team Noisebridge At Night. 2013 hit Noisebridge hard, met James in sysadmin class. Started love affair with tmux, have officially moved in together. Painting at night started a slippery slope with guerilla wall art. Found computers and creativity after dark most delicious. Still hacking, still here for the blinking lights.

X- Valiantly returned in 2012. Like to party, hack on electronics. Survived several reboots.

Carl- Hack the planet, like fuel pipelines.

Short announcements and events

60-second description per item in bulletpoint.

NeuroTechX SF Hacknights on Thursdays at 6pm, look on NeuroTechSF meetup. We are doing a EEG and capsasin experiment over the next few weeks.

3rd Thursday 5MOF is back.

   5mof is a casual 5 min block of airtime to share what you're working on or other excellence you would like to share. 

X Weekly meeting on Thursdays 5-6pm for hardware hacking. (Outside of NB, virtual)

also check out DIY Robocars on meetup--free spectation, pay for Brazilian BBQ

Gamebridge is still happening on Wednesdays at 8pm on Gamebridge discord.

We are going to start doing Saturday buildouts, stating this week. Check Discuss, slack, discord. Please sign up beforehand--1st first irl NB event or 2021!

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

(What does that mean? How does the Anti-Harassment Policy fit into this? Are we SURE we know what being Excellent is? This is an important and fundamental conversation at Noisebridge, so let's give it like 120 seconds.)

Don't be a butt, be respectful to others. We are a doocracy.

Participation

Everyone at Noisebridge is a participant at Noisebridge.

(What does that mean? How do you get a door key? Access to Slack, Discuss, etc?)

Pyconaut- As noisebridge reopens we need to discuss this a lot! Virtual engagement, and in person engagement. The different levels of in person engagement and what types of Noisebridge activities are excellent to do at the beginning as we build out. When will classes be ok (in person teacher, remote students).

Sophia - Atm small aperture at physical space for traditional NB stuff. Now we are working to make space suitable for that when the time comes. Physical access should prob start with people familiar with NB.

Philanthropists

A Philanthropist at Noisebridge has earned enough trust from the community to open and close the space.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Philanthropists? How do you become one? etc)

Pyconaut- As noisebridge reopens we need to discuss this a lot!

People up for rephilantropication will need to go through multiple tours (as the space changes), and need to learn our safety stuff newly, and how to take care of this new space.

Review last weeks notes and the discussion around Philanthropist

We don't have a general list of active philanthropists, so we will vouch for ppl as they come back around.

• • Discussion: what is a philanthropist right now? **

X- trust with opening and closing space, monthly financial donations.

I support and encourage Sophia and TJ to cruise into philanthropist role.

Sophia- trust is a core component, more then 24 hour access,

Pyconaut- I want to meet people in person before I sponsor them. Thought this will be easy as I should be able to meet people soon and already have an idea of people i am happy to sponsor.

We'll need to give everyone a tour as they come back.

There is almost no carryover of old philanthropists as none have been really active, and the few that have seem to be ok with the reaplication idea.

Dan- opportunity to welcome people back, NB community should be reaching out.

Sophia-- let's bring the noise back into Noisebridge--chatter in slack, forum, jitsi, etc.

Membership Binder

Membership in Noisebridge entails community Trust in Consensus.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Members? How do you become a Member? etc)

X Lots of ways to be a member of the community. Capital M Members have made a specific commitment to engage in the broader operations of NB. They are well trusted by the community

Excellence does not discriminate betwen Members and members. M Members can block big C consensus. M Members serve as a voice for teh broader NB community.

Financial Report

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo.

• Funds in bank:
• Noisetor (See the bulletpoints at the bottom of http://noisetor.net/finances/#summary):
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials
• The latest financial reports from the treasurer are available at https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

Pyconaut- looking at filecoin grants for decentralized web infrastructure, will post stuff on Discuss soon.

Would be happy if someone looked into ADA or education grants that SF might have.

Also hydroponics, disaster prep, and energy independence grants could be useful to research.

X It's excellent to give noisebridge money.

Consensus

Consensus is how the Noisebridge Membership may change how Noisebridge works.

(How does Consensus work? What types of things are good for formal Consensus? What is small-c consensus? What is a "block"?)

2 types: Little c: general buy-in for things that are not permanent.

   Big C: Funding, permanent changes to teh space. Takes at least 2 meetings: A proposal, and a Consensus test. 
   

       C Consensus requires a quorum of least 4 M Members. 

Proposals from last week

(Add any items which are consensed upon or someone has raised a principle objection for to the Consensus Items History page.)

