Meeting Notes 2024-03-06

3/06/2024

Attendees

• trevor
• paige
• alex
• eric
• jake

Agenda

omni bylaws

intro

• alex - proposed to make additional bylaw changes. toan talking about change from majority to majority + 1. not really much of a change. all changes when through except this one. patrik wants us to be going along bylaws, rather than consensus
• jake - we have been going on consensus but in bylaws only need consensus - 1 to make changes to the bylaws. majority + 1 closer to consesnsus
• alex - i personally think 2/3 + 1 to be more like consensus. that has been mentioned as being a somewhat standard things for bylaws.

discussion

• jake - you would like to see plans to be informed by existing policies, as far as people being members of separate designators. i am just like assuming that some of this is motivated by people who are engaging in a power struggle at omni
• alex - no i wouldnt be worried about that
• jake - based on principles. so much talk by CLP and ppl at omni about how SR and CCL are evil. and now SM rolled in. i want to make sure if we are talking about this, basically taking away from power from SM, that it is based on principles.
• paige - changing from consensus
• jake - faction to eliminated. if thats thing going on. if SM and SR have members in both collectives. just seems like a power grab
• alex - rather than jumping straight to power grab, this is lay of land. Majority + 1 voting. then restrictions under which conditions you would need to recuse yourself
• jake - designators (delegates?) or collectives?
• alex - my point is this hasnt been thought out, and way you can help is thinking this through is thinking of principles. instead of sitting and trying to think about a power grab we can be proactive
• jake - i havent heard what the source is. ive heard the source is consensus to majority
• alex - concern from multiple sides. one is CAST will expect this. also several collectives who have expressed ambivalance and tiredness to consensus and want a majority rule. pretty widespread
• jake - im not asking about shift to majority, im asking about recusal when to vote
• alex - i.e. if voting to remove someone, then they are recused
• jake - stuff existing in bylaws. but yea thats one specific example, any others?
• carl - whats current?
• alex - its majority, but we've been pretending its consensus-1. proposed change is to "majority + 1 of active groups"
• paige - and change expecation, to actually follow the bylaws
• carl - has it been consensus - 1 in practice?
• alex - only recently, before it was consensus
• carl - did anyone propose that as the normal?
• alex - no, that was original plan for bylaws. but the lawyer said dont do it, so didn't
• alex - another option is 2/3 majority + 1. we could do that? Thats also kind of common
• alex - i personally dont think "mail in ballot" style is good. good part of consensus is you have to try and convince people. but when that fails, dont have a fallback
• jake - come up with something more agreeable
• carl - how many collectives?
• 7 collectives deb gives, SR, SM, CCL, LL, SMAC, FNB
• carl - so in practice right now, majority + 1, would be 4
• jake - only active, so if a designator doesnt show up to meeting, then number lower
• carl - what means inactive? needs to be a quorum.
• alex - i made a github repo with all the changes. happy to talk about it but i feel like youd get picture of it if you read it. youd see its all clarifying whats already there. we are going forward with CAST, we have to do something like this
• jake - my concern is with specific cases where designators must recuse. whats motivation for that discussion?
• alex - not thought out yet but are situations where
• paige - maybe if something like, SR proposing to take up a lot more space
• alex - yea maybe if collective gets a major benefit? patrik had a good example im forgetting...

omni love affair email complaint

• alex - were you in the building? or only in sudo room? i was prepared to say that in meeting but then somebody in meeting said you were taking a picture?
• jake - i took one picture of the lift. nobody in the picture [shows picture]

sudo room / sudo mesh overlap concern from FNB

intro

• jake - as a SR member, if existing policy whether people can be in multiple collectives or not or if thats a problem, id like to see what that is rather than making it up on the spot
• alex - this is a discussion of further amending bylaws. should be conditions under which you should recuse yourself
• paige - its also brought up only in context of moving to majority + 1 voting. A "yes" vote will then mean more going forwards

discussion

• alex - i think only actionable item is who to put on CC list. I am on it, Paige is, and Marc
• paige - i can see this... like if media lab or CCL split up. Whats the history of SM coming in
• jake - they have their own space.
• alex - bigger project before
• jake - still a big project but spread around world now. separate meetings, pay rent.
• paige - separate meetings is valid, idk about space
• alex - because majority voting, think reasonable one vote, because you are very closely allied group, basically vote as a bloc unfair. we need to discuss our response. your response is not enough given to what paige is saying. we would probably object for example, broke up into 4 groups
• jake - i disagree. SM was voted to become a collective
• alex - with restrictions. marc was asked not to be part of decision making
• jake - marcs not here
• alex - yes thats usually the argument. their concern is groups seem too similar
• jake - then they should learn the difference. some people outside see CCL/ SR as same thing
• alex - they think we are basically one group and have two votes. we have to listen to their concerns. i will reply to toan saying me and paige will stay on list.

