Meeting Notes 2016-01-20

Sudoroom meeting Wednesday January 20, 2016

intros

ice-breaker: meatspace or cyberspace? How many chucks would a woodchuck chuck if a wouldchalk could chalk would?

• cyber-juul: i am a meat popsicle
• techno-yar: tofurkeyspace; $n_chucks[$ability_to['chalk_would']]
• matt: neither. i'm in sudoroom.
• lesley: in meatspace I am tired and slow. So in meatspace, I am going to sleep, and am therefore attending as my slightly-improved cyber-self
• robb: [long pensive pause] cyberspace

announcements

• Hack the Left -- An Anticapitalist Hackathon - February 5 @ Noisebridge -- http://hacktheleft.com
• HOPE pre-registration is open http://hope.net/

voting to remove Troy from board

• We need to make a decision and no one can get a hold of Troy
• Membership needs to decide on board makeup
  • It's concerning that we can't get ahold of him.
    • He has historically had long periods of not being accessible via comms nor showing up.
  • Right. I guess my vote would then be to remove him if his not responding is holding up things. Board membership is flexible, and if he shows up again and wants back on we can then consider re-adding him.
    • Yeah. We can always re-add him later.

async consensus:

• juul consents
• yar says yes please

revocations of membership

• juul consents to revoke membership of this person
  • yar: which person?
  • juul: anthony repetto
• juul: Rob and others have brought this up. If Rob is not there then maybe not relevant for this meeting. Would be best to have Rob there to give account of reasons for bringing this up. The short story is: Has been disruptive during paid events and most recently actually caused police to get called on us because he refused to move vehicle or give key for vehicle that was parked illegally in front of omni. police did not go inside and left and vehicle got moved before they returned. Was making loud enough spectacle outside that neighbors across street started poking heads out of windows. Possible that neighbors called the police. This is second hand from Rob.
• yar: from what i've read & heard, i consent to this proposal
• juul: anyone else?
• lesley: Riiight...because so many people have been responsible for the fact that other people pick up their phone to call police. I'm not necessarily defending Anthony's actions, but it sounds like this situation escalated because of more than one person's behavior. Anthony's mental illness has caused some problems in the community for a while, but he's a cool human who makes cool contributions. If he knows the behavior needs to change, maybe revoking his membership doesn't need to happen.
  • matt: Is it not the case that parking one's car horizontally blocking traffic on 48th st is sufficient a risk for Omni Commons, rather than the police actually being called? Further, that when Robb asked for the keys in order to prevent the cops from giving us any problems when they would come back, Anthony refused to hand over the keys or move the car?
  • lesley: I didn't know the situation, I just tend to notice how passive voice removes responsibilty. I am also a fan of his art, his caligraphy, and his enthusiasm for teaching math.
    • matt: Duly noted, so what do you think about the situation at hand given Robb's report?
    • lesley: I abstain. Other people saw more than I did and have more informed opinions.
    • juul: I'm worried that the few people consistently in the space (such as Robb) are having to deal with a lot of bullshit and if we can't do anything to back them up then they'll get burnt out on dealing with the problematic individuals again and again.
• juul: disagree that he makes any significant contributions compared to how much he uses the space, nor ever has. also disagree that he is a cool human. is a shitty human with thin veneer of niceness. however, his coolness or niceness is not on trial. this is not an isolated incident either, it's just the latest and most terrible. it doesn't really matter too much to me that others were involved, it sounds obvious that it was and has been anthony who escalates.
• yar: revocation of membership isn't even a ban
  • juul: yeah it will simply mean that he must have a member be responsible for him to be in the space. people have brought up the concern that we can't just keep turning a blind eye to his behaviour or risk being seen as co-responsible next time something bad happens. i'm personally concerned that he might hurt himself or others and not sure what to do about it. i don't think we have enough for a ban and i don't even think a ban would necessarily be a good idea. i don't know how best to help anthony and honestly don't think we're equipped to do so, but revoking his membership is a strong signal that his behaviour is not ok. we could also make an official statement that we believe he should seek more capable help. not sure.
• lesley: I don't know the whole situation, and I don't know him terribly well. I'm going to abstain on this one.

consensus

• Tally: 4 - 1 - 0
• For: juul, yar, wrought, robb
• Abstain: lesley
• Against/Block:

• Robb does FnB stuff on wednesdays so has trouble being at the meetings.

