[hackerspaces] Dealing with micromanagement of hackers

Sun Mar 2 23:51:38 CET 2014

After a lot of discussions and bikeshedding we set this system up.
http://wiki.hackerspace.lu/wiki/Funding
Has been ok since a year.
One may argue that a small group can vote against a project, but in fact
it can't. A no-vote gets transformed into a collective vote for all members.
So it's basis-democracy with a frontend of classic hierachy to speedup
decisions.

Georges

On 02/26/2014 11:43 PM, Enabrin Tain wrote:
>
> Hi Torrie,
> A budget is the first priority of a Hackerspace, because your facility
> is your contribution to the community. If you can't keep the bills
> paid, then the other stuff gets way harder. We have committees for
> various topics of interest: Facilities Committee, Finance Committee,
> Gardening, Crafts and Sewing; that sort of thing. They are basically
> Communities of Interest, and they are the people who do the diligence
> and grunt work for the Hackerspace. We've done grants
> <https://256.makerslocal.org/wiki/Member_Grants_2012> in the past
> where people put in bids for projects and the membership voted on
> them. Maybe he is thinking that doing something like that could be
> more constructive? One of the grant proposals that passed was an Event
> Purse to help fund events at the Space.
> It's entirely possible that he's trying to help but feels like he
> doesn't have enough information to help effectively. If that's the
> case, it could be an opportunity to build your Finance COI.
> Best wishes,
>  Phil Showers
>
> My Projects <https://256.makerslocal.org/wiki/User:Enabrintain>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:28:10 -0500
> From: Edward L Platt <ed at elplatt.com <mailto:ed at elplatt.com>>
> To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List
>     <discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> <mailto:discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org>>
> Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Dealing with micromanagement of hackers
> Message-ID:
>    
> <CAKb0FmF-eUdJBH=XAw+XWux5yxALtMvQkPcSnR8JzAS9RACE6w at mail.gmail.com
> <mailto:XWux5yxALtMvQkPcSnR8JzAS9RACE6w at mail.gmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> It sounds like the member in question is doing the *opposite* of
> micromanaging.  If you want to take members' opinions into account, some
> level of bureaucracy is inevitable and the goal should be more effective,
> rather than less (or more), bureaucracy.  Or, if you have strong central
> leadership that gets to make decisions, that works to.  I can't tell which
> model you're striving for.
>
> Also, PSA: if you don't like meetings, committees are your friend! 
> You get
> to say "hey everyone who cares about X, go hash it out in a focused
> session
> and bring back a concise report for everyone."  Then if someone wants to
> derail a general meeting with it, you can say "If you really care about
> this issue, go join the committee."  Way more efficient than having
> everyone sit through discussion about everything.
>
> -Ed
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Bert Hartmann <berthartm at gmail.com
> <mailto:berthartm at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> > Hey Torrie,
> >
> > I don't know anything about your space, so this is all pure
> speculation on
> > my part, but if you don't have enough consensus to pass a budget,
> perhaps
> > you do need to open up the discussion to more people until they're
> > comfortable with the result? If you do have consensus, then it
> shouldn't be
> > an issue, and just approve the budget and move forward.
> >
> > I know in New Jersey the law requires our non-profit to have an annual
> > meeting with all the members about this time of year, where we
> > traditionally pass a budget for the year, among other things. Perhaps a
> > similar type of meeting for your group is healthy, so that no matter
> what
> > process develops the budget (1 man and a spreadsheet or 20 people in 20
> > meetings) there's a hard and fast deadline everyone's working
> towards so it
> > doesn't get out of control and you end up with a workable result to
> present
> > the rest of the group (who will presumably keep on hacking despite it).
> >
> > Incidentally, to answer your last question: I've seen the role of the
> > board as handling all the bureaucratic stuff (rent, government filings,
> > cleaning the bathroom, budget negotiations) so that the hacking may
> go on
> > unimpeded for everyone else. Some of it's unavoidable, the trick is
> just to
> > minimize the impact to the organization at large and the members in
> > specific.
> >
> > my 2 cents,
> > Bert
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Torrie Fischer
> <tdfischer at hackerbots.net <mailto:tdfischer at hackerbots.net>
> > > wrote:
> >
> >> Hi, discuss@!
> >>
> >> Lately at my hackerspace, we've had a member who is very interested in
> >> micromanaging the space. I'm currently both treasurer and AWS
> sysadmin for
> >> synhak.org, where I proposed a budget to use some grant money we
> received to
> >> secure 3 year funding of our infrastructure.
> >>
> >> Time and time again, this member in question wants to form a
> committee or
> >> some equally stifling bureaucratic structure to analyze any change
> to the space
> >> under the guise of "investigating all the options".
> >>
> >> Micromanagement like this is totally against our culture, but it seems
> >> that there are one or two others who go along with it because it
> "makes sense".
> >>
> >> Whats the best way to kill bureaucratic micromanagement and protect the
> >> hacker ethos at a space?
> >> ____________________________________
>
> -- 
> Edward L. Platt
> http://elplatt.com <http://elplatt.com/>
> http://civic.mit.edu/users/elplatt
> http://i3detroit.com <http://i3detroit.com/>
> @elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>
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