Meeting Notes 2023-10-05

meeting was actually on wednesday 10/04/2023, not the 5th.

Participants

• paige
• jems
• andy
• yar
• jake
• sudoer
• sierk
• carl

new member discussion q/a

jems recently got 3 endorsements for membership

• jems - used to be involved. bio-art, help out with friends battle bots, background in physics weird art stuff
• andy - anything you are interested in doing volunteer wise. right now stuff just happens sporadically when someone has the energy to do stuff. things needed - organizing an event, or a clean up day monthly
• jems - saturdays i was in the space all day watching bots and organizing and working. down to help more. hosting a blender wnb night.

yar and andy confirm they know sudoer and can verify is a sudo room member

• jems - some questions, what are the responsibilities or expectations of delegates. Im interested in that and live close by. Also interested in helping with grant writing and fundraiser
• andy - if youre interested in being delegate i would be enthusiastic about that
• andy - delegates meeting are every 2nd thursday. first wednesday is the most reliable meeting day for sudo room meeting but there may be some interest in moving it. as for the finance stuff, pretty informal. No specific structure, mostly automated. I think it would be good to have a treasurer or finance wg. omni has a finance wg. could have a rep from sudo to go to the omni wg. lots of opportunity, lots of thing are derelict.
• jems - another new member jade is also excited about helping with things i mentioned. Not sure if they are looped in through email.
• andy - i would be happy to help debug that project. They should get onto the discussion mailing list, thats the main way to get info.
• yar - discussion list can sometimes be a scary place. good to have someone hold their hand welcoming them into the space, email list not always the best place for newcomers

how do we make sudo room more welcoming

• andy - ive been trying since ive joined a year ago to slowly gain support for things. i think we should be willing to consider more structure. an example would be to have a board structure that most volunteer orgs have. i.e. president/treasurer. i dont think we need to deviate from nonhierachical idea, not titles that would grant any powers, but could help make things more maneagable. create some system for establishing a board
• jake - what's the purpose of this?
• andy - to establish an easily identifiable person who exists with a purview. absence some structure, we end up with an ol' boys club. all power rests with knowing someone. if we have elections or groups to join, offers new ppl an avenue to leadership
• jake - no leadership, we are horizontal
• andy - i think that is a myth, absence organization, your space's power is given to whoever is loudest or tallest
• yar - i agree
• jems - do we have a charter?
• andy - bylaws and code of conduct (general set of what u can and cant do)
• jems - when i was with dsa sf, i liked their charters for their subgroups. had built in affirmative action. ppl had to have effects in the community, number of POC or women in leadership. if not meeting the quota, that group could not exist. those charters for subgroups, i dont want to speak for all of wnb, but if they had organizational structure, they could have a delegate to come speak for them at events. still keep horizontal structure but have a constant known person people can go to
• yar - those are ideas worth copying and i appreciate you bringing energy to the conversation about it. my experience of sudo is that it is not horizontal in practice. few people tend to collect power, that is partly because it is a do-acracy. some people have more time and energy to do. i am speaking as someone who did end up holding a lot of power there in the past. i tried to use it for good, but dont want to repeat. identity of a tiger tamer. a toxic dynamic

carl joins meeting

• jems - role for a steward type position. hard to have a neutral position. we could think about thinking how we handle restorative justice
• yar - balancing act between creating positions and making sure there are people to fill them

• jems - may be a good idea to create a list of things of what we'd like to have/what needs are

• andy - cleanup the spacce, try and get influx of people (bring your friend), people would feed off each others energy.
• yar - Andy that sounds great just wanna boost how much invisible labor goes into a really good event. Full support for people doing it. But it's not easy!
• sudoer: i support all these great ideas to make the space more welcoming, thank you.
• sudoer - do board members have to be delegates
• andy - thats for us to decide. sudo room as a computer program, we are the admin, code defines how it operates.
• jems - are any events paid?
• paige - no, but media lab is doing that if we want ideas
• andy - i think we should attempt the radio station model, continually encourage ppl to donate if they are using the space/ appreciate it, but no fee required
• jems - how do we do marketing?
• andy - romy post events to meetup, and someone posts on instagram, but vast majority is through word of mouth
• yar - and ppl who just moved here and google hackerspace
• andy - yes thats how i found out
• ELT - I am against adopting hierarchy at Sudoroom. A "board" sounds alarmingly hierarchical to me.

