Meeting Notes 2015-01-21

sudoroom mtg - 21 January, 2015 Sudoroom, 7pm, every Weds. Bring yo couch!

Attendees

Facilitator: Cere Note Taker: Ryan (really yar)

Ice-breaker question: What planet are you from? - or- Whatever's relevant... Attendees:

• Cere: a member of sudo and CCL
• Liz: does film making
• Korl: ummm
• Sam: does music and machine algorithms/learning
• Nir: what is a planet, what does it mean? from earth
• Jenny: From venus
• Ita: from the moon, new
• Phebe: earth
• JD
• Daniel
• David (local planet)
• Ed Biow (terra incognito)
• Einstein (?)
• Mary (gaia) from cyber wizard institute
• Rayc
• Elliot (under-earth)
• yar (she, her) (i don't know)
• joel (masculine pronounces) (uranus) "someone had to be from uranus"
• ryan (he, him) (plaxis B)
• ugo ()
• null (space, n/a)
• matt (from home) made a vegetable soup, from planet Omni
• patrik (member of sudo and CCL from alternate earth where he has beard and glasses)
• Tom: from planet san francisco, just visiting
• noemie (france)
• jake (this one)
• Max (idk venus) making a documentary about "Hackers"
• juul
• anarkim (visiting from labitat)
• dk (~8pm on)

• Do we have Quorum? Yes.

New Members

https://sudoroom.org/wiki/New_Member_Script

• Nir
  • Why sudo? Read about it, considering TechShop, wants to learn more about makerspaces
  • What hack? 3D printing, programming (wants to learn)
  • What share? Pizza. Tools etc.
  • Ever been banned? No.
  • Do you plan to use sudo to play lot of WoW? No. Minecraft.
    • no, only for torrenting Games of Thrones without a proxy
  • cop? "why, are you doing something illegal?"
    • eventually says no
  • Are you an undercover cat? No, allergic
  • hvac business

• Ita
  • Why sudo? the community. techshop member. s'cool
  • What hack? portable removable energy generator
  • What share? salsas
  • values or history? been around for 2 years. it's in oakland.
  • never banned, not cop/cat
  • Do you plan to use all of sudo's playing online games?
    • no, just torrenting

• Daniel
  • • pass

New members who applied last week?

• smallhaxe
• aaron
• raffish
• samir/csgeek

Breakdown of membership dues/logistics or how/where to pay

• Jenny - Gratipay is our online method.
• Cash to Jenny Ryan/Matt Senate/Max Klein/Marc Juul

Announcements

Sudo or Omni related announcements.

• Omni IndieGoGo Fundraising Campaign Update:
  • Goal: $80,000
    • Visible Total: $28,735
    • Actual Total: $68,735
    • Actual Difference: $11,265

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-the-omni-commons-for-all-of-oakland

• Is anyone uncomfortable with being filmed for a documentary?
  • Are these people ok with possibly converging to one side of the meeting?
  • Elliot: Request no filming/recording during conflict discussion.

• All-women's Variety Show here on Saturday, 7-9: https://www.facebook.com/events/1405345946429324/
• Reddit "ask me anything" in Disco room OR ballroom 11a-3p, this coming saturday. Ping Jenny for Reddit account info.

Finances

• Monthly Expenses: ~$2500
  • Sudo Rent: $2,000/month
  • Sudo Utilies: ~$500
  • Omni Rent Total: $14,000

• $488.18/ week on Gratipay
• $3,181.28 in the Internet Credit Union account
• ~$.2 worth of bitcoin.
• ~$920 in Community Bank of the Bay account
• Total: ~$4,000

• Pay dues! https://gratipay.com/sudoroom

• Have we paid rent? Yes.
• Are we screwed in March? Yes.

