[hackerspaces] Children in hackerspaces.

[Adam D Bachman]

> hold the hackerspace responsible for endangering a minor

The courts are not populated with zombies, they can think about whether
intent to cause harm or ignorance of risk were involved on the part of the
space. I have to sign waivers everytime I take my kids to do *anything*
physical. Sports leagues, climbing gyms, summer camps; they all require me
as a parent to give my explicit permission. "Do you know what you're getting
into?" But even though I sign, if they get a raging alcoholic bus driver who
takes the kids off a cliff, I'm going to get very litigious.

The courts exist to punish the guilty and malicious. If you are putting
anyone, child or adult, at physical risk by something you, the organizer, do
or fail to do, then you are guilty. If person A leaves bare mains leads
exposed and unmarked and person B gets electrocuted to death, then yes,
person A was negligent and is going down. Solutions include: don't be stupid
and leave dangerous projects unsecured, don't let people use dangerous tools
and equipment inside the space (or outside the space if the hackerspace is
taking responsibility) without training, don't let people bring anything
that is designed or intended to kill humans into the space at all. I'm not
saying any of these are rules hackerspaces should follow, just that they're
guidelines for minimizing risk.

This is general liability stuff, not child specific rules. I work in a
"normal" white collar office, but if a box falls off a self and breaks my
face, work has to pay because they didn't provide a safe work environment.
If you work in the USA, you've got a poster that says about the same hung
somewhere in your workplace too.

> That we're sacrificing not only the future of Hacking in general, but
THE FUTURE for *insurance reasons* strikes me as a horrendous FAIL.

Well that's a bit dramatic, but all this does speak to why people wouldn't
want to put official labels on something that's been happening for a long
time up until now. Once you invite anyone to do anything, you kind of take
responsibility for what happens to them in the interim. This also, has
always been true. Solutions include: be excellent to one another and party
on.

> That this conversation ended this way signals to me that Hackerspaces
have peaked

Well if they're higher than they've ever been, then by definition they've
peaked ;) We don't know what we'll see over the next rise till we're
standing on top of it. Perhaps the next ridge over will be more interesting.



- Adam

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Sean Bonner <sean at seanbonner.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Serendipity Seraph <sseraph at me.com>
> wrote:
> > But what exactly is a minor?
>
> In the united states this is a legal definition - anyone under 18
> years old is a minor regardless of how skilled or competent they are.
> What that means is anyone under 18 is assumed not to be old enough to
> know right from wrong, safe from dangerous and therefor that
> responsibility lies on someone elses shoulders. What this means is a
> 17 year old could be at a hackerspace and burn him/her self with a
> soldering iron and that persons parents (or in some cases even the
> city) could hold the hackerspace responsible for endangering a minor
> and sue and or arrest them. If the same thing happened to a person who
> was 18 the courts would assume the person was responsible for
> themselves and no one needed to be watching them because they are
> legally an adult.
>
> It's dumb, but it's the law.
>
> -s
>
>
>
> >  I know some 7 year olds who can hack rings
> > around me in certain domains and are at least as little accident prone.
> > Then I know some dear grown up geeks that I wouldn't want to see moving
> > around much away from their domain of expertise without supervision.   :)
> > At the very least a lot of teenage hackers should not be a big issue.
> > - samantha
> > On Jan 25, 2010, at 7:47 AM, Matt Joyce wrote:
> >
> > Preface:
> > I think kids should be allowed in hackerspaces when conditions make that
> a
> > sane parenting move.
> >
> > Characters:
> > Tommy Juvenile
> > Dave Derelict
> > Tim Hacker
> > Maxine Maker
> >
> > Setting: A random hacker space in present day United States.
> >
> > Act I:
> >
> > Maxine and Tim enter
> >
> > Tim:  wow this is awesome, we're hacking up a storm.
> > Maxine: hell yes it is.  I just attached a cat to another cats back and
> > through it off a roof...  I've violated the fundamental laws of
> conservation
> > of energy.  Next!  Toast!
> >
> > Act II:
> >
> > Maxine and Tim are hosting an open hackathon
> > Dave Derelict enters with his son Tommy Juvenile
> > Tim: Hey Dave, brought the kid today eh?
> > Dave: Yeah, he loves this stuff
> > Tommy stares blankly
> > Dave unpacks and gets to work assembling a fine product from american
> vendor
> > adafruit.  Go USA!
> > Maxine: Hey Tim come help me hoist up this antenna on the roof.
> > Tim: Okay, Dave you have the helm.
> > Dave: leave it to me!
> > Dave solders away
> > Tommy is wandering around
> > Tim and Maxine exit
> >
> > Act III:
> >
> > Tim and Maxine enter
> > Dave is finishing up his kit
> > Tommy is lying under a collapsed shelf
> > Tim:  Jesus Christ!
> > Maxine: I'll call 911
> > Dave:  This thing is so cool.
> > Tommy gives a death rattle.
> >
> > Act IV:
> >
> > Tim and Maxine are sitting under a box eating cat food.
> > Tim: We had waivers..
> > Maxine: We had insurance..
> > Together: Why the hell did we attach our names to this...
> >
> > Big Dance Number.
> >
> > Obviously a worse case scenario.  But it closely mimics a real scenario
> that
> > almost played out at nycr.  What you need to realize about US liability
> is
> > that it absolutely is 100% non functional.  TORT reform has been wanted
> by
> > most people for 30 years.  But beyond that, courts always rule in the
> > interests of what is best for the welfare of a child.  One major injury
> to a
> > child under any circumstances would be the end of your hackerspace.
> > Insurance would likely cover it, but you'd be unable to pay increased
> fees
> > and find a new provider.  And that's best case.
> >
> > Additionally some folks just don't want to deal with kids sometimes.
> Which
> > I get as well, but that's neither here nor there.
> >
> > Simply put though, a kid could easily hurt themselves in our space.  And
> we
> > would cease to exist for increasing values of hurt.
> >
> > -Matt
> >
> > You can argue with that logic as much as you want, but we did our
> homework
> > at nycr and contacted local legal minds.  Our rule against kids was base
> > mostly on this single issue.  I was among an almost non existent group of
> > dissenters, but I clearly recognize the sanity in choosing to disallow
> > children in US spaces.
> >
> > On Jan 25, 2010 9:25 AM, "jur1st" <jur1st at cowtowncomputercongress.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Our memberships apply to households and if a kid isn't of legal age to
> enter
> > into a contract their parents must sign on their behalf.
> >
> > Parents (that would be involved in hackerspaces) aren't stupid and even
> with
> > our new CNC machine, we don't have anything down there more dangerous
> than
> > what you might find in a high school shop class or down at the vo-tec.
> >
> > For what it's worth, our insurance provider didn't specifically ask about
> > minors using the facility.
> >
> >
> > - jur1st
> >
> > On Jan 25, 2010, at 7:55 AM, Eric Gerlach wrote: > On Mon, Jan 25, 2010
> at
> > 01:16:53PM +0100, webm...
> >
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>
>
> --
> Sean Bonner
> http://www.seanbonner.com - homebase
> http://www.metblogs.com - get local
> Unless agreed upon, assume everything in this e-mail might be blogged.
> Sent from Marina Del Rey, CA, United States
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