MONIES

• Bitcoin received since last tally (July 1st): 1.49575152
• Total bitcoin: 2.47098102 ($1031)
• Decision: Should we all our bitcoin?
  • juul doesn't care
  • yar: sell sell sell. bitcoin sucks. so do dollars but in different ways. if we had any dollars i'd suggest we sell those too
  • Matt: It's value is not that impressive, it is perhaps more fun to just keep it and go down with the ship, no?
  • juul: I think $1031 is significant and it's high right now compared to historic value over the past year
  • matt: At what point does the total exchange value for our bitcoin stock become valuable (to you, individually as a preference)? If that's $500, i'd say sell half, or maybe sell all but 1 for the sake of it?
  • juul: Bitcoin hasn't been worth this much for over a year. I have no idea if it will keep going up or crash again
  • Matt: maybe phrased a different way -- is it worth anything at all to anyone here to continue to "play bitcoin" via sudo room, perhaps until bitcoin is worthless (some say that's inevitable)?
    • yar: NO! IT'S NOT WORTH ANYTHING TO ME!
  • yar: fine, keep $50 worth of it, sell the rest
    • or dogecoin
  • Matt: Proposal -- Let's keep something like 0.25 BC as a floor, and sell the rest from time to time?
  • juul: Sure I'm up for that. I will sell it for cash monies to friends if that's ok. Standard market rate.
  • Matt: That's probably a preferred sale mechanism, but it'd be nice to have the friends listed, now, above-board.
    • juul: I don't think you understand what people use bitcoin for.
    • yar: that would de-anonymize their wallets
    • matt: I guess I mean, what prevents a sudo room member from basically hooking up their bro's or w/e on some sweet bitcoin dealzzz? lol.
    • juul: ... market rate: https://www.google.com/search?q=1%20btc%20in%20usd
    • Matt: Okay so the proposal is for any arbitrary buyer, as decided by you, juul? Just want to be clear who decides.
    • yar: idgaf who buys it
    • juul: idkfa
• yar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias
  • Matt: Not a fallacy*
  • yar: but still not a rational decision to keep it all in btc just because it's what we have in there now. if you didn't have any btc right now, would you put $1k into it? or just $50? there's very little transaction cost
• Proposal: Juul decides who to sell all of sudo's bitcoin to (at market rate) except to save 0.25 BC for the lulz.
  • Rob's Amendment: We decide to put the ~$900 toward something specific -- like organizing bins
  • yar: fine whatever i don't care
  • matt: hey Juul -- what if we spend the money on bins to organize -- what's the cheapest bins in the world????

JUUL JUUL JUUUUUUUUL JUUUUUUUUUUUL

• • juul: sorry got distracted. sure let's talk about that offline. we can find some nice organizational furniture. i'm all about organizational stuff. bins/closets/trays anything to keep stuff looking nice and easy to find.
• yar called a 5 minute cap for this conversation topic

new members

https://sudoroom.org/wiki/New_Member_Script

pondering

• Daisy applied 12/16 and is now a member
• Charley applied 12/30, pondering ends next week
• nathan & Nick applied 1/6, pondering ends 2/3

The Mess

• yar: theater troupe wants to be a member collective. well-organized, long-established, pledging cash money, intend to participate in WGs, and completely flexible about dedicated space. yes please!
• lesley: yes
• matt: yes
• yar: guess we don't have quorum, delegate will have to abstain at most
• rob: they seem cool, the only thing that concerns me (which is probably just bias and conflict-of-interest) that it could impact our ability to rent out space to other events.
• matt: they want disco room, not ballroom. if they use ballroom it'll be part of their annual calendar
• robb: i'm looking forward to using the whole ballroom & basement
• matt: so you're concerned about frequency of use of the disco room?
  • robb: yes, mainly, future-proofing our own use
• yar: bird in the hand...
• matt: what if their comedy sucks--nvm.
  • conversation about "political correctness" which disturbs yar
  • matt: *successfully silences self*
• Rob: I can has some questions?
  • Can you share your calendar with us?
    • A show every 3 months, on the third month there's evening rehearsal, and a performance at the end of the month.
  • How many times per year do they need to use the disco room for 7-nights per week for 3 weeks?
    • 4 times per year
    • Never /have/ to be in the disco room, can always move
    • For stage, need a solid week use for stage, no ability. 1 week 4 times a year.
  • Are they open to help to steward / retrofit the disco room, but also to make it usable for other renters / acts in the future, especially weekends?
    • yar: yes https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2016/01/07_Delegates_Meeting#discussion_2
    • open to working on sound-proofing (drywall), re-doing stage floor, refinishing lower flower (take up tiles). Have hands, not necessarily skills, but willing.
• robb: i'm like b, don't like entering into long term contracts
• yar: look around, there's hardly anybody here, this is like a pathetic alternate omni present in which there are NOT thousands of people in this building every night, and i want this to end ASAP. if anybody comes excited to do something at omni at this point, i say YES PLEASE
• finally found their website after much searching http://sketchmess.com/
• https://twitter.com/TheMessOakland

Tally: 3 - 0 - 0 For: wrought, yar, robb Abstain: Against: