Meeting Notes 2026 02 10

These are the notes from the The 852nd Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date	2026-02-10
Note-takers	Nthmost, Elan
Moderators	Jet

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Meeting Summary

• Fundraising Update: None
• Announcements: Spacebridge launch Feb 21st; upstairs stereo project completed (3 synced stereos)
• Finances: Spending needs discussed - shelving ($1200-2000), 3D-printed organization (filament), potential bridge.net domain ($35k)
• New members: None
• New associates: None
• Consensus Items: None
• Discussion Items: 1) Membership naming legal implications (ongoing, lawyer consultation needed), 2) Fashion Pop-Up March 28 (approved), 3) GrillBridge fundraiser (approved), 4) ATL clarification for WEZ (resolved - can return), 5) Board elections planning (process TBD), 6) High-trust Discord channels & conflict routing (structural discussion, Space Guardians transition)

Introductions

• Ask people to share their name, access needs, and preferred gender pronouns what they do at noisebridge

• name (pronouns): introduction
• Angelo (he/him): I like / love the new CNC macine
• Elan (he/they/whatever): that I can find cool colaborators for cool projects
• Daniel (he/him): three.... deee...
• Julius (he/him): I like that it's free - not for me but if you need it to be
• Loren (): Infra
• Daniel (he/him): I like the electronics room.
• Caitlyn (): I made the food/wine.
• Zacchie (): I like the culture.
• Naomi/Nthmost (): I like hacking on weird culture/art/tech interfaces.
• Anh (She/her): I like working on graphic design stuff
• Mark (He/They): I like the potential
• Jet (They/Them): I like the people.
• Blitzkreig/Chris: Mostly associated with the wood shop. Helping Ken put up the shelves and teaching a bit on wood shop Wednesday.

Short announcements and events

• Spacebridge launch on the 21st!
• Finally completed upstairs stereo project! 3-stereos in-sync. if anyone wants to help set it up as a Spotify or Airply speaker, lemme know if you've done that. Lemme teach how to turn it b/c it shuts down when the space shuts down at night.

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

• Jet: Excellence is like the golden-rule. Treating others how you'd like to be treated as well as how they would like to be treated!

What does that mean? Please see our page on excellence https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Excellence!

Anti-Harassment Policy & Community Standards of Excellence

Noisebridge has an Anti-Harassment Policy https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Anti-Harassment_Policy Everyone is expected to follow the Anti-Harassment Policy, please familiarize yourself with it.) TWO MINUTES MAX More approachable & specific guidelines, https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Community_Standards https://safespace.noisebridge.net/ is one way to quickly raise issues which will be seen by people in Slack.

Brief Kudos

• Julius: Thank you everyone for helping rearrange the place! Thank you Jet for repairing.
• Naomi: Elan for making himself available for a very difficult emotional conversation
• Jof/Naomi/SuperQ: for being intermediaries for getting us infra keys.

Guilds & WGs

• Rubber-Ducky Guild: We have a new duck -that needs a name- on top of the amplifier next to beyla, the music server. A little green guy w/ sunglasses. (Maybe MC Escher ?! -Perry's suggestion)

New Members/Associate Members

• Monthly revenue, expenses. Big projects. Big fundraising events. Reserves in bank.
• 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

Spending Needs

• Naomi: Shelving completion will likely cost between $1200-2000
• Angelo: We should do more 3D-printed organization systems. This would need filiment support.
• Elan: For the 'low-low-low price of $35k we could acquire bridge.net allowing us to run *.noise.bridge.net

Discussion Items

1: Membership Re-Re-Naming - legal implications?

From/Raised by: Daniel + Loren Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] On topic: Membership Re-Re-Naming - legal implications?

Background:

   * Noisebridge exists as 501c3 in the eyes of federal/CA govt.
   * These entities expect us to have "membership" and a "board".
   * These officiers/board are legally responsible.
   * By labeling everyone who comes through the door a "member", by one interpretation of our bylaws means anyone can vote on board.
   * This ambiguity could lead to legal dicey.

Naomi: the way this actually works in the wild is that you're asked to furnish a list on demand -- and the board can furnish exactly the list that is relevant to the ask.

Loren: well if you're worried about entrenched power structures...

Elan: This was one of the reasons for the tounge-in-cheek suggestion of "member-in-the-eyes".

Jet: do you have a solution you're considering?

Elan: We could amend the bylaws to say something more explicit, e.g. "members for the purposes of the 501C3 legal requirement". We could add language clarifying what is meant by this.

Daniel: it seems like the wiki is again down and i can't resolve the DNS. the bylaws just say we have our own internal naming scheme. if we want to change the names as proposed, we can change it to hacker, x hacker, whatever the fuck else, i've brought up on discord and was shot down that if this is a legal risk we can ask a lawyer for advice.

Loren: Concern I expressed and also by nicole -- we should clarify in the bylaws what these all mean.

Naomi: I would say choosing to amend the by-laws would cost a lot of community time. They have never been changed. This would be walking down new territory and this might be the wrong threat to be concerned about.

