Shocked with what I heard this morning

[M]

I'm shocked and feel it's best to write it on the list, early hours of
this morning a member pulls out of the three weeks pin an item.

Many hours pass.

Another person who believes it to be their property decides to claim
ownership after seeing it on the table, but when it was explained how
it was found a load of abuse was thrown.. It was explained politely by
2 members but they were ignored, I was one of them explaining how it
was found. Keeping in mind it was explained how it was found, purely
to keep peace and shed light on how it came into someone elses hands
and that it was not of theft.

Some snippets included, ' you're stealing my shit', 'why don't you
fight me for it', 'dipshit, and ' grow another 2 inches '.

It was completely uncalled for and left a few of us really unimpressed.

I sincerely hope Sam learns to be a bit more congruent with /this/ community. :(

--
>
++++++++++[>+>+++>++
+++++>++++++++++<<<<
-]>>>+++++++.>++++++
+++++.+++..---------
.++++++++++.<<+++.<.

[benjamin winston]

Was it in a box, or did it have a 'do not hack' sticker on it? Was it
within a bag that someone had forgotten?

No?

Fair game, afaik. Update me if I'm wrong here.

b

[Russ Garrett]

On 5 March 2012 08:45, benjamin winston <benjamin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fair game, afaik. Update me if I'm wrong here.

The "fair game" rule doesn't override the unwritten "don't be a dick" rule.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Sotiri Tech]

It was at "hack me"/"to be thrown away within 2 weeks" box near the
front door.

On Mar 5, 8:45 am, benjamin winston <benjamin.wins...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Glen]

As the inventor of the three box system I feel I should comment.

-=[ What came before ]=-

There used to be the one box where abandoned personal items and unwanted hackspace materials would go. This box would get emptied randomly; what would happen was unwanted stuff would be taken out of the box and put back on the shelfs and personal items going in the bin a few hours after they were left on a table.

-=[ Description of system ]=-

The three box system is a series of boxes. The three week box is where abandoned stuff left of tables of unwanted Hackspace property would go. Every bin-day the 1 week box is emptied, box 2 is put into box 1 and week 3 into week two. 

The three box system server to functions:

  unwanted stuff is less lightly to be put back in the Space as spotting somthing that was wrongly binned is no longer time critical,

  members have a good chance of retreiving their personal items that they forgot to put away.

The two and one week bins are freebie piles, items can be claimed on the way to the bin. The three week box was where people would look for their personal items they forgot to put away.

-=[ Conclusion ]=-

My opinion on the matter is that if you know that the three week box contains personal items that were recently left out, taking from it is anti-social.

[Billy]

This may be irritating, but it's also been necessary.

We've got over 400 members now, so there is not going to be enough
space.

It's been the case for the last few months that when people have left
stuff lying around, it was getting tidied into the three week bins, as
this was the easiest way to get untidy people to tidy up after
themselves.

And yes, i am aware how ironic this is that i'm the person saying
this... :))

Please tidy up your stuff when you are done for the day.

And also important, please be excellent to each other.

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

I for one did not realise the 3-week bin was also such a lost & found
bin, and have since first coming to the space been told it's all up for
grabs and just a way of managing member/space-unwanted spares. The idea
that I may have unknowingly taken items that were not freely donated or
officially cleared out is very uncomfortable.

Though frankly merging the donations system so closely with the lost &
found, this was bound to happen. Especially since actual donations get
readily and routinely left in the 3-week box as well.

Let's just move the 3-week box physically away from the 2 and 1 week boxes.

Proposal:

Attatch to the front of the boxes some proper drawer label holders, EG:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251009124126

The "lost and found" label is on RED and notes that the contents will be
moved to the 2-week disposal box every sunday. This doesn't help much in
cases where something is lost or forgotten early on a sunday, but one
improvement at a time. Plus if there's no risk of your stuff being
permenantly lost, where's the motivation in actually looking after your
stuff? :P

The other two boxes get labels stating "Hackspace item donations;
X-weeks to disposal" on green.

Every sunday the Lost & found box gets moved down to the general box
location, the labels get swapped along and the former 1-week box gets
emptied and becomes the new Lost & Found for the week.

Not perfect, but seems it would be an improvement in preventing
donations merging with lost items initially, as well as being tidier and
less work in the long run (not having to empty the contents of one box
into the next, possibly damaging otherwise useful parts).

~ Sci

[benjamin winston]

That sounds good.

[Charles Yarnold]

Slightly over complicated. Just sign above the spaces for the boxes, this shows what the box that is under it is for.

