Membership heatmap?

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Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Nov 29, 2016, 1:29:22 PM11/29/16
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Since the LHS is both;

* Relocating in a year or so
* Not actively trying to recruit additional members

..it seems new venue options should be focused more on existing
membership access than prospective. It would also help determine the
viability of the option of splitting the space.

Can we create an authenticated heatmap of member locations?

I would think location at the resolution of postcode (Eg: E4) or borough
would be sufficient. I presume there is a voting system available where
unique voting links could be provided in the websites membership area,
then the results processed into a map. We don't need to have a location
linked to a particular user account, just assurance that each person
only votes once.

Ant Invent

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:14:26 AM11/30/16
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Great idea, who implemented the trustee voting system? Maybe we could do it through the same means to keep one vote each?

Connor Shearwood

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Nov 30, 2016, 7:06:14 AM11/30/16
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The trustee voting system was a commercially available solution if I remember cottectly. But it shouldn't be too hard(tm) to add something to the hackspace website, I'll have some spare time over Christmas and would be willing to offer some help adding that.

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Russ Garrett

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Nov 30, 2016, 7:30:14 AM11/30/16
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We already have address details for all members. The issue is mapping
them without revealing them.

Russ
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Aden

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Nov 30, 2016, 7:34:45 AM11/30/16
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How about just making a list of all the postcodes public?


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David Dorward

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:04:52 AM11/30/16
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On 30 Nov 2016, at 12:34, Aden wrote:

> How about just making a list of all the postcodes public?

The average postcode covers 15 properties and can cover as few as 1. It
comes, at the very least, very close to be personally identifiable
information.

Tom Newsom

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:14:01 AM11/30/16
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Timour Chomilier

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:19:52 AM11/30/16
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then dont make the post code public, just the final heat map


On Tuesday, 29 November 2016 18:29:22 UTC, Sci wrote:

Aden

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:19:59 AM11/30/16
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I mean just the postcodes, no names or personally identifiable information.

Aden

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:26:53 AM11/30/16
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A list of postcodes is fine, anyone objecting to their postcode being on a random list is a lunatic. A heatmap requires someone with access to the list, and the motivation to make the map, also stops people doing more interesting things like considering public transport travel time for each postcode.

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Yvan Janssens

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:27:02 AM11/30/16
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Maybe the first section of the postcode only? e.g. WC2H or E15? That is anonymous enough to not tell where everybody lives, but is useful enough as a data point?

/y

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 1:19 PM Aden <ad...@aden.org.uk> wrote:
I mean just the postcodes, no names or personally identifiable information.
On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 1:04 PM, David Dorward <dor...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 30 Nov 2016, at 12:34, Aden wrote:

How about just making a list of all the postcodes public?

The average postcode covers 15 properties and can cover as few as 1. It comes, at the very least, very close to be personally identifiable information.


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David Dorward

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:34:18 AM11/30/16
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Did you read the comment you just responded to? “Just the postcode” comes very close to being PII.

I note that in your next post to the mailing list you accused people who objected to having that information published as lunatics. Can I remind you about https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Code_of_Conduct ?

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Aden

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Nov 30, 2016, 8:55:44 AM11/30/16
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Lunatic confirmed. Here is a list with your postcode on it. http://file.wikileaks.org/file/uk-post-codes-2009.bz2

Mark Steward

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Nov 30, 2016, 9:08:22 AM11/30/16
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We're not releasing everyone's postcode. Please don't continue this debate, and definitely don't fling insults.


Mark

David Murphy

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Nov 30, 2016, 10:05:37 AM11/30/16
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Yvan Janssens suggestion of just publishing counts for the first 3 or 4 digits of the post code seems reasonable and sufficient for our needs.
Postcode stripped of the last 3 or 4 digits can be used in pseudonymous research datasets without revealing enough data to identify people.

tgreer

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Nov 30, 2016, 10:14:57 AM11/30/16
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So can the full postcode, cos y'know they're already public knowledge and therefore not personally identifyable.


On Wednesday, 30 November 2016 15:05:37 UTC, David wrote:

Yvan Janssens suggestion of just publishing counts for the first 3 or 4 digits of the post code seems reasonable and sufficient for our needs.
Postcode stripped of the last 3 or 4 digits can be used in pseudonymous research datasets without revealing enough data to identify people.
On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Mark Steward <marks...@gmail.com> wrote:
We're not releasing everyone's postcode. Please don't continue this debate, and definitely don't fling insults.