Discussion

• Discussion of Omni altercation with David T last week (Matt) (15 mins)
  • A person who had applied to be a member at the previous meeting, asked someone in Sudo to borrow headphones. This went into overborrowing teritory; he left omni with them. The headphones were someone's property, a discussion about this occured, culminated into a physical and verbal confrontation.
• Korl: I was the first person to interact with David T. I could see this person had mental issues. I wasn't there for the incident and then lost my train of thought.
• Yar: I have mental issues. And that's ok.
• Ryan: I agree that it's ok to have mental issues. He reminded me of my own mental issues. He was grandiose and couldn't stop talking and was in a vulnerable position. We could show compassion for that. He wasn't at a level where he could learn the socialisation skills at the space. The Omni is not necessarily the place for him to be at this level. He asked if he could take a laptop, he reminded me of me at a younger place. I'm not sure we're the right space for him.
• Elliot: I got in a physical altercation with David. From my perspective: Adam and rayc were in the room. I came in, they were like: this guy took our stuff and he won't give it back. I tried to mediate this. I said "can you all calm down and can I hear both sides of the story. David was being evasive and irrational. David was saying: these are my headphones, can I see the case. David said no you can't search my stuff. I said you should let him do that. You said you borrowed it from the space and Adam said he left them here. At that point I was like give those back, he said no and started going for the door, I went to grab the headphones and asked rayc to help me, and he was like "they're assaulting me". I've had martial arts training, I put his hands behind his back and restrained him and took him to the ground. I asked for people. Once there was more people to support I let him back up. He was still derailing a little and eventually flipped and tried to make it seem like we were the irrational ones and acted super extreme and that he was being rational and calm the whole time. And then he was banned for the space for 24 hours and then I was banned and Rayc was banned even though rayc didn't even touch him physically. it felt like the banning process became indiscrimnate. I had to be at the Black Lives Matter meeting and I was distraught because it's an important meeting and I have to represent my union there. I feel like the process to ban me wasn't very democratic. Nobody asked me or rayc what was our perspective of the situation.
• So yes, he was assaulted and wasn't being physically threatening?
• Rayc: David once came to sudo room and was looking through stuff when no one was here. I told him those are project shelves so don't look through stuff. I think he was there to steal. Daily incident: I ran into him, Adam was like this dude has my shit. I discussed it with Adam and Adam was like: he was being an asshole to me. He came back after I was talking to adam and said"someone gave me these" and then "someone let me borrow this"

Elliot made a good point: what is stopping you from showing us the headphones? he was like you can't search my property. Elliot tackled him. It wasn't aggressive. I tried grabbing the headphones. He assaulted me. Only brought it to attention as he was taking the headphones of the space.

• David K: A the sudo meeting in which 15 new applicants presented themselves, Korl stated that she had concerns about this person. It was before any of this happened. I think it's worth mentioning.
• Cere: I want to ask: was he let in a way that it was clear that he was only a guest. is there a way to make it clear? Did he just come in the door.
• Korl: I was sitting here, he came in. Can anybody help with my phone? I said i could jailbreak it. He was apprehensive to say anything personal. he talked about how he is stuck here and asked what we do here and who were the other people in the room. After half an hour he said: you are the first person i've been able to have a conversation with in a while. He said he was from LA. He rarely made eye contact and seemed not quite in touch with... he seemed to not quite realize that this is reality. Before the incident, I was leaving sudo and I had seen him going through everything, mostly e waste. Rayc and I were organizing some stuff, and he found a phone and seemed to be saying that he would take it for himself. In the safe space policy we don't have a protocol for dealing with people who are mentally unstable. We should have a way of dealing with that.
• Matt: Any member can ask a non member to vacate the space. A member can ask a non-member to leave at any time. To me it is a complicated scenario. Escalating the scenario to a physically violent one is a humongous danger for our community and I'm not willing to tolerate it at all.
• Jenny: I talked with Elliott and every person who had been involved and got some good perspective on it. I also talked with david T and said he's not welcome at sudo room until he engages in conflict resolution. There was a thread about it online. But I made sure to talk to all parties. I also talked to max who had kicked out rayc and elliott and adam said he would have vouched for them. It's a gray area because physical altercation is a thing.
• What are we discussing right now?
• Matt: it's for people to hold a space to reflect on it as a community without necessarily coming to a conclusion at this meeting.
• Korl: there has been a discussion about transparency on all physical altercations
• What is the action step?
• Korl: there should be information somewhere for people to familiarize to what happened
• Elliott: basically, it wan't clear to me the process of handling a more escalated conflict. I do want to admit, i should have grabbed a larger group in the community. worried he would grab stuff and run out, more worried about the property of that person. In terms of accountability, in the future, i will follow that process: getting a large person to help me mediated, esp when it has escalated to that degree. I apologize.
• Liz are we supposed to deliberate on this? Or is it a conflict resolution we need to do now?
• Matt: we can move on and keep a decision for next week.
• Marc: I think it's been said before. As a group I want to ask Elliott and everyone: i know you were trying to protect the space, but please never escalate to something physical if possibel and really be aware of other means of dealing with things; it's important that people won't steal things but I'll put it below the priority of not escalating.
• David K: when someone is stealing something, what do you do? If someone walks out with a 3D printer, what do we do? We should decide. Do we let them walk out the door? Liability is a concern. Phys abuse = legal concern, they could sue us! "What to do when people steal sh*t?!"

