[hackerspaces] New Member Vetting

[Ron Bean]

Danny O'Brien <danny at spesh.com> writes:

>That is why, I think, we have to emphasize to people that
>bringing in their own equipment to "share" with others isn't going to
>end well (they aren't around enough to maintain it, while no-one else
>is going to fix your shit to your satisfactoin, even if they broke
>it).

Everything at Milwaukee Makerspace belongs to some member or other-- the
space itself doesn't own anything. We do cooperate on repairs (notably
laser cutters, these days-- we have three in various states of
non-functionality, but two of them should be working again soon).

There is no way we could exist at all if the space had to buy 
everything.

>In the
>end, despite an understandable desire to define the success of a
>hackerspace in terms of how much cool stuff they have, there are some
>items where people at Noisebridge end up going "you know, you might be
>better off just inviting people over to your garage, or using
>techshop's version of that".

There's no way Techshop could survive financially here either-- their
startup costs are way too high for the number of members they'd be able
to attract. We did operate out of people's garages for a while, but you
can't offer 24/7 access that way.