Mark
On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Aden <ad...@aden.org.uk> wrote:
Lunatic confirmed. Here is a list with your postcode on it. http://file.wikileaks.org/file/uk-post-codes-2009.bz2
On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 1:34 PM, David Dorward <dor...@gmail.com> wrote:

Did you read the comment you just responded to? “Just the postcode” comes very close to being PII.

I note that in your next post to the mailing list you accused people who objected to having that information published as lunatics. Can I remind you about https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Code_of_Conduct ?

On 30 Nov 2016, at 13:19, Aden wrote:

I mean just the postcodes, no names or personally identifiable information.
On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 1:04 PM, David Dorward <dor...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 30 Nov 2016, at 12:34, Aden wrote:

How about just making a list of all the postcodes public?

The average postcode covers 15 properties and can cover as few as 1. It comes, at the very least, very close to be personally identifiable information.


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Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Nov 30, 2016, 11:48:16 AM11/30/16
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Checking the formatting terms, all we'd need is the Outward Code
portion. That wouldn't narrow it down more than several dozen streets
even in the centre of town. And we just need a counter for number of
members in each one, not an individualised breakdown.

Tom Newsom

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Nov 30, 2016, 12:26:08 PM11/30/16
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a single column csv of all member postcodes is comlpetely non-identifiable and you will get a heatmap out of batchgeo in a matter of minutes. Any trustee with 10m to spare should be able to do this :)

David Murphy

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Nov 30, 2016, 1:02:08 PM11/30/16
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A list of phone numbers is not PII, a list of phone numbers with a note saying "these people all called an abortion hotline" or "these people all called about STD screening" can be considered PII.

I know a few people at the space who feel strongly about not being photographed there etc. If they consider it sensitive info that they're members of an organization that teaches lockpicking and has a biolab, for whatever reason, then they could complain.

A list of full postcodes along with "people at these postcodes are part of a club that includes lockpicking classes on it's regular schedule" is iffy.

while, my completely non-lawyer feeling is that the hackspace would probably win in an actual court case over merely revealing a list of postcodes: why invite the fight and the bad blood from people who might be unhappy about it when we have zero need for full post codes, we only need approximate locations for planning purposes?




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unknowndomain

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Nov 30, 2016, 3:51:24 PM11/30/16
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Inspired by this I just did this for South London Makerspace's membership system, it is incredibly easy to do:



Russ Garrett

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Nov 30, 2016, 5:21:36 PM11/30/16
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Not, it turns out, without paying them $99/month, as there are more
than 250 rows. I have code to do this, somewhere, if only I can find
it.

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Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Nov 30, 2016, 5:43:03 PM11/30/16
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Does anyone have a pre-existing account with BatchGeo that would allow this?

Harry Streuli

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Nov 30, 2016, 5:47:40 PM11/30/16
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Is it likely that there are 'inactive' members that might skew the results?

I definitely think it is worth pursuing, but just wanted to offer an observation....

Tom Lynch

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Nov 30, 2016, 5:48:44 PM11/30/16
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Inactive members are still paying members.

Kind Regards


Tom Lynch

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Harry Streuli

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Nov 30, 2016, 5:53:53 PM11/30/16
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Agreed. 

But should we drastically adjust the position of the hackspace based on people who do not contribute to the 'community'?.

I suppose I am saying that there is a high probability that there are a some inactive members in the immediate vicinity of the hackspace that might skew the results, and we should look to mitigate this while compiling a heatmap.

Alexander Baxevanis

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Nov 30, 2016, 5:57:31 PM11/30/16
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How do you define 'inactive' members? There isn't a clear way to determine how often someone visits, how long the stay at the space and how much they infrastructure they use.

Harry Streuli

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:09:31 PM11/30/16
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I guess an inactive member would be one that rarely uses the space (less than say, every three months?), or doesn't contribute to online discussion?

I would expect that the doorbot would be able to tell us the number of visits.

I am not trying to cause an argument with this observation, merely making a point about how a heatmap is likely to be skewed in the cambridge heath/hackney road area.

Tom Lynch

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:14:46 PM11/30/16
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Actually I doubt you are correct, just look at South London Makerspace above, that map has people from very long distances away that I know never visit.

The point is, I don’t think you can assume anything, and inactive members might become active if the space was easier for them to access.