Joe: ...it took 24 posts to talk about what actually happened. the best thing to do is to sit down and talk about it *when* it happens. Spontaneous immediate: "If something wrong, let's sit down and talk about it".

• Rayc: Liability is tremendously open because there's a lack of understanding on ??? especially if we're not going to call the cops, what do we do? As a commiunity do we just let stuff walk out the door? In certain scenarios you can actually detain people... but that requires the presence of a police officer as an end result
• Cere: Let's come up with a policy about what to do, agenda for next week?
• Matt: On of our values is solving real problems over hypotheticals. The real issue here is people who need money, are unstable, taking something they don't have. There's no policy that equates stealing something small like a pair of headphones with maintaining the safety of the space through physical escalation. You don't need a policy, it's clear that the property is relatively unimportant.
• Ryan: Offended that this is a discussion about liability over the fact of an actual physical assault on the Omni property.
• Ugo: Insurance policies and liability, property insurance? Property should be a nonissue. No one should get hurt.
• Yar: Someone (Ryan) brought up that we should have a conversation about this without Elliot present

Blocking David T's membership

• • Juul blocks
  • Korl blocks

Open to the Public Proposal (15 mins)

https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Proposal_Package:_Opening_Omni_%28DZB%29_2014-08-20

• Come to the delegate's meeting next week, sudoers!
• Korl blocks - with obvious friendly amendments to be discussed. Has class every Thursday night until May :((/
• David K: Will be brought to the Welcoming Committee, which meets tomorrow at 5pm
• Cere: the fastest way forward is to go and look at whats already covered.
• Ryan: it is important for us first to ask does this doc need to exist, should it exist, lets figure this out before quibbling about wording.
• Korl: Agree with the issues it presents, it's an important discussion that needs more time.
• Yar, Ryan blocks currently.
• David: it tries to address certain lacks that we hack. We should see this as evolutionary and [let it be the first step]
• Cere: A tl;dr is necessary to get people up to speed
• Matt: we should address, do we need to have a singular policy about this. it's important to recognise in the context of BAPS, this is the poems retort to the policy structure. I hope we can get to a place where we don't need a big, vague policy - a short list of proposals that we can legitimately enforce. My experience has been in collaborating to be sensitive to that paradigm and differing ways of articulating
• Yar: documents like this are not consenty enough for my taste. the point of consensus is to come to consensus, not to say a thing and try to convince everyone to agree to the thing. to reflect everyone, not a single author. this feels very authorial. when you're trying to get something done and agreed upon by everyone, the easiest thing is to do nothing (and doocratically do it and hope nobody cares, which is how we do most things), the next easiest is to find something really obvious that no one disagrees with, the third easiest way is to write something really long, make it seem really urgent, then everyone starts consenting to everything because its overwhelming and thats the easiest route. the fourth and hardest way is to talk to everyone who is a stakeholder and incorporate the perspectives of everyone.
• Korl: Definitely we should lend more time to discuss this. My issues were the process - no time to discuss beforehand, it just popped up on the delegates agenda. Assuming it didn't reach sudo before delegates. Weird that it came from an individual rather than Omni as a whole. Hours are already 10-10, but we're not yet legally open anyways. We should have something implemented to protect people at night when there are rarely more than a dozen people. I personally could not defend myself from a pair of aggressive people. If people came in here threatening harm to people we don't have any barriers to that. Having open hours monitored by staff are a big red flag for me
• David K: All of sudo should recognize that sudo is in fact far more process-driven and experienced than any other colective here, in a properly consenting way. Y'all are the leaders here. ("fuck"). This proposal has a lot of problems with concern to process - wasn't consented on by La Commune. Didn't incorporate any of the feedback following its original discussion, was absent only a single amendment. Not very consensus-y! The proper way to move forward, imo, is to drill down into the needs it's trying to address and build up from there. Is there a cliff notes version? Let's do that - basic needs, what people are empowered to do and not, educating people about the space, issues of staffing, what hours can we commit to collectively. Every time I'm here I give at least 4 tours
• Rayc: Attended last delegates meeting, concerned about sectioning off members-only areas. The public should be thought about as a priority and should be emphasized. There's a lot of tension with this proposal, we
• Jenny: This was brought up previously to delagates, was discussed, but not ...
• Ryan: Agreed with Keenan, a lot of the disconnect at the mtg had more to do with how hackerspaces are used to operating vs the other collectives. B/c of this, important for sudo to go forward clearly stating their values and ethics in light of the proposal.
• Matt: This strategy, manifesto style, is part of the reason why we're here. When DZ came to our gaggle meeting weekly, he wrote a manifesto and put it forward, as a means of instantiating our project and making it real. It's a beautiful articulation, unfortunate that it's turned into this mess. Making a wiki page right now around concerns about access.
• Ugo: being a part of communities in the past, my take away is that sudoroom, with it's experience, should take a lead on it. I want to be involved with the process of helping with this. It seems kind of laughable having this space open to the public with only one person watching over this.
• David: Any sudoer interested in this should come to the welcoming meeting at 5pm.
• Korl: Has a proposal! This is important! Let's make a Riseup Pad for this topic, set a table of contents, and open it for all of Omni to discuss and be a part of!

