[hackerspaces] New Member Vetting

[Edward L Platt]

What are your goals for strengthening vetting?  A lot will depend on that.

At i3 Detroit, we're pretty much open to anyone who wants to be a member.
 We just record their home address and check their ID, and we don't require
new members to be sponsored.  We've never had any serious problems.

The main thing I think we could improve is onboarding new members, and that
potentially overlaps with vetting.  I know some spaces require people to
host classes and volunteer a certain amount before they can become members.

-Ed

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Ben Brown <ben at generik.ca> wrote:

>  We've got an interesting topic going on our own discuss list about
> strengthening membership vetting, spawning from a member's experience in
> another organization that's now considering police checks for applicants.
>
> Traditionally, we've had applicants show up to a few open nights before
> the board votes on their application. Members who have qualms about that
> applicant have 5 days to speak up before the application is considered.
> So far we've only rejected a single person (because they didn't attend
> enough open nights) but now thinking about it, most hackerspaces
> (including ours) entrust a significant amount of equipment to people who
> we've only had very limited contact. As we're quickly growing past our
> founding members, I'm wondering how other hackerspaces have adapted?
>
> A couple ideas being thrown around are police checks (which most members
> are against), and having a member sponsor a new applicant (who risks
> their own membership to support them).
>
> What process does your space use and is it working/failing horribly?
>
> Cheers,
> Ben
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>


-- 
Edward L. Platt
http://elplatt.com
248.320.5061
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