Julius: I'm looking at the by-laws now and there's stuff in there like the fact that we're at 83C Wiese [oh damn, that was NB's first space] and so maybe it would be good to just all-at-once edit the bylaws to correct + update

Elan: I don't want to voluntell anyone to do this but does anyone have a contact w/ a lawyer that can help w/ this?

Loren: yeah i can try, i might know somebody

2: Fashion Pop-Up

From/Raised by: Jawa + Joseph Seeking: approval On topic: Fashion Pop-Up

Jawa: March 28 on a Saturday -- Marketlike experience probably downstairs

Jet: if you could host in day time it could be better since we try to avoid night events

Jawa: no alcohol - some music

Jet: Do you need help with setup?

Jawa: Yeah just someone to clear the tables downstairs

Jet: Okay just ask people around to help out with. I run the NB insta account feel free to connect with me after!

Naomi: General advice: check our 86 page before running events

Loren: Last two years there have been concerns about fundraisers that didn't actually pan out to make any money for the space and inviting ppl who are in that community who are banned

Naomi: not saying i don't believe you but also they're not promising a fundraiser...

Joseph: plan on bringing ppl who are interested in coming to NB -- or we could sell tickets

Jet: up to you guys! Are you guys making money from this event?

Joseph: we have an upcoming fashion show that we'd like to fundraise for

3: GrillBridge

From/Raised by: Caitlyn Seeking: approval On topic: GrillBridge

Caitlyn: I go fishing - I'd like to grill stuff and charge people money for NB

Jet: OK sounds good

4: ATL Clarification

From/Raised by: Wheezy Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] advice On topic: ATL Clarification

WEZ: On Feb 2nd I was ATL'd and the original message that was sent to me, was asking me to leave for one week and then edited for 2 weeks. What should I do?

Naomi: Zack asked WEZ to ATL for a week but edited it to 2 weeks. Does it matter though...since Zack is not here. Zack has ATL'd himself indefinitely, tho i got him to agree minimum 2 weeks. The stuff that Zack is saying to WEZ is very excessive (like mutually assured destruction kind of thing, will not repeat here).

Daniel: ATL can be cut by consensus (impromptu)

Loren: I want WEZ to just return without having to warp consensus in weird ways

Blitz: IDK what happened IDC just solve your shit and leave it at the door -- my personal opinion ofc but being excellent is not being a dick. Zack doesn't wanna come back fine if WEZ wants to comeback then cool just resolve the conflict WEZ: I apologized to Zack and I also apologize to Julius for interrupting the conversation. If anyone else is offended by my words and actions please say so and seek me out

Julius: TY WEZ -- can you keep the peace if Zack is in the space? Can you be chill? It's better to reset to normal than ignore each other completely so can you do that?

WEZ: Yes I can

Loren: To WEZ & community -- it's excellent to respect the ATL and just leave the space, thank you. It's excellent to ask the meeting and willing to respect a "No", thank you.

Elan: I don't think it's a safety concern and it's not gonna be worse if you come back but it may be escalated on Zack's part if you do.

Julius: We have to treat Zach with the presumption that he can process his emotions from here out. If that turns out not to be the case, we can't preemptively protect him from that.

Naomi: Elephant in the room: conflicts happen either way and we can't just leave them at the door. There are straightforward processes for resolving conflicts if people are willing to meet each there. I see the conflict w/ Zack as fundamentally pretty resolvable, and I'm slightly annoyed WEZ bc now you're using community time as a platform to express your complaints with the person *annoyed*. (why: b/c Zack isn't in the room, so you get to say whatever you want about Zack to a sympathetic audience who was already inclined to bring you back, dawg... --nthmost)

WEZ: To Elan - it's more of a question of what I should do. To Naomi - I think it's bigger than me and more of a question for the community.

5: Board Elections!

From/Raised by: Naomi+Everyone Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] TAKE ACTION On topic: Board Elections!

Naomi: we need to take action

Elan: We're getting ready for board elections! we will send out a nomination thing, decide how we're electing

Jet: how do we decide who's electing?

Naomi: Core Members

Loren: we've let associate members participate.... [Naomi: what?!?]

Jet: how has it been held in the past?

Loren: various different voting processes

Jet: let's make a Consensus item for How Do We Do a Proposal

Loren: big-C Consensus?

Elan: no like small-c but we talk about it online

Julius: everyone should read the bylaws -- notification, proxy voting, stuff like that

Elan: you need to give your legal name if you're on the board

Naomi: point of board is a legal API to the world -- not for obtaining power

Elan: people resign -- they are not removed from the board...I resigned (/tried resigning? what is my legal status lol)

6: Secret Cabals and how we impart legitimacy of authority around here

From/Raised by: Naomi Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] Not sure On topic: How we impart legitimacy of authority over the culture in the space

Naomi: I'm seeking to disseminate knowledge that is not well understood about how people who are at noisebridge for a long time sort of by default operate in a way that not everyone understands.