I'm confused by Glens comments as the box system was started by Jonty. There is no "lost and found box" all is up for grabs as the 3 week system is a way not to check out nice things when following rule 15 "Any items left on a workbench overnight become fair game. Put your stuff back in your box." such that we don't have lost and found, if you leave something at the space, ring up and get someone to put it in your/their box for you to retrieve.

Sol 

[Mark Steward]

On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Charles Yarnold
<charles...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Slightly over complicated. Just sign above the spaces for the boxes, this
> shows what the box that is under it is for.
>
> I'm confused by Glens comments as the box system was started by Jonty. There
> is no "lost and found box" all is up for grabs as the 3 week system is a way
> not to check out nice things when following rule 15 "Any items left on a
> workbench overnight become fair game. Put your stuff back in your box." such
> that we don't have lost and found, if you leave something at the space, ring
> up and get someone to put it in your/their box for you to retrieve.
>

With the obvious assumption of excellence from all involved, taking
into account the mistakes people make in a shared workshop. Fair game
means that if something is left out by accident, you shouldn't start a
fight if the rightful owner asks for it back. On the other hand, if
something has already been hacked because you left it out a week ago,
you may be entitled to a hug, but not a replacement.

We still don't know enough detail about last night to do anything more
than speculate on the list, so I suggest we all continue to assume
good faith for now.

Mark

[phil jones]

I'd say Russ and Mark have it right.

If someone had something go into a bin without them realising / paying
attention. And they then find it, intact, it feels like they should
have the right to rescue it.

Sure if it's already been hacked into something else; then they have
to accept the consequences of their inattention. But if it's just a
that someone else has seen it and thought "I'll have that", I'd think
that it's a bit *officious* to insist that the original owner has
forfeited it. "Be excellent" would surely give the original owner a
final chance to reclaim it.

Having said that, there's no excuse for aggression or threatening
behaviour. Do we need some kind of mediation / public "trail" or
meeting where people should be asked to come and apologise for bad
behaviour?

phil

[Martin Dittus]

I'd like to invite the parties involved to make use of the "Talk to a London Hackspace Trustee" slot every Tuesday 8pm. We're good impartial mediators, and we know the rules of the space.

(If you witnessed the debate Morris mentions I'd very much appreciate if you would extend this invitation to the parties involved.)

m.

[Charles Yarnold]

Just to note, I wasn't suggesting anything to the contrary to this.

[DieselDragon]

Peter Sci Turpin wrote:
> I for one did not realise the 3-week bin was also such a lost & found
> bin, and have since first coming to the space been told it's all up for
> grabs and just a way of managing member/space-unwanted spares. The idea
> that I may have unknowingly taken items that were not freely donated or
> officially cleared out is very uncomfortable.

I had exactly the same train of thought / knee-jerk reaction as Peter
above when I read Glens post - I was also told on my first visits to
the Space that anything in the 1/2/3 week boxes is "fair game" and as
a result I've often taken to having a rummage through and nabbing
anything interesting that has caught my eye...And the idea that I
might have unwittingly taken someone's genuinely lost property (That
they'd never intended to become "fair game" in the first place) is
quite disconcerting. :-(

I think that the majority of the stuff I've had out of those might
still be in it's as-found state though, and I'd be happy to make a
list for a "Three Week Amnesty" thread if one is believed necessary
(Might take me a couple of weeks, mind). Would there be any point in
an "Items missing, presumed lost at Hackspace" thread where people
could declare anything that might've ended up in three week by
mistake?

I do like Peters angle on solving this problem with swappable labels,
provided the labels themselves don't become subject to abuse (I.E:
Someone swapping the "Three week" tag with the "This Week" one and
then plundering after an hour or two...Although I hope no-one at the
Space would do that) and I'd +1 his suggestions.

I'm also tempted to suggest the addition of a fourth box specifically
for "Lost and Found" items which could be kept away from the 1-3 week
boxes, but this might only serve to exaggerate the problem. After all,
lots of bits lying around the space could look like three week "junk"
to one member but be a valuable possession to the owner who
accidentally left it on the bench!
Might an in-rules standard for differentiating between "Lost/Found"
and "Three week" items based on the question "Would it be sellable in
a shop in that state?" perhaps with an occasional purge of the "Lost/
Found" box into three week (For those inevitable mis-categorised items
landing in the former) by one of the Hackspace directors work?

Those are just my ideas on the subject and hopefully they'll
contribute to a solution (Feel free to meld/change/wield as necessary
of course) but I agree; 'Tis truly a difficult problem to work out an
efficient solution for... :-|
+++ DieselDragon +++

[Kimball Johnson]

> Might an in-rules standard for differentiating between "Lost/Found"
> and "Three week" items based on the question "Would it be sellable in
> a shop in that state?"

