Perhaps we should think of membership in terms of trust, and that it should therefore be tied to a verified persistent sudo-nymous digital identity. This solves many of the problems raised while not excluding people based on ability to pay or discouraging new people checking it out because they don't want to be obligated to pay monthly to something they're not sure about yet.

If we have a weekend-long crypto-party inviting everyone in the community to come by to get their PGP key, to which membership would be attached. This allows for security and trust in voting, pseudonymous tracking without privacy violations, secured communications, alternative currency financial transactions, confidential communications, undocumented people participating in the economy without fear, and that's just scratching the surface.


On May 22, 2013, at 3:26 PM, Andrew wrote:

Hi Daniel,

Sudo Room is committed to public access (at least that's what the website says :-) ). One of the things that sets Sudo Room apart from Noisebridge or AMT is that we aren't hung up on who gets access to the space. That could change as circumstances change, but for now, new people have enjoyed being able to come hang out without being accused of being free loaders.

My stance is similar to this:

"If these aren't tied together, I would expect it to be tied to a counter-proposal suggesting a tiered membership system, with "gatekeepers" being separate from normal "members""

But instead with people volunteering to be "Keymasters" and responsible for keeping access systems running and distributing passwords, fobs, and keycodes in accordance with Sudo Room's values.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the problem we have with getting more people in to the space is way bigger then the problem we have with keeping people out of the space.

What to do about membership in general? I really don't have a clue. It's a really hard problem to solve because it doesn't seem like Sudo Room ever really intended for membership to be all that different from non-membership. Maybe that's a good thing? I don't know.

Also with credits, keep in mind that some people prefer to pay dues in cash and would rather no one know how much they've contributed (an edge case, i know, but they would not be able to participate in a Sudo Credit economy).

Just my .02 Sudo Credits,
Andrew


On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Hol Gaskill <hol@gaskill.com> wrote:
i'm just going to regurgitate my suggestion that lockers/cubbies for secure storage be made available to members who regularly pay the suggested donation or more.  That gives an incentive beyond access; though it reduces access to a small portion of the space for everyone else, it's quite likely that there are some projects being stored in the communal space now (which is everything but the cubbies which are default DNH, right?) that would be moved to cubbies, as well as a number of projects and materials that are taking up space and aren't being supported by their creators, dues aside.  So to the point, I think given the amount of space that is already not available for use by everyone, it is totally worthwhile to set aside a bit of space if it means offering the carrot or vegan donut that gets people signed up to fiscally ensure the continued existence of sudoroom in its entirety.  A donors page would be a good carrot too!  I think the credit thing was discussed as a dividend which could be allocated to different projects if there was a surplus (net) on a given month which wound up being a discussion that can be put off until we fill up our standing funds, but i think credits on gross contributions have not been discussed at any length.

cheers,
hol


May 22, 2013 01:56:53 PM, somniac@me.com wrote:
Thanks Marina!
>I'm glad this is already being thought about.  I personally think access should be linked to membership because access is easily the single most powerful thing we have to offer/revoke, and if we're talking about regulating anything, it should be initial, door-opening access.  Guests can always use the buzzer, but even the landlord requires we have some barrier to first entry.
>If these aren't tied together, I would expect it to be tied to a counter-proposal suggesting a tiered membership system, with "gatekeepers" being separate from normal "members".  I think this is reasonable too, but doesn't dodge the question of how these statuses are granted.
>-Dan
>
>On May 22, 2013, at 1:33 PM, Marina Kukso marina.kukso@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>thanks dan! i believe that we will be discussing this extensively at the meeting tonight, so thanks for sharing! also, this may be something that we should work on during this sunday's "hack the room" hackathon.

>also, we are still running a straw poll about membership and access here: ;https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zCaEAVVjLwMrWcoPlGb09-G6bvaaiewi33FTz3OBptE/viewform . I hope to go over the results tonight.

>- marina
>
>On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Daniel Finlay somniac@me.com> wrote:
>

>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_Qualifications_for_Membership

>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
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