Russ Garrett

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:16:32 PM11/30/16
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I didn't have a whole lot of time to spend on this, but the attached
map is broken down by postal district. Not shown are the (very
honourable) members from Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and York
postcodes.

I can spend some time going more granular, but I don't want to do so
without a clear question to answer. If the question is "what part of
London is closest to the majority of LHS members", I think the answer
is clearly (and unsurprisingly) East.

The data:

0 E 313
1 HA 10
2 YO 1
3 CR 13
4 CT 2
5 SS 3
6 N 193
7 GU 3
8 SW 67
9 ME 3
10 BH 1
11 TS 1
12 RH 5
13 DE 1
14 NG 2
15 LS 1
16 B 1
17 HP 7
18 LE 1
19 WC 12
20 DH 1
21 SN 1
22 RM 10
23 SE 113
24 NR 1
25 CB 2
26 EN 17
27 UB 9
28 LU 2
29 LL 1
30 EH 2
31 SP 1
32 CM 5
33 L 1
34 G 1
35 CO 4
36 SG 2
37 IG 11
38 DA 9
39 BR 7
40 IP 2
41 WD 4
42 MK 2
43 TF 1
44 W 36
45 AB 1
46 BN 5
47 SY 2
48 KT 10
49 AL 2
50 NW 50
51 OX 1
52 BS 4
53 TN 2
54 TW 9
55 SM 4
56 A 1
57 RG 6
58 PE 1
59 EC 17

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membership.png

Harry Streuli

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:18:36 PM11/30/16
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Point taken. 

But the SLM heatmap (while interesting) is hard to understand as there is no scale. What does red actually mean? Is it 5 people? or is it 50 people? 

Paddy Duncan

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:25:48 PM11/30/16
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The clear question is 'where shall we move to?', and the highly scientific technique will give us the exact answer (and hopefully also move all our stuff, pay for it, and tidy up after we've gone). Simples.
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Tom Lynch

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:33:31 PM11/30/16
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I think part of the issue with the screen grab was it was zoomed out...


But heatmaps don't show you numbers, they show you frequency relative to other areas, it's not an accurate representation, it just helps to understand correlations, if you want to see numbers just put a pin in the map for every member.



As you can see if you zoom in, the map becomes much more helpful when considering where to relocate.


Harry Streuli

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:39:27 PM11/30/16
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This is certainly illuminating.

I would love to see the equivalent for this hackspace.

Tom Lynch

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Nov 30, 2016, 6:41:07 PM11/30/16
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I can easily do this if I can get the anonymised full postcodes of all the members.

Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Nov 30, 2016, 7:35:35 PM11/30/16
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Thankyou Russ. I think more resolution would be better though. As it is
that map shows 5 coloured heat levels. The highest colour level covers
membership counts of 313, 193, 113 and 67. So visually representing 67
as equal to 313 isn't that helpful.

While it's not ideal, I'd say constrain the map to members within the
M25. My logic is that if you're commuting in from further outside
London, does the location within the city matter that much?
Looking at a map, I think that would be postcodes starting EN, HA, NW,
N, E, IG, RM, UB, W, WC, EC, TW, SW, SE, DA, KT, SM, CR and BR.

I think it also needs the spacial resolution bumping up to the full
Outward Code. So the first letter-number combo. It would give a better
idea of how far out from city centre people are and if there are any
peaks in member density (no offence).

Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Nov 30, 2016, 7:49:51 PM11/30/16
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I think the Outward Code (the initial letter-number combo half) would be
enough to get reasonable accuracy for our purposes, but not narrow any
single members location down to more than a several dozen streets.
As an example, the smallest outward code area looks like SW5, and that
covers all of Earls Court and like a hundred streets.

Referencing:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/London_Postal_Region_Map.jpg
And: http://www.postcodearea.co.uk/postaltowns/london/sw5/

Tom Lynch

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Nov 30, 2016, 7:55:22 PM11/30/16
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You won't get the resolution needed to do a heat map with ward sized post codes.

Anyway the point is mute, anyone can join for £5 and the member list including full address has to be available to them under law.

So providing a list of postcodes is hardly a big deal, it would only tell you within a street of where they live and not tell you who lives in that street or what number.

Kind Regards

Tom Lynch
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Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Nov 30, 2016, 9:25:48 PM11/30/16
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Full addresses of all members being available to all members sounds very
odd to me. What bit of law specifies that? I presume something
specifically relating to non-profit companies? I would have expected
some aspect of data-protection law preventing that.

