[hackerspaces] dossier pattern

[Ron Bean]

>Without any sense of either grief or superiority towards any of the
>organisational forms - I thought (and probably share this with other
>EU hackers) that's the very difference between what's called a
>hackerspace, or what's not and is then called a makerspace.

This sounds like a "No True Scotsman" argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Let's not forget that the term "hacker" predates computers (at least in 
the US). And many of the early hackers were strongly apolitical (it was 
more mixed later, but still many didn't pay attention to politics).

>To stay on topic, I'd suggest hackerspaces should remain without
>dossiers and tightly-knit (if this means less than X members then
>fine) with no paper trail, while a makerspace/fab lab/shared workshop
>might want something different.

By this definition, I wonder how many "true hackerspaces" exist in the 
US. All the ones I know about lean heavily toward the "makerspace" 
model, but they call themselves "hackerspaces" because they do both 
kinds of activities.

There is a specific subtype of hacker who is very concerned about 
privacy and doesn't want any kind of written record or security cameras 
in the 'space, as you mentioned. I've suggested to some such folks that 
they'd be happier splitting off and forming their own group, which would 
be kept smaller for that reason. I'm not sure they saw the connection, 
though-- they seemed to think that a big organization can run the same 
way as a small one. And I'm not sure they realized how much easier it is 
to start such an organization (because they can rent less space, and 
therefore have more choices in the market).