[hackerspaces] Hackerspace drama, oh my!

Wed Jul 2 16:14:12 CEST 2014

On Wednesday, July 02, 2014 09:45:00 Ben Brown wrote:
> (with limited information of what transpired)
> 
> I don't know how your space was setup legally (NFP, charity or
> otherwise) but this seems horribly illegal, not to mention it sounds
> like they're taking actions that the membership should be able to
> dispute and dissolve the board over.

Any suggestion on how to get started that isn't "see a lawyer"?

Seeing a lawyer is a viable option of course, but those can be expensive 
sometimes.

> 
> In Canada there is legal recourse if our directors were to say, dissolve
> the corporation, empty the accounts and leave with the equipment. If you
> were setup as a co-op or 501c3 I have to think something similar applies
> in the states.
> 
> Ben
> 
> On 7/2/2014 9:32 AM, Torrie Fischer wrote:
> > On Wednesday, July 02, 2014 13:44:01 David Potocnik wrote:
> >> There's another perspective to this.
> >> I guess Torrie & the hackers of Ackron are going to be okay - they
> >> started a new space right? They moved their stuff and got another
> >> lease and all is well?
> > 
> > Nope. Board took everything. They also took the $15k in the banking
> 
> account
> 
> > and moved it to some other bank without informing the membership or
> 
> anything,
> 
> > and is disregarding the portions of the bylaws that explicitly state such
> > things need to have transparency.
> > 
> >> "Advice I give most folks starting a hackerspace, start a community
> >> first.  Find the people you want to start the space with.  Worry about
> >> that.  because at the end of the day, even if you don't have a space,
> >> that community is worth way way more."
> >> 
> >> ...Or just simplify building spaces (sharing protocols & know-how),
> >> build a lot of them and cross-pollinate (travel, hang out). Fork,
> >> collaborate, merge. Set up varieties, name them and setup
> >> instances of them. Find and argue about good practices and patterns
> >> with whoever comes to this platform.
> >> As the thing progresses on we'll keep having a clearer and clearer
> >> cartography of different hacker belief systems, and a better idea of
> >> how they can and cannot coexist.
> >> 
> >> There is the more stable isotopos: Coworking spaces, Makerspaces,
> 
> Fablabs.
> 
> >> I believe Hackerspaces and Hackbases (live-in hackerspaces) should be
> >> unstable, and definitely not without politics.
> >> They should be, and sometimes are, avantgarde experimental political
> >> machines.
> > 
> > Well said. One should be permitted to hack a hackerspace, though in a non-
> > destructive fashion.
> > 
> >> David
> >> from CHT#1 hackbase /\/ http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Cyberhippietotalism
> >> 
> >> On 2 July 2014 04:07, Ryan Rix <ry at n.rix.si> wrote:
> >>> matt <matt at nycresistor.com> writes:
> >>>> I think this boils down to the dichotomy of hackerspace vs co-working
> >>>> space.
> >>>> 
> >>>> If you build up infrastructure and expect a community to show up in
> >>>> it, don't be surprised if more than one community shows up, or the
> >>>> community that shows up is not one you want to be a part of.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Noisebridge suffers the tragedy of the commons in a pretty severe
> >>>> way... having had mole people living in their basement and bi-polar
> >>>> homeless people show up and and claim they are 'sleep hacking'.
> >>>> 
> >>>> That's not what I am talking about. What I am talking about is the
> >>>> last line in that piece :
> >>>> 
> >>>> "A lot of this can be traced to our collective inability to remember
> >>>> our core pillars of consensus, excellence, and do-ocracy. There is no
> >>>> one person or event that can be blamed. As a community, we failed to
> >>>> hold close the values we had. We were hacked by policy hackers."
> >>>> 
> >>>> Now I don't know anything about synhak... so I am just going to speak
> >>>> to the perspective brought forth by the person who wrote this piece.
> >>>> This is a person who enjoyed the community that arrived at synhak in
> >>>> the early days. As the space grew and changed and time went on, so did
> >>>> the culture and so did the community.
> >>>> 
> >>>> I think Torrie is talking specific solutions but not seeing the forest
> >>>> through the trees. When torrie talks about common values along side
> >>>> mission statement, and limiting growth of new membership. What she is
> >>>> really talking about is fostering a community rather than
> >>>> infrastructure. She's focusing more on being with the people she wants
> >>>> to be with, than focusing on building a space.
> >>>> 
> >>>> And I think that has worked out very well for NYC Resistor. We like
> >>>> each other. We've liked each other with fairly decent success for 5-6
> >>>> years. And while folks have grown apart and there has been some
> >>>> inevitable culture shift. The community has remained strong.
> >>>> 
> >>>> So, the answer is simple. Synhak like noisebridge built a space. And
> >>>> communities fought for it, and some took it and some lost it. Much
> >>>> like noisebridge. NYC Resistor built a community in a coffee shop...
> >>>> everything else came later.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Advice I give most folks starting a hackerspace, start a community
> >>>> first. Find the people you want to start the space with. Worry about
> >>>> that. because at the end of the day, even if you don't have a space,
> >>>> that community is worth way way more.
> >>> 
> >>> Well written, Matt.
> >>> 
> >>> r
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >> 
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> >> 
> >> 
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