22 May
2013
22 May
'13
1:30 p.m.
door.sudoroom.org looks great, but what's the password?
The answer certainly relates directly to the "who is a member?" question, as
well as what special privileges membership entails.
I know I've not been a very active participant in these discussions, so forgive me if
I am treading on a well-worn path, but it seems like we need some brainstorming on this
issue, so here's my first knee-jerk concept.
First of all, coming from an access perspective let me just lay out:
Membership benefits (minimum):
1. The knowledge of the door code.
2. A vote when revoking membership status.
The next obvious question is how membership is granted. I feel the current Articles of
Association are slightly ambiguous here, because they do not specify whether BOTH criteria
are required (paying dues and good standing), or EITHER:
https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association#Section_2.1_Qualification…
This is a touchy subject, especially because there is a good deal of "what is
money?" and "alternative currencies!" enthusiasm around the space, while we
still pay our rent in USD. I will now lay out a doubtlessly controversial, half
devil's-advocate, probably flawed, but I hope at least novel system for distributing
membership beyond fiscal donation alone.
Here is "SudoCredit Proposal 0.0.1":
A system of Sudo-Room Credit. Sudo Credit is initially tied directly to dollars donated
to Sudo Room, ie, a member who has paid $60 a month for 10 months has some factor of 600
sudo credits.
In addition to buying sudo credits from sudo room, a person can earn sudo credits by
hosting workshops, donating goods, basically anything that gets people with sudo credits
to award some of their credits to that person.
People with large contributions to sudoroom (ie lots of sudo credit) would have the option
of being deified with pictures proportional to their credit on a donors page of the sudo
site, linking to their member page.
Since this leads to an inflationary economy, we may want some kind of sudo-credit
re-uptake. Maybe pay credits to open the door, or something else.
I know we have some currency geeks in here, I'm curious what people would think of
having an alternative currency to help distribute membership opportunity, while clarifying
membership requirements.
Just some thoughts, since access & membership seem like muddy concepts that need
clarification. I know there will be some resistance simply because it's so tightly
tied to financial donation, but at the very least I hope those people will admit it's
more egalitarian than a purely fiscally derived membership system.
-Dan