[hackerspaces] Cleanliness in your Hackerspace?

[Mars brown]

Ya, issues about organizing and respect can kill a space.
My personal noise/glitchcore studio next to Gumbolabs is a trainwreck...
because that's how I roll.
BUT in gumbolabs we have biannual cleaning days.  We actually end up getting
more people there than regular meets.
It's a pretty small place - 12'x30'....

What has worked for us is to have try to make it as easy as possible for
people to store stuff - and encourage it nicely.
I understand the frustration... but expressing it without control (believe
me I'm good at loosing control) really will make it worse.

I believe in ENABLING order - such as putting up cubbies on the wall and
putting names on them.
Set simple rules like - table must be cleaned off after you are done for the
day.
It's ok if an ongoing project stays out... but they need to announce it like
this in respect of the space and others.
" hey gang - I'm working on this big project and left it out ... is that ok
with everyone... it'll be out of there in a week or two.. MAX!  serious
though... if anyone needs the space or is planning anything.. let me know.
It's a little delicate and I'll come move it myself."


And downright making rules - but in a friendly way - of if you don't follow
the basic golden rules of

"RESPECT THE SPACE AND YOUR FRIENDS BELONGINGS"

"BE AWESOME TO EACH OTHER - WE LOVE YOU SO LOVE US!"  (no offense but you
sound like you skimmed that one close yelling - i woulda too prolly - I'm
getting better :)

"IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH MISTER ROGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD WHEN YOU WERE A KID - WATCH
IT AND TAKE NOTES BEFORE YOU COME BACK IF YOU ARE A MESSY PERSON"

"THIS IS NOT YOUR BEDROOM - YOUR MOM IS NOT HERE - YA GOTTA BITE THE BULLET
AND BE CLEAN HERE! - IF YOUR CUBBY ISN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR YOUR MESSY
DISPOSITION - BRING A BIG CONTAINER AND ASK WHERE YOU CAN KEEP IT -- NO
ROTTEN SAMMICHES IN IT EITHER"

Worst case scenario... in a freindly way... let the culprit know he's
uninvited as far as full access for a little while... sorry it has to be
that way... but we love ya anyhow... but totally keep coming to open hack
nights!

We also sort of try to sponsor newcomers... so a regular member is
responsible.  New comers usually respect that person since they can only go
when their sponsor comes...

I know it all sounds like alot... but it's ideas - we quickly got to a point
where we didn't have to have any rules...
but we're mostly adults over 20's.

Seriously though... friendly interactions work but aggression makes it
worse.  Again... I got that issue too.
If you're the only one who gives a rat's behind... bail and start something
else maybe.

Sorry bout your computer... but cubby's help lots for that too if it's a
lappy.

Just some ideas!  Peace!
OH and my big thing is, again, ENABLE ORDER!  - make it easy for people to
stay organized.
Bring up how can we put more personal storage in - in a meeting.
People learn by example... repeated example... over and over... it takes a
little work cleaning up after people... but if you do it when people are
there... they often start to get the hint.  But not in a pissy or aggressive
way.
Deff don't go bitching behind others back - that breaks the respect rule...

- mars

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Koen Martens <gmc at sonologic.nl> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 05:06:33PM +0200, h0uz3 wrote:
> > How good or bad does it work in your space to keep it clean and tidy?
>
> It used to be a big friggin' mess.
>
> We've recently installed a whiteboard, which lists common tasks such
> as 'clean the toilets', 'vacuum X' (for all possible rooms X in our
> space), replace paper towels in kitchen and toilet, mop kitchen floor,
> etc...
>
> Each row has one task, followed by the desired frequency (1/f gives
> 1 week, fortnight, 3 months, etc..). After that comes the name of
> the person who last did it and the date the task is due for. There's
> one last column that contains a red X if the task is overdue.
>
> This seems to work pretty well so far.
>
> > Somehow I feel like enough people don't care to mess up the whole place.
>
> They don't.
>
> > Best example: I wanted to use my computer and found it with a gooey
> > keyboard and mouse. Cleaned it thoroughly. Same thing happened the next
> > day, this time the mouse ball wasn't working anymore.
>
> I sat down on an office chair in one of our rooms once, to discover there
> was chewing gum on it. Now that made me pissed.
>
> Hackers are swines.
>
> - - gmc
>
> - --
> http://www.sonologic.nl/
> http://koenmartens.nl/
> https://www.revspace.nl/
> http://signal.hackerspaces.org/
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAk56FzQACgkQktDgRrkFPpa+OwCeNV/n9a9yJxepk4vM0LIWd8VJ
> 4M8AoIE26qql15rMZ1TU3soVbm3yxMZ8
> =cyKp
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20110921/b3fd5269/attachment.html>