[hackerspaces] New hackerspace in Bulgaria

Tue Jan 27 14:41:36 CET 2009

Hey Vladimir,

My feedback from /tmp/lab experience (cf. http://www.tmplab.org ):
- flat organization structure is best
- We didn't need to setup any kind of XXXcracy at all. People show  
up, some stay to make project, some just idle or past by. No big  
issues. If comments, one important habit is to TALK about it  
(emphasis here).
- Structure comes as needed, and Wiki and Ticket Tracking is a  
wonderful thing (Redmine now preferred to Trac for this).
- Structure is temporary, if a structure is recurrently needed, it  
might be considered as permanent.
- News about project are important and relayed on Wiki.
- We didn't go formal for meetings minute for example, but might go  
for this.
- When we need help from visiting members, we just say it "Oh, we  
would need some help here to wash the dishes of tonight's eating".
- I like the rule that said "Don't do anything that would force us to  
setup another rule" ;-) Not my words, but excellent rules.
- I love Mitch rule "Don't be nice to other people, Be _excellent_ to  
other people" (weird broken english rephrasing)
- There always will be chaos, a primal condition to life. Just try to  
express yourself when it becomes unbearable ;-)

Best,
Philippe.
--
Philippe Langlois
Email: Philippe.Langlois at Gmail.com
PGP Key: 8DAEE244

On 26 Jan 2009, at 22:03, Vladimir Vassilev wrote:

> Hi, guys,
>
> Thanks for the mails so far!
> @Peter, I did watched one of all the recordings, but had no time to  
> check 'em all. In fact it was one of these movies, that enlightened  
> me about your (of Metalab) presence. I hope one day I'll have a  
> little more time to have a better look at all the materials you  
> gave me.
> 'Bout the wiki issue, of course RTFM, but that didn't help. I still  
> can't find a way to edit the label of the page from those forms  
> (and can't find it in manual also) but this doesn't matter right  
> now - thanks for the fix!
> As for Veni Markovski, this guy is really popular here, I just  
> didn't knew he could help us in this, so thanks again for directing  
> us to him!
> @Mitch, yes, I did read the design patterns, but I prefer to get  
> personal opinions from people like you :)
> And about those 30 people.. they are not our members, they just  
> came to our first meeting and seemed interested to the stuff. We  
> will see through time how much will stay interested.
>
> By the way, we are considering applying meritocracy as an order in  
> our organization (having Apache Software Foundation as an example).  
> Do you have any observations on these?
>
> Wish you all the best and a nice evening for Europeans or a  
> pleasant day for Americans!
>
> Vladimir Vassilev
>
> init Lab
> mobile: +359 885 44 84 75
> web site: initlab.startup-bg.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Mitch Altman  
> <maltman23 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, Vladimir,
>
> As Peter said, there is no one right way to organize a hacker  
> space.  I assume you already saw the Hacker Space Design Patterns,  
> but if not, please do -- it is a great resource!  It was a great  
> inspiration in starting Noisebridge, the space I helped start in  
> San Francisco.
>
> Noisebridge has no hiearchy (though we are required to have certain  
> "officers" as required by California law, since we are a California  
> public benefit non-profit corportation) -- officers and board  
> members have the same power as every other member (plus they do a  
> lot of the drudge work to keep Noisebridge alive, but they are not  
> the only ones, since lots of people help), and we run by consensus  
> whenever possible, and so far this has worked out great for us.
>
> Congratulations on already having a group of 30 people!  Keep doing  
> what you're doing, since you are certainly doing a lot right if you  
> have a good group of people already.
>
> There is also no "correct" order of doing things.  Noisebridge  
> started having weekly meetings over a year before we had our space,  
> and we also started having get-togethers for projects long before  
> getting our space.  But once we got our space we asked for  
> donations and within 24 hours received $12,000 -- way more than  
> anyone expected (which came in very handy, since San Francisco is a  
> very expensive place for rent).
>
> Best of luck on your continued success.
>
> Please feel free to ask more questions.
>
> Cheers,
> Mitch.
>
>
> -----------------
> > Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:58:28 +0100
> > From: peter at null.priv.at
> > To: discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] New hackerspace in Bulgaria
>
> >
> > Hello Vladimir,
> > Hi all,
> >
> > On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:40:31 +0200 Vladimir Vassilev wrote:
> >
> > > 2. I just registered init Lab in the wiki of Hackerspaces,  
> but... somehow
> > > managed to mistype it's name as Bulgaria... so now the  
> hackerspace is called
> > > Bulgaria :D Sorry being such a dumb ass, but had never editted  
> wikis and it
> > > is a kind weird that I can't find the place to edit the topic  
> (which should
> > > be "init Lab" and not "Bulgaria"). Any help on that will be  
> appreciated!
> >
> > don't worry, I've fixed that already.
> >
> > Read http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Editing_pages for the  
> first steps
> > on Mediawiki, the software behind Wikipedia.
> >
> > There are some forms available on hackerspaces.org that help to  
> keep the
> > editing simple once the page has been created.
> >
> > see http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Initlab
> > (and http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Init_lab redirects to it)
> >
> > > 3. Back on the serious stuff, what kind of internal hierarchy  
> should the Lab
> > > have? I mean, do we have to stick on the formal stuff -  
> chairman, directors
> > > of the board and so on, or it would be better to be dinamic,  
> structured on
> > > paper only. What do you think of meritocracy and is it  
> applyable in our case
> > > (ASF is a fine example).
> >
> > there is no single right solution, I've already pointed you to
> > http://events.ccc.de/congress/2008/Fahrplan/events/2806.en.html
> > http://events.ccc.de/congress/2008/wiki/Conference_Recordings
> > last week. Don't know if you had time to watch the video. There
> > one gets an idea about some different flavours.
> >
> > There will be a book on hackerspaces, it was targeted to get it on
> > dead trees until the 25C3 but I don't know about the current state.
> >
> > BTW, there was a short thread on the nettime list
> > -> http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0901/threads.html
> > | Harv Stanic: ASCII: Amsterdam Subversive Code for Information  
> Interchange.
> > .nl has a special situation regarding house squatting and a long  
> history
> > on temporary free spaces
> >
> > > I will be grateful to any other advice, comment or whatever :)
> >
> > Often support of privacy and digital rights are topics around  
> hackerspaces.
> > I know a nice, capable guy from http://www.isoc.bg/ who also  
> organizes the
> > http://bg.bigbrotherawards.org/ - maybe you want to chat with  
> Veni without
> > any commitment about mutual support, just let me know.
> >
> > cheers,
> > Peter
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
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