proposal on wiki: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Proposal_Package:_Opening_Omni_%28DZB%29_2014-08-20 overview wiki page "Access": https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Access pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omniaccess

CCL/Sudo (and Omni) Security and Accountability

• Openness / Safety / Security Ideas:
  • ! Members and guests of members only = after certain hours: 10p-10a (ex. events, etc.)
  • ! Keypad/NFC entry on CCL/Sudo space: in congruence with hours above.
  • ! Signs with posted Public Hours: Omni, Sudo / CCL
  • ! Signs on Sudo / CCL pointing non-members to Newbie Night! & Omni Socials every Sunday from 5-7, with Ryan
  • Things:
    • Closed-source camera system for nonlockables/ expensives/ etc: lab equipment, workshop tools, server, etc.
    • Lockability: Implementing lockdown systems on specific items (e.g. laptop locks, cages)
    • RFID chips on small stealables.
    • Lockable charging station.
    • Caged, time-limited workstations.
  • Omni: Rekeying the locks
  • Better teired accountability for events!

CCL Incident:

• Ryan: Friday night, me and Steve B were the only folks left in sudo. Thought everyone had left from the Knowland Park benefit, but two inebriated people came into CCL, knocked over and shattered the hourglass. Ryan asked them to clean it up and they did (poorly). Brings up a pretty serious safety issue. Would like to only have people I know in the space when the only member left in the space.
• Cere: a lot of these theoretical responsibilities to deal with issues like this. i'm just interested in nav a lot of weird ass bs. i don't even want to deal with. people came in early that day, there were people being weird. our current policy: feel obligated to give anyone a tour on the spot. There should be times where you can come in and inquire, and times where it's not recomended.
• Ryan: I've started to close the door to sudo,not locked, but closed shut, as a social cue, especially during larger events, to point out that this is a sepparate space from the event.
• Matt: On the side of any members who don't want to accommodate guests in the space. Getting more robust is great for us. Hard to live in public, but there's always advantages. We have folks who come in and never would have even imagined a space like this. I know there's a balance and am interested in helping maintian that balance. Existing responsibility chains - the organizers of that event should be held accountable. Like the idea of closing the doors at certain times.
• Rayc: In the future if someone's here for a specific event only, can say, 'hey come back for newbie night' - kinder and less scattered than just shuffling away.
• Patrik: We should have some signs that say 'Omni is not open to the public yet, if you'd like a tour ask somebody'. The doors can be open most of the time until it starts getting late then we can close them
• Ryan: 'Sudo is not currently open to non-members or people not vouched for'
• Bill: Are there specific times for tours?

Our official public hours are 10-10. Newbie night is 5-7 on Wednesdays.