CAST update

intro

• alex - got update that CAST is writing up a MOU. encouraging news, good sign
• FROM CAST - "thank you for connecting us...we're finalizing our partnering MOU as we scope our engagement with Omni...We'll be sending it over to your group in the next week or two"

discussion

• eric - would like a big picture
• alex - we had a meeting with Ken. He said money not issue, main issue is can we work together. they have doubts that our structure compatible. my understanding is they broker loans between their stable connections, broker these loans beneficially for arts orgs. we said even SR and CCL fit into who they work with. he said omni will need a single individual to represent omni, but didnt get detail on what powers necessary for them. so thats the speced out ED role. patrik is working on bylaws but dont remember them saying anything about that, or consensus. some of changes we would get - "asset management." separate from building management. they partner with a building management, they do things like track fire exits and escapes, electrical, and door exits. my understanding is a lot of work we do on building would not be open to us. so we would be able to clean floors but not do electrical.
• jake - does it seem like things will work?
• alex - seems so. one outcomes is the building becomes much nicer, but more expensive. meaning we would have to increase our membership, justify our existence a lot more
• jake - financially
• alex - yes. one of items i would like to ask. what range of increase? but the response is "if you make building more accessible makes more money." if people feeling good about showing up at the building means more people doing electronics, thats good. for now i think we've talked about it as much as we can
• jake - thank you so much for doing this work

wheelchair lift/ cardkey

• alex - we had a sketch, what happened
• jake - i updated the sketch and sent it to you. just before i came in here, there was nothing there again. me and eric put a lot of effort putting up the board.
• paige - described as ugly
• jake - well i dont like people falling off it. chain with hook, problem people dont put it back. i just put stantions back but im not here all the time. thats why i put up the board
• alex - where it was, yar was going to do it.
• jake - yar didnt and problem with . if spikes sticking out of ground we would put a traffic cone. i put a bunch of effort into it and got shat on. making picture so people dont tear it down
• alex - some people are going to find it aesthetically not ok
• jake - what about danger?
• alex - i think thats bigger issue
• jake - velvet rope doesnt put itself back. whoever took it down should put it back up. should i put board?
• alex - if you want to you should.
• eric - fine idea and uses no money.
• paige - rather it open horizontally for safety reasons

discussion about design

• jake - the thing now is i put something up and taken down. want assurance that if i put something else up
• alex - i get that, someone took it down with no alternative. i will bring it up tomorrow
• jake - if anyone wants it painted, i want them to do it
• paige - i think another thing is people arent so urgently concerned about this as jake. I like that jake is concerned about safety here, but fire department didnt say anything about it, i dont think saferdiy people have said anything about it other than putting caution tape, which i did last week. personally im much more concerned about table saw we have in SR than that ledge.
• alex - why are you so concerned with this safety issue?
• jake - can you name any bigger issues currently? stage is another similar safety issue but more obvious, people less likely to walk off edge
• alex - tools in sudo room
• jake - sudo room is different.
• alex - no, anyone can walk in here
• jake - shouldnt, have a door. but lack of volunteer labor to do nfc tag
• alex - are you asking me?
• jake - cgi, so people can add keys without ssh
• alex - we can make a much better interface than that. want people to be able to add people without using the shell?
• jake - yes

sudo room telephone

• jake - we have one now. the phone number is [redacted].

standards of conduct in sudo room

intro

• eric - i think we should refamiliarize, what someone can expect in the space in terms of respect and safety
• jake - what we do when things go wrong
• alex - about what happened last night? i would like to talk about what happened last night.
• jake - in the past we always made sure if ever there was a conflict, we would have a process to resolve
• jake - to answer on behalf of what im guessing eric is thinking, we have a long history of feeling like if somethings wrong, we can rely on each other to help fix things, unlike doing things ourselves. for example, conflict i have with someone else, i can rely on someone else getting in between. thats preferred way to handle it, so that there's not so much person to person stuff.
• eric - another concept, that i would like to normalize that i learned from paige, is asking people to take a break.
• alex - lets make this last agenda item

discussion

[redacted]

• jake - if theres anyone upsetting you, you can come to us to protect you. means you dont have to worry about protecting yourself in that way at sudo room. if something happened, can use your voice.
• jake - reprecussions is in future doesnt happen again
• paige - anyone going to reach out to [redacted]?
• alex - i reached out today. my ideal situation is that the two parties have a conversation about this that doesnt escalate
• jake - i think its possible
• eric - i think it would be good to leave specific details of conflict out of the meeting notes.
• alex - another concern is it was a public event.
• paige - conflict steward role in bylaws. useful
• eric - yes a nonpublic steward
• alex - who would do it? only 5 of us here

another discussion

• jake - last meeting you said i said this thing to PYM and I would like you to show it in meeting notes and if not there, stop saying it
• paige - i remember you saying it in the oct 21 meeting but yea it is not in notes. so i will stop saying you said it directly to PYM. But here is a screenshot of you saying the same thing to someone on Slack