appointing a new delegate

• andy - I was nominated, paige was nominated. Normally we wouldnt nominate someone who is not officially a member/finished waiting period. But I nominate Jems, pending completion on membership.
• andy - proposal: the delegate committee will be jems (by next meeting as a fully fledged member) and paige. What do people think?
• yar - approve
• ELT - i like Jems but I think we should stick with people who have been around longer. just because they may understand the space better
• andy - can i propose to adopt that as an amendment to the proposal: ELT could you act as an interim delegate for one or two meetings?
• ELT - yea we can alternate
• Jake - elephant in the room is nobody is asking me about . i feel underappreciated for both my work as delegate taking a lot of fire in the recent episodes with CLP. Due to yar's villification with me, which is because of a longstanding conflict with yar, I was focused on by CLP, everyone focused their rage on me. "Now we are looking for a new delegate because Jake's name is tainted": I want to call this out so everyone knows what is going on here.
• Andy - anything you would formally request? I would just like to say that I appreciate all the work and sympathize with the abuse you have taken. I want you to know that I am grateful
• Jake - i want people to recognize that the vilification of me by CLP and Yar was invalid. people should make opinions based off what i've said in meetings, rather than just basing opinions based off what yar said. reason i have not been defending myself as much -- im tired of it, everyone is, ultimately i want omni to stay, and sudo live. Just because im not bringing it up, it doesnt mean its a problem.
• ELT - do you still want to be the delegate?
• jake - doesnt matter, in the past nobody would step up to be delegate despite me repeatedly asking. so i did it because nobody would want to. nobody else was joining the omni mailing lists and keeping track with the omni stuff. so i kept doing it. great, now that other people are stepping up to delegate. But its not because they want to help out, but because they heard jake is cancelled, and they want to get him out of the position. im glad we are having another delegate, and i invite said person to ask me what is like/advice.
• andy - i appreciate what youve done and the continuity you have offered
• sudoer - (in the chat) sudoer says:i vote for restorative justice to untaint jake's name
• andy - that is a very thoughtful idea. we don't have time to discuss that right now but i want that in the minutes.
• Carl - Jake, I appreciate all the work you've done for sudo & omni and I don't believe what was said about you.
• jake - thank you Carl I appreciate that
• jake - we really had to drag this shit-throwing group out kicking and screaming and they were covered in shit and so shit got all over me

show and tell

• jems shows off visual synth and its super rad
• ELT shows raspberry pi running joust. playing music. joust uses these old playstation motion controllers, and the goal is to knock someone's icecream off their cone. and we can have ice cream fights in the ballroom. couldnt have pulled it off without jake, appreciate the help
• and ELT made a fire truck

discussion about moving sudo mesh

• ELT has idea and has discussed with sudo mesh to move servers and storage into space under the stairway
• jake - what would we put up there? Im thinking of a carpetted cat tree
• ELT - would be nice to have more of a social space. secretly envious that noisebridge has had that
• jake - lets do it, please contact if you want to help doing the dirty work of cleaning and ratproofing.

ELT and Paige down to join help

discussion about recent delegates meetings

• paige - asking questions about things that will come up in next delegates meeting. ANV use of the building? VOL rent forgiveness? What does sudo room think about paying people for cleaning and events?
• jake - property tax issue. city has been responding slowly. sarah lockhart absolutely indispensible. in terms of events, we have only recently start paying Billy. Billy left events group immediately after CLP removed. but ultimately, everyone Billy was booking removed their bookings. now we are going forward, discussion about who we pay going forward
• carl - has omni paid for cleaning services in the past?
• jake - not to my knowledge
• carl - lot of square footage, would be expensive
• jake - what we need is more volunteers. but if we don't have that we need to pay people. i recommend everyone join the omni consensus email lists. this is the archive for the consensus list. (dont have to join list, can just read) https://omnicommons.org/pipermail/consensus/ but if you want to join it, click link at the top.
• jake - fyi in the past weve had trolls come onto the pad. was a long time ago. hard to tell who put stuff at the top of this pad. can be crude and gross. just good to be aware of.
• paige - i agreed to be delegate because we needed de-escalation. people have been hurt by you. it was conflated with some false accusations from CLP. was hoping we could get past that. what do we need to do moving forward because there is still distrust of you in the delegates meeting and people are hurt on both sides. jackie and yar were calling for..
• jake - yar is not a delegate, she's someone who i've had a conflict with for years.
• paige - danielle
• jake - danielle is from clp and boggs
• paige - danielle will be at next meeting
• jake - i want to address danielle is a clp member and sent an email written by rafiq. doesn't make sense
• paige - other ppl saw u hurt danielle in the meeting
• jake - what happened was i asked danielle if she was clp, then rafiq said jake has no respect for black women. it was clp not boggs. interrupting happens in meeting for point of order. asking someone if member of different group
• paige - given recent climate + as an interruption, it came off as threatening. as an interruption, it had the feeling "if you are clp i will smear you". people have been critiquing how you speak, and
• jake - im not suggesting i wanna be delegate. outrage was manufactured by rafiq and yar
• paige - i dont trust clp but i have no reason not to trust yar. multiple ppl claiming you hurt them and you are not taking accountAbility. this needs to be discussed. a new boggs. the last meeting people were less charged, they voiced opinions about how you talk to people. it went somewhere so i think we should continue going somewhere with it.
• jake - im choosing not to pursue this stuff as much as i woould like to. i feel strongly that yar... she sent an email saying she wants me banned from delegate meeting because clp attacked her. she was talking with rafiq about me before realizing clp is bad. 8 days ago today. (reads email)
• carl - i don't understand how yar can ever side w them again. thus was a toxic group. you should discount everything they say if they are untrustworthy.
• jake - i've been going through this with yar for years. she's extremely distrusting of me. lived in my house 2013-2015. even though we went through mediation. a year ago, i sent yar stuff. yar said fuck you i'm not listening to you about identity politics. yar told rafiq i was the person who advocated criticism on clp. now today yar says i am the reason clp is attacking her. frustrating because people think yar is great but my experience is stuff like this (shares screen, shows something about technical issue silver had, and comment by jake and yar responding that she was going to handle it) i said yar you are falling asleep and running yourself into a ditch and she said no.
• paige - i assume that's because she didn't want to work with you
• jake - we work together and i forget she did something wrong, then she goes and sends an email