Russ Garrett

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Dec 1, 2016, 4:25:36 AM12/1/16
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On 1 December 2016 at 02:25, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com> wrote:
> Full addresses of all members being available to all members sounds very
> odd to me. What bit of law specifies that? I presume something
> specifically relating to non-profit companies? I would have expected some
> aspect of data-protection law preventing that.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/116

LHS's policy is to refer any such applications to the court for
approval, under section 117.

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Aden

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Dec 1, 2016, 4:40:23 AM12/1/16
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How could the going to court work? How much would it cost and who would pay for it?


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Richard Patterson

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Dec 1, 2016, 5:03:03 AM12/1/16
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On 1 December 2016 at 09:40, Aden <ad...@aden.org.uk> wrote:
How could the going to court work? How much would it cost and who would pay for it?

The requester doesn't "go to court".  LHS can either comply with the request, or ask the court if they should comply, so presumably LHS would be liable for any costs incurred:


117Register of members: response to request for inspection or copy

(1)Where a company receives a request under section 116 (register of members: right to inspect and require copy), it must within five working days either—

(a)comply with the request, or

(b)

apply to the court. 

Harry Streuli

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Dec 1, 2016, 5:03:56 AM12/1/16
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Is that entirely true?

117Register of members: response to request for inspection or copy

(1)Where a company receives a request under section 116 (register of members: right to inspect and require copy), it must within five working days either—

(a)comply with the request, or

(b)apply to the court.



Under section 116, any member may make a request to view the member list. Under 117.1, the company can either refer to court, or comply.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

Russ Garrett

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Dec 1, 2016, 6:16:38 AM12/1/16
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I've broken this down by ward now (attached).

For what it's worth, only 1000 members have valid postcodes in their
address, and of those, about 50 fail to geocode with OS CodePoint
Open.
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Tom Newsom

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:03:48 AM12/1/16
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And here's that data overlaid on a gmap. Hackspace at the blue star. SLMS at the red star (I hereby declare a personal bias :-P)

Stefan Sabo

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:20:18 AM12/1/16
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@12:01 PM

Is there any particular reason why can'tbe released ANONYMISED chart Post Codes of members, at requested "Ward" level (eg E2 or E2 9xx)?

This can't simply breach data protection law requirements, because You are unable reverse find out which code is related to particular member, but provide easy way to other automated usage of this data (which any graphic map don't) and allow hackers community bring the best possible value from this data.

Be aware, as alongside as not all members are from UK (e.g. don't have valid UK post code), there will be some incomplete profiles, where this could missing at all.
Also, there will be plenty of users, which not updated their profiles to actual address (usually there is request to provide real address when user join the HackSpace, but not real power to keep it updated), while house movement especially at London is huge.

Any data will have limited value, due reasons mentioned above.

There is of course option build specific survey, which will get action of me,beers and provide answers for questions like:

- which area you live in (ward part postcode)?
- how far is reasonable to walk/drive in to space (miles)?
Etc etc etc,

but I'm the case as at important things like elections or AGM(EGM) we have poor turn-out, reply and results from any customer action related (requested) form will be unusable for this idea.






Drne čtvrtek 1. prosince 2016 11:16:38 UTC Russ Garrett napsal(a):

Spike

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:25:09 AM12/1/16
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Still not going out far enough to include me in KT13 :D :D

Spike

Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:35:27 AM12/1/16
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Wow, I'm honestly surprised how centralised the membership is.

(also, hey, a starfish)

Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:39:16 AM12/1/16
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Wow, so we're already located pretty optimally for the existing
membership. It looks like only moving within 2-3 wards North, East or
even West would create a move with minimal disruption of access.

On 01/12/2016 12:03, Tom Newsom wrote:
> And here's that data overlaid on a gmap. Hackspace at the blue star.
> SLMS at the red star (I hereby declare a personal bias :-P)
>
> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bY_gqLJQUtI/WEARl1mZBKI/AAAAAAAAeRA/0bxiiYWpXBAUYI91Q-MVDVYvmswnFutGQCLcB/s1600/lhsheatmapgmap.png>
>
> On Thursday, 1 December 2016 11:16:38 UTC, Russ Garrett wrote:
>
> I've broken this down by ward now (attached).
>
> For what it's worth, only 1000 members have valid postcodes in their
> address, and of those, about 50 fail to geocode with OS CodePoint
> Open.
>
>
>
> On 1 December 2016 at 00:34, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com
> > email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>.
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>.
>
>
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Russ Garrett

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:41:33 AM12/1/16
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On 1 December 2016 at 12:11, Stefan Sabo <stefan.do...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there any particular reason why can'tbe released ANONYMISED chart Post Codes of members, at requested "Ward" level (eg E2 or E2 9xx)?
>
> This can't simply breach data protection law requirements, because You are unable reverse find out which code is related to particular member, but provide easy way to other automated usage of this data (which any graphic map don't) and allow hackers community bring the best possible value from this data.