• Ryan: I'm running general Omni socials every Sunday from 5-7
• Patrik: Let's publicize this more widely
• Korl: See proposals at top
• Patrik: Once the biolab is up and running, it needs a camera and security aspects.
• Ryan: Chipping things like the power tools and making it make loud angry noises if things leave the space
• Matt: Let's make a security Hackathong!
• Ryan: Lockable charging station! Filing cabinets work pretty well
• Marc: has a project for charging station
• Patric: I'm more in favor in getting something comercial, than hacking ourselves.
• Racy: I think our talent here is on the forfront of tech, and would be better and more secure (open access) than something made by a company.
• Yar: I'm not sure if we're talkign about this or that. I just want to be abel to come in, open the door, and it's open, and that's fine.
• David: The money from the fundraising will be available very soon. Would be great to have leadership from sudo on the logistics of access system, feedback from Marc, dig into the logistics.
• Patrik: Reed Brothers on Telegraph, that's what they do
• Korl: Dig the hackathon. First thing first!! Get a security system for the front doors, and sudo/ccl.
• Matt: Access hacking is really tough. Lots of issues to work through. 3 competing methods - budget submitted for rekeying cyclinder locks & our own key-cutter. How to collaborate moving forward - getting quotes on costs, getting hackers to help build it out
• Ryan: Really important to address how to hold collectives & events accountable for folks milling about the space. Knowland Park event was not shut down properly. We need to figure out a process for dealing with problems like this.
• Marc: no matter what we do, we need to replace all of the doors, first. They need to be higher quality. any commercial system will be limited. It's very easy to write a program that does what we need and won't be closed acces. The things we buy should be the brain. We should buy the mag locks, the cards, card reader, and devolp our own software. Anything else will be really inflexible.
• Adam: we have almost a thousand NFc bands. It would be very easy to set up a server on a raspberry pi, etc, etc.
• Marc: I'm already doing this :) Let's do this together!

Proposal: Event Organizers Responsibilities

• Event organizers are responsible for ensuring that the front door is manned 30 minutes before and up to 15 minutes after the start of their event. Organizers are additionally responsible for ensuring all event attendees have left the building before they leave - this entails checking the entire building for those who may be lingering afterwards.
• Ryan: should not necessarily be "before they leave" -- don't want them to leave 3 hours after the event and not be monitoring people while they're chilling somewhere

• • Amended Proposal:

1. Event organizers are responsible for ensuring that someone stands at event entrance for at least 30 minutes before the event, and up to 30 minutes after the start of their event. If there is a volunteer available to be at the event entrance throughout the event, it is preferred. For events with over 100 people in attendance, this is required. 2. **Organizers are responsible for guiding attendees to the event space, and not to other parts of the Omni, by use of signs on the doors. 3. Organizers are responsible for reminding attendees to "Please respect the space". 4. Organizers are responsible for ensuring all event attendees have left the building by half an hour after the events ends, unless the event attendees are vouched for by a member of a collective. 5. Organizers are resposible for making sure attendees do not meander into other Omni spaces, unless they are vouched for by a member of a collective. 6. Organizers are responsible for, with the help of a member of an Omni collective, checking the entire building for those who may be lingering afterwards.

Consensus: 12 yes, 2 abstain Yaaaaay!

For Future: 7. Organizers of events of unmanageble size (25 people or more) are ultimately responsible for any and all damageres incurred by event guests, financially and/or otherwise.

• Cere: Signs on side doors saying 'No Access'
• Ugo: emphasized at each level, from organizers to attendees, that this is a shared space and is not to be taken for granted.
• Niki: Lack of communication with regards to expectations. Clarity of communication is key. Signage, handouts? In my personal experience, engaging with unfamiliar people who walk into the space.

• • • Ugo: Wristbands for event attendees to identify them as such?
    • Korl: If we RFID chip them we can block their access through certain doors

For Next Week : Not This Week : Next Week

• Stealing Shit Policy

• Physical Violence Discussion
  • Elliot: Present and not present

• Insurance Policies
  • Renters Insurance for peoples' personal Sudo property

• Changing the New Membership Process:
  • Members only discussion?
    • Asking people if it's their first time here - Let them know to they can spend some time here, get to know s, our policies, values, member responsibilities, etc. and apply for membership if/when they want to.
    • Jenny "Making our values more visible... The first step isn't necessarily membership... develop relationships with the space and understand [people] better"
    • Ugo "Making out values more visible via a poster?"
    • Random Person on the Pad "Require new members to return to 'activate' membership after extended pondering?"
    • Elliot "making our Safer Spaces Policies more available, etc"
    • Cere "Confused by our policy... asking random strangers to be members"
    • Korl "I agree with everyone... put me on stack for this"
    • Yar "I agree with the way membership feels... maybe [the new members] will see this as so disfunctional, they won't bother and that'll solve the problem"
    • Joe "If something doesn't feel good, don't do it"
    • Mary "[Discussion in front of nonmembers seems weird]"
    • Matt [members only discussion]

Action Items

• Matt to close out our Community Bank of the Bay
• Juul to send a message to members about dues