That's a bad distinction - for example my laptop would end up in the 3
week box if I had wandered to get lunch based on that, gicn the bottom
is falling off, but it's perfectly usable.

Kimball

[Sam Cook]

If you're leaving stuff on desks long enough that they're being cleared into the 3-week bin then that's your problem. I would consider anything left for longer than 3~4 hours to be worthy of this. Stuff (e.g. laptops) that is good quality should be checked before hacking anyway (rule 11). 

The space is for working in, not setting up camp in and buggering off somewhere else. If you have to leave stuff for a longer time (i.e. a few hours) then tidy it away, put a 'do not hack' sticker on it and tell people when you'll be back.

Ultimately the 3 week box was instated because previously we had a huge box of "stuff that people might want to hack one day maybe possibly but its so cool" and it ended up getting filled and never emptied. 

<hardarse>

S

[DieselDragon]

On Mar 6, 5:28 pm, Kimball Johnson <kimb...@bowerham.net> wrote:
> That's a bad distinction - for example my laptop would end up in the 3
> week box if I had wandered to get lunch based on that, gicn the bottom
> is falling off, but it's perfectly usable.

That's exactly the problem I foresaw with the "Is it junk or is it
useful?" question, though I included it nonetheless as I thought it
might be a useful consideration for the table. Trouble is that other
useful stuff (Like Arduino shields and HDD controllers with customised
firmware on the make) can look like "junk" to the uninitiated, and
AFAIK not everyone who uses the 'Space has a technical background so
such mis-categorisations could happen an awful lot.
One headache of course is that the standard "Do Not Hack" stickers are
too large to affix to smaller projects, and not everyone might have
the hardware/mindset to scan QR codes affixed to smaller stuff. Maybe
having a standard "Do not hack" and/or "In use/owned by someone"
symbols for smaller projects might be worthwhile?

Admittedly my laptop wouldn't immediately look like "junk" as it still
looks like it came from the OEM...But my HackTop (If ever I get around
to building it!) would almost certainly look like a bunch of random
bits to many people especially on account of its size. The possible
presence of a punched tape reader (Yes, I still use punched tape...Or
at least will once I've gotten a reader/punch crafted!) would probably
suggest it's older than most of the city of London! :-D

On Mar 6, 5:35 pm, Sam Cook <sam.lindenrat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you're leaving stuff on desks long enough that they're being cleared
> into the 3-week bin then that's your problem. I would consider anything
> left for longer than 3~4 hours to be worthy of this. Stuff (e.g. laptops)
> that is good quality should be checked before hacking anyway (rule 11).

That's certainly true, and was the reason for the boxes being set up
in the first place if I understand correctly. Personally, I try not to
leave anything lying around the Space for more than five minutes
anyway if I can help it - Mainly because I don't like my stuff taking
up valuable space for any longer than necessary.

> The space is for working in, not setting up camp in and buggering off
> somewhere else. If you have to leave stuff for a longer time (i.e. a few
> hours) then tidy it away, put a 'do not hack' sticker on it and tell people
> when you'll be back.

I've had to do this once before when I'd salvaged a few useful things
out of the three-week before nipping off to Metal Warriors at the
Stone, but - As you say - I'd stuck everything into a keysafe that was
part of the salvaged items and added a Do Not Hack sticker with a
weeks expiry (Something like "Please three-week after...") before
leaving it somewhere out of the way but still visible and accessible
in case I didn't make it back to the 'Space that night. I did collect
it about six hours later, though.

Would you say that was a suitable approach?
+++ DieselDragon +++

[Sam Cook]

In my official position of nothing what-so-ever that seems to be how it should work :p

S

[Charles Yarnold]

Its just a fact of the space being so popular, we need to give people the tools to keep the space clean. This means that if you leave something there is a chance you may not get it back. This has happened to me in the past, but I would rather the space was just that bit easier to clean than little timmy tootle may not get his forgotten train back.

</2p>

[cepm...@yahoo.co.uk]

The approved "Do Not Hack" sign for items too small for the stickers is to
place said items either in your members box or your jacket pocket. If you
have left some stuff out while you are at lunch etc. then an A4 sheet on
the desk with "Gone to lunch" in large letters should suffice.

Marking things with your name/email (a "Sharpie" or similar felt marker is
good for this) will normally ensure that enquiries are made before
mangling/disposal.

> One headache of course is that the standard "Do Not Hack" stickers are
> too large to affix to smaller projects, and not everyone might have
> the hardware/mindset to scan QR codes affixed to smaller stuff. Maybe
> having a standard "Do not hack" and/or "In use/owned by someone"
> symbols for smaller projects might be worthwhile?

Phil

--
" et cognoscetis veritatem et veritas liberabit vos. "