[hackerspaces] Hackerspaces Re:Foundation (Was Re: Abuse Of Power)

[Matt Joyce]

Anyways...

Hackerspaces are communities first.  Everything else second.

Each community is different.  This gets back to a prior point about
defining "hackers".

Yes.  Each space is different.

Some spaces are more anarchic, others are more incorporated, others still
are living in MarkJ's panageia of whatever the hell is going on over
there.

Are they all 'hackerspaces'?

At what point does a space stop being a hackerspace and be some other
awesome thing?  This is almost inevitably something that would need to be
codified if we created a foundation.  And there is a cost benefit for doing
that.  In short, some folks will lose and stop being 'hackerspaces' this
may hurt feelings and communities.

However as we can see from this thread, sometimes having too much diversity
can be distracting.  Cell structures all people to pursue their own
community projects in the silo of their own needs, while promoting
interconnectivity with the rest of the ecosystem.  Every project and action
becomes opt in.

Better in many ways, than having 20 people shouting each other down over a
difference of opinion.  Competing ideas and projects are great.  Fostering
that is fine.

But there are going to be times when things will exist outside a
foundations scope.  And because of that they will be at a disadvantage to
those things inside of scope.  That's going to promote success in a biased
fashion.  Some folks will win from that, some will lose.  And there is a
cost benefit to be looked at there.

Personally I think we can handle it.  And I think it's long over due.  But
that's a personal opinion.  Obviously if a foundation were to succeed it
would need to be adopted as a shared risk and a shared benefit by those who
joined up to support it and be supported by it.  And that means that people
would need to agree at least on a high majority on what the right scope and
right definitions were for the orgs methodologies.

That may seem unachievable when you sit on this list and listen to the
drama, but I can assure you most of the people who are leaders in the
hackerspace community general don't have drama.  Electoral choices of core
teams for projects will work.  It's a proven design pattern.

-Matt

-Matt


On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Mark Janssen <dreamingforward at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Brian McConnell <bsmcconnell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > While I like the idea behind hacker spaces, I don't like the politics and
> > drama that always seems to go along with them.
> >
> > Adios.
>
> This is so bizarre, this is the same dynamic that happened in the
> Occupy movement.
>
> Here's my argument:  You can't get rid of the drama because you're
> already in a nation-state that murders people in your name.   A
> nation-state that is clinically bi-polar, sociopathic with episodes of
> psychopathology.   Hackerspaces I see as a sort of sancutary against
> the madness, but when money comes up, so does its history that's been
> swept under the rug.
>
> MarkJ
> _______________________________________________
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> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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