If you truncate a postcode (for example to E2 or E2 9xx), it's not
easy to reconstruct that into an area. There is no public dataset of
these areas. So such a list of truncated postcodes would be of limited
use for casual analysis. At any rate, this would be for the trustees
to decide.

I'm happy to do any such analysis on the raw data assuming that it
doesn't de-anonymise people too substantially. I have a setup for this
now.

> Be aware, as alongside as not all members are from UK (e.g. don't have valid UK post code), there will be some incomplete profiles, where this could missing at all.
> Also, there will be plenty of users, which not updated their profiles to actual address (usually there is request to provide real address when user join the HackSpace, but not real power to keep it updated), while house movement especially at London is huge.

This is a fair point. It would be useful for the membership system to
send a periodic email asking people to check and update their details.

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

Tom Lynch

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:52:10 AM12/1/16
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Further reading of Companies Act 2006 suggest only the full name is required to be provided.

However the map still doesn’t show enough detail in my perspective, is there any chance of instead a list of coordinates for the geocoded full postcodes?
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Russ Garrett

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Dec 1, 2016, 7:57:31 AM12/1/16
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On 1 December 2016 at 12:52, Tom Lynch <m...@unknowndomain.co.uk> wrote:
> However the map still doesn’t show enough detail in my perspective, is there any chance of instead a list of coordinates for the geocoded full postcodes?

I'm not really happy to release that for privacy reasons which have, I
think, been covered fairly well above.

I think that map does a decent job at showing the distribution of
members around London - probably more so than the Google heatmap.

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Nick Reynolds

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Dec 1, 2016, 8:04:47 AM12/1/16
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I think that map, especially once overlaid on a Google map by Tom,
really provides a good illustration. Thanks Russ and Tom for the work.

I'd be tempted to say it might be worth sticking on the Wiki in a
"where are our members from?" page so it's not lost to the annals of
the mailing list.
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Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Dec 1, 2016, 8:50:16 AM12/1/16
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Good thinking. Then we can also reference it more easily on the upcoming
"Spacehunt 2017" page.

David Murphy

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Dec 1, 2016, 11:24:55 AM12/1/16
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Thanks Russ!

I think that's fairly informative.



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Connor Shearwood

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Dec 1, 2016, 11:47:25 AM12/1/16
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Is there any plan for making the outward codes available? I'd like to try mapping public transit times to other London postcodes for hackspace members (% of members within previous transit times or similar metrics). Number of members in each outward code would be enough.

I'm also happy to make the code to do this available if anyone thinks it's worthwhile. I wrote a similar program last time I was looking for housing that I should be able to quickly modify and clean up. I've at least found that simple distance can be misleading, especially near the river in East London, if you're relying on public transit.

Sorry if I've missed further up where someone discounted sharing this info.

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Peter "Sci" Turpin

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Dec 1, 2016, 11:58:59 AM12/1/16
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At worst, perhaps rather than making them publicly available you could
just work with those trustees that have access to run the script?
> <ru...@garrett.co.uk <mailto:ru...@garrett.co.uk>> wrote:
>
> On 1 December 2016 at 12:52, Tom Lynch
> <m...@unknowndomain.co.uk <mailto:m...@unknowndomain.co.uk>>
> wrote:
>
> However the map still doesn’t show enough detail in
> my perspective, is there any chance of instead a
> list of coordinates for the geocoded full postcodes?
>
>
> I'm not really happy to release that for privacy reasons
> which have, I
> think, been covered fairly well above.
>
> I think that map does a decent job at showing the
> distribution of
> members around London - probably more so than the Google
> heatmap.
>
> --
> Russ Garrett
> ru...@garrett.co.uk <mailto:ru...@garrett.co.uk>
>
>
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Connor Shearwood

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Dec 1, 2016, 12:17:14 PM12/1/16
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That would definitely be an option. That was kind of the intent behind making the code