(reads email about racist anti-black behavior) this is serious accusation. dmed her can u cite specific examples. she said the church in 2015. pastor cheryl ward wanted a church at omni. i said no, it had nothing to do with race. any other examples and she had nothing.someone talking about me without any examples is fucked up and its frustrating

• paige - yar said (reads) im talking about jake's tendency to prioritize himself over others who have been harmed.
• carl - word racism has been thrown around. never understood justification for it.
• paige - murien was talking about obligation we have to invite and make space for poc. Given we are displacing people. anti-racism means we need to reach out. chromebook and laptop project. partner with gloria and local schools. insular group here, people don't think they can take active leadership. don't agree with board but excited about having that conversation. friends of friends means its a somewhat insular community. meeting on topic of racism. islamophobic to call leader of clp had no merit. you took some accountability saying realize my emotion about these issues is more than people want to experience. even if you didn't mean to hurt danielle, gut reactions can make a space not safe.
• jake - dsnielle was put in a terrible position, and i think it was done by clp. they took advantage of her at her expense. i recognize harm was done to danielle but I don't think it's fair to blame me for that.
• paige - your frustration is you are receiving all the blame. their frustration is they don't see you taking accountability.
• jake - i was skeptical of clp before they joined and yar pushed them in. if not for yar acting as a delegate we wouldn't have let them in
• paige - i can see why someone would be excited to include a group of poc into omni
• jake - is clp people of color? idk their numbers
• paige - yar didnt trust when you when you voiced ur concerns and that has at least partially has to do with how you talk about people. jabs. u need a sense of urgency, but .. yar was able to put out the fire. not entirely by throwing you under the bus, but by researching clp politics, reaching out for advice from iranian person...
• jake - that was entirely because of my work
• paige - i hope we can get you two to trust each other again
• jake - i trusted yar many times and she repeatedly made me regret it. mark yule. single-handedly bullied jenny. it was super fucked up. it's not clear what she did. said jenny can't hold positions of power anymore. not a delegate. yar had an ally, aj from phi collective, living at omni, upset rob couldnt live there. jenny not allowed because yar said so. didn't make any sense but it happened. it was absolutely bullying, i can't think of any other way to describe it. forgotten when yar did somethjng gucked up, trusted her,... my email had bad tone, but j was the only one doing it. yar forwarded that email it to rafiq. really frustrating.
• paige - the rest of the delegates can vote on that. discussion might be if you and yar are banned from something.
• jake - was going to write an email. i'm not gonna let her keep doing this to me. i have other stuff besides yar attacking me after she brought this group. she put us in this situation. and now she's targeting me.
• paige - for example, initially before knowing more about situation, i was confused by email you recently sent out from rafiq - open house april or may 2022. i see someone was engaging a political debate and i don't know how they went about doing that. if someone makes a complaint on that level it has to be taken seriously and carefully
• jake - stalinist tankies. rafiq said i sent someone to harass them. rafiq opened the floodgates. i had to cower and beg forgiveness for suggesting that these people were stalinist tankies. one of the reasons i'm upset.
• paige - u might say tone policing but it is very important. how others perceive it. i.e. community members and people from pym. it goes along way to be civil and thoughtful about accusation
• jake - i agree with you. but i was stressed out of my mind about this situation. yar is ruthless, made me the villain. no allies. yea, i didn't hold it together.
• paige - if more people are involved it doesn't just have to be your word against yar's so i hope we are moving in that direction.
• jake - ya
• paige - think about what meeting notes we want to include given the sensitive nature of talking about other people.
• paige - open to mediation with yar?
• jake - did it before and it didn't work. ya i would like to do mediation, and i'd like to do it by email
• paige - i'll decide what notes to put up?
• jake - yes ok
• paige - new people involved
• jake - when i see people unsubscribing from the discuss list it's discouraging. we need to keep bringing in new people.