This is awesome! Last week I met up with a couple of people about
starting a hackspace- before I found out about CHP. Our thoughts were
mostly aligned with the discussion so far but with a few additions:
A) hookup with one of the educational arts organizations in town for
space. In exchange for space their students would have easy&free
access to the technical seminars as well as the social network of a
hackspace.
B) exploit member contacts for a good rate on a rental property. Who
knows people with property?
C) How to ensure that the hackspace is not a total sausage-fest. We
don't want the hackspace to become entire straight white male. So how
do we 1) make the space comfortable for people that don't look like
us? 2) pull in people who traditionally don't engage in the creative/
constructive end of not-work?
D) We decided that framing the expenditures as recreational was useful
because it reduced concern about destruction of assets and was
competitive with other recreation forms in hedonhours/$.
IMO. I like the ideas. I think C brings up ethical issues that our group hasn’t covered yet. Of course we can and should adopt policies to prevent discrimination and prejudice. I am a male and I would be offended and upset if others were using the hacker space to go to NSFW content. This is especially true if we go for grants and public fund drives.
Wat? Does this mean I can’t have a 4chan /b/ app for the digital frame?
I don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable but I really hate censorship. I can see showing restraint in published articles, projects etc…but not for private ones. If a few people want to get together to build a pr0n bot or a bible bot is their choice.
While I don’t think we should hang NSFW posters up everywhere, we all know that what drives the backbone of the internet and is the number one funding is NSFW. I would suggest not focusing the group on sex/race/ethics/religion/politics/sexual preferences. If the group ends up being a “suasage fest” … and you are not into that kind of thing … then goto a night club like normal ppl do.
If you use the internet you know how to deal with things that are offensive or NSFW. Turns out offensive and NSFW things don’t really hurt you. IMO we should not address any of these topics in our policy but instead provide a warning like PG-13+ (contents may contain suasages)
FWIW, IMO
- censorship blows. NSFW is NSFW...but we're not at work. If someone
is offended, that is their problem.
- like censorship, discrimination and prejudice blow equally (and IMO
are just another form of censorship).
- perhaps there should be clearly defined guidelines of acceptable
conduct, such as no pr0n in public articles. ("censorship"?...maybe,
but a necessary evil in this case )...but is it really needed? Aren't
we all just going to be responsible?
- people have to be responsible and ethical. If they are not, then the
group must enforce limits on their participation and involvement in
accordance with the above mentioned guidelines. "We reserve the right
to tell you to GTFO!!"
You are spilling alot of bits over making rules for a space that doesn’t even exist yet. Until we know how this thing is going to be funded and where it’s going to be this kind of discussion is academic. I really think this meeting needs to focus on the space and how were going to fund it.
I completely agree - censorship blows. I would like to think that as a group there can be a reasonable expectation of respect for views, opinions, beliefs, and channels that may be different from one’s own preferences. I don’t know that I would put a 4chan /b/ picture frame up in my living room, but that would sure be a lot of fun to hack around with to get it to work!
As much as it irks me, I think that as group like this with a common/shared area it will be necessary to at least have some documented principles and/or guidelines. Overall - I agree that we will all be responsible, but if it gets to the point of having to tell someone to GTFO, then there will be no misunderstanding ‘why’ the group said so. Though, as far as I am concerned that can be as simple as “the Hive no longer requires your services - GTFO”
Oh, and btw, hey there, all. I have just started following this group and have a real interest in seeing a Cinci HackerSpace come together. If I don’t see you all tomorrow, I will definitely sometime soon.
if you want diversity in the space, i am all for it. we are going to be a community after all, so diversity is always good.
we are already seeing some cultural exchange between some of the hackers from 2600 and people who don’t believe strong crypto is a moral obligation
as for creativity, i love electronic art and music, though i have talent for neither. i know some people in the group are artists and/or musicians so maybe we can look into some studio type stuff for making music and displaying finished pieces of art in the non-workshop areas. maybe a small soundproof booth for recording? it doesn’t just have to be for music, it could also be used for recording podcasts or voiceovers for instructional videos
at the very least we need a small platform/stage so we can have dualcore perform at the grand opening
as for discrimination and censorship, i think we are all intelligent and responsible adults and we can deal with bad behavior as it comes up. it’s obvious that if we are having events where outsiders/visitors will be in the space we shouldn’t be blasting music or video with explicit material during said events, just like it’s obvious that we should all treat each other with respect and not deliberately offend each other. i also think that fill a place with tools and computers makes it impossible to maintain a G rating all the time. my wife measures the difficulty of a project by the profanity involved, i would imagine that others do as well.
as for the space being a sausage fest, you’d be surprised how many female makers and hackers are out there. every hacker con i have been to has some knitting thing there, and while i do not understand the connection between hacking and knitting, it think it’s pretty cool that there is one. there is no reason that the space can’t also be used for crafting in addition to making and hacking.
i have raised the suggestion of a widows and orphans club where members’ kids and significant others can come and not be bored. i always secretly pity the wife or girlfriend that gets dragged to 2600 meetings if others agree that it merits more discussion, maybe we should put it on an agenda.
I think that was very well said and I like the idea of artist space. Those cultures have always blended together anyhow. IMO we should leave it off of tomorrows agenda and focus on getting a good space.
Yeah, I take my g/f with me wherever I go (to every 2600 meeting as well) so would there be a problem with bringing her regularly? We can’t really afford 2 membership fees, but I can’t see her really using any equipment other than watching me do something or using her laptop.
Also, on names, what does everyone think of “The Hive” “The Collective” or some Borg-like variation? C’mon trekkies, I know you’re out there ;D.
My vote is to allow guests. I can envision membership as giving access keys to the room (maybe at certain times depending on members, like hotel cards). Also access to the VPN and the code repositories of the projects we are working on.
But I would like to think others could just hang out as long as they don’t abuse the situation.
We are not to the stage in this process where we are making these
kinds of decisions yet; the point of these early groups are to put
framework in place so that decisions can be made moving into the
future. These early meetings are about building mechanisms and
structure (as well as infrastructure).
The agenda for tomorrow's meeting is largely about the business and
structural organization of the space, the methods of governance and
decision making, and finding a space. While there's no harm is
discussing these sorts of questions, I would be wary of spending any
significant time on them during our meetings (yet).
i agree with jason. we are so early in this process, that while discussing things is great, we should all be patient with the process, and with each other.
i think the project is barely a month old, and there is so much we need to do and i am afraid that a lot of the preliminary stuff is not that exciting, but in time we will get to work on the cool stuff, i promise
in the mean time please continue to brainstorm. liveley discussion is where the good ideas come from