A lot of this happens on discord where people are offered a "steward" level membership where people can talk about things like immediate threats to the space

But we don't have any mechanism for pulling people out of those high trust positions. And it's an issue because there are people who I personally don't trust who are in these channels. I'm thinking especially of people who don't even live in the state anymore, who are out of touch with the day-to-day operations. I don't think those people are in a position to make major decisions about the space.

There have been things that have affected me personally where I tried to enforce a boundary with a person, and a screenshot was shared with someone, which was a serious violation of trust.

Loren: this may give the conversation more rails than perhaps you want, but what are some concrete outcomes that you would want?

Naomi: sunlight to disinfect

Zacchae: the premise of having these cabals of police sounds very anti-anarchist. So if you don't feel like this is good, maybe instead of thinking about how to kick people out of this space, why not start another group/channel?

Elan: I think this topic is on point for the "tyrrany of structurelessness", Jo Freeman. We try not to have organizational hierarchies, but then those become (get replaced by) social hierarchies. So there were things going on, like people sleeping in the space, and this was like a list of people to put on a news blast who can respond in a timely way. I heard it described as like the "adult table" where people are taking on dealing with these things (unpleasant things).

Loren: I think this channel has been around since 2024, maybe a bit earlier, 2023. I think I made it with Mark. When creating the channel, I put the year in the channel, so people would be inclined to let it die, age out. Because when you get added to a guild, people don't leave. I've registered a complaint every year that the channel should die or have turnover.

Naomi: - part of the difficulty that I encountered with this channel is that there is no agreement about how it is supposed to operate...One thing we need in the space is better conflict routing principles. We do need some kind of protective mechanism. It probably needs to be some kind of protected chat, otherwise there's no psychological safety. When we initially created Space Guardians in 2016 that was the initial trial of this (in Slack), and it was a place where ppl shared interpersonal conflicts in trust, to actually help ppl. this hasn't seemed to work the same way.

Julius: Yeah, I think we should let it die. I think we had a situation that involved that chat, that crossed the year boundary.

Naomi: +1 to everything. There is a difference between space safety vs interpersonal conflict/?emotional safety. I was thinking of making something specifically for dealing w/ interpersonal conflicts that shouldn't be conflated w/ dealing w/ immediate threads. I just don't want to be seen as doing some weird power grab by creating something new.

Julius: I don't want to open up the convo too much but we used to have a QR code safespace bot. This felt very impersonal and you didn't know where it'd go to. I would like to plant the idea of having specific people volunteer to be contact people, and have their names and faces attached to QR codes so that they can be reached individually. That way people can have some agency and have more trust in the person who is handling the issue.

Elan: As a fun point-of-information, SpaceGuardians has become "Space Animal Gifs". We have a policy for access-members being "be responsible for the space". There has been an un-spoken sort of carry-over

Naomi: right, your princess is in another castle. just kicking the can down the road. oh and fun fact, the person i mentioned who's out of state and thinks of themselves as the enforcer is the person who changed the name of that

Jet: [watching time, trying to be a good moderator] before we go further, I want to go back to what we said was the original discussion topic and make sure....

Naomi: oh, this is exactly how I was hoping for this to unfold.

Zacchae: These interpesonal convos have been described as gossip but that's what it is. These are human organic people trying to share info in a way that makes sense. This is how people coordinate in an anarchist space.

Naomi: Yeah, it's gossip - but we're talking about trust groups, and skill groups. The group's skill was so widely variable, that someone in the space-guardians groups, shared that I was trying to hold a boundary (along w/ the screenshot of me communicating that boundary), WITH the person in question w/o my consent. I have guesses on who that was by process of elimination. Regardless, what happened is that the person i was holding the boundary w/ chose to frame this as "defamation" and was also told this was a "public" discord channel. I was then accosted about this by a 3rd party and had panic attacks for a week. So we're gonna call this a *skill issue* and note that maybe we need 2 groups, not just one -- to Julius' point also about QR code routing

Loren: groups like this will exist again in the future. this seems phrased in a maximally "gossip-y" way, high emotional valence. this is how people make order, when we eschew other kinds. People should know who they trust. I think you've succeeded in getting support for your goal of specifically (rhetorically) de-legitimizing this specific group

Jet: I also have similar grievances with high-trust groups limiteing access to API keys etc, and then just ditching. And we don't have any way to track them down. I know some of the major issues with our infra are being resolved. I am fine with having groups like space guardians *exist*. But we need to have those groups shared with people who can be like, you're leaving and we still need to have access to this thing. There should never be a situation where just one person has access to this thing.

Naomi: Yeah so the reason I was able to get SuperQ's attention [for Ansible help] within 15 minutes while other people called him "hard to reach" was because I maintain relationships with people. I check in with them. I don't come to Noisebridge to have *another job*. This place is made of people. That was also the point of the guild system. It's simultaneously a knowledge-transfer system and also helps people be in relationship to each other.

[more chatter about the tyranny of structurelessness]

(the tyranny of structurelessness btw stipulates that tyranny doesn't follow from anarchism, it follows from failure to *define structure* where tyrannical gossip-y backfills are likely to cause harm. see also our very own page on Anarchy which i didn't even mostly write!! --nthmost)