Proposals for next week

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

Discussion

Pre meeting -

Dan will remain a non-Member as long as will be tolerated. That said he appreciates the structure and level of commitment that the few members that there are represent

? The social reality that was created by the physical space at old bridge is gone. Things have also changed a lot since that time

Dan We’ll figure it out—who shows up shows up

? There’s a cost of the social fabric gone, and we need to make a new social fabric. Chance to remake the social fabric and physical fabric of the space

Dan challenge is to keep the tapestry as we reboot

? We can decide social norms now, and bring new bridgers into that as they return

Dan --We'll let people figure it out as they show up.

? What do we plant in the garden here? Space layout affecting our new socialfabricand what people do in the space.

Noisebridge is an international city, we can quickly boot up thanks to our core methods of operations being already well defined.

X First meeting in a long time at a physical Noisebridge. A deceptively small number of people actually maintain the continual functioning of the space.

Discussion Item 1

Cultural fabric at Noisebridge--what do we want our relationship with surveilance to be?

   ex: value in remote participation vs. Chelsea Manning capability 

Pyconaut- How do we announce that things like mics or cameras are active in the space. How do we let people know where they are. Should we add a no recording area?

Sophia- really don't like thje feeling of being recorded while I'm at the space, feed to internet is also not comfortable.

How do we have remote classes.

X This has been while NB has been closed. I also don't like the idea, we should discuss.

X We could have places that are explicitly mic'd and camera's and by default not recorded.

Sophia Should some places (really) be permanently recorded?

NGALAC is a good model, as it has an on air sign and mic and camera cutoffs.

Dan Traditionially, 5mof is streamed, other examples of recording occasionally in space that can be done without everyone in space recorded.

Also, mics are legally potentially dicey, and not good feels. Cameras are lign of sight.

CA is an all parties consent state--can't record people without their consent.

X getting to noisebridge you will walk by ton of cameras and mics, and a lot of Amazon devices are starting to do more indepth surveilance.

X as an example of excellence, the camera live here for the meeting isn't capturing anyone in the public walking by.

X Need more people to step up and take responsibility for managing space. That's the void that cameras serve now.

I think NB should pass the "crazy ex" test. specifically, all members should be able to access the space without being identified by a Member that might theoretically be an ex of the person in question.

   Use the space anonymously

   Hide when/ if they came. 

Also, privacy is where creativity lives, and we're a creative space.

Surveilance is about power. It gives power to those who are watching, and takes power from the watched. Usually supporting the already powerful ove the individual/masses.

Other spaces will see what we do here at NB, and I think we're being forced to show our values about power structure through surveilance.

I would love to contribute to find ways of providing safety and security without surveilance.

X--it gets cold af by 9 at 272.

Pyconaut- I also want to figure this stuff out early on.

Sophia- as part of renewing the community, we can decide what values we foster. Also, what kind of things went wrong at old bridge?

Discussion Item 2

Inclusivity, diversity, participation.

Ex: NB pre pandemic was ~90% male. Also, occasional blow-ups.

X conflict resolution is a constant challenge. Mediation measures are a good investment.

Noisebridge diversity is severely affected by the state of the space safety (do you fell safe in the space or the mission wise and class wise (classes brought most of our diversity). Noisebridge used have classes that were majority low income, and had 50% female or nonbinary, and 30% POC. Gamebridge, and sewing being the ones I noticed the most.

Sophia- what are good classes?

How we do this at the beginning will affect who comes back when.

X- sewing and crafts have historically been great for bringing in female participants and leadership.

Sophia- we are getting a chance to decide values for the new noisebridge.

Things like me driving home class members got a lot of people to feel safe coming to noisebridge late at night.

^ great point

Stitch Master Kyle: [url?] outter shell dot com

X- We have had issues with harassment before, and places like Double Union started up partly do our failures.

Sophia- Understanding what types of harassment we need to look out for is important.

Many other hackerspaces and makerspaces keep an eye on our anti harrasment policy and who we ban and how quickly we deal with issues to see of they can tell their own community members if they can go to noisebridge again.

We, like most communities have toxic chapters.

Also, X and I have had some great discussions about cameras, but the main point was actually the way in which we communicated. Fostering a culture of respect and open communicaton in the face of disagreement. Feels good man

X- If you don't learn from history you are bound to repeat it. And noisebridge has a lot of history.

X- If you see something say something.

Dan- But what do you say, who do you say it to, how do you say it matters as well.

Dan- bring your ladyfriends to Noisebridge. They will have a good time.

FWIW VHS has a ladywelder who would like to help foster women in the shop. Might be others who would want to connect hackers on the gender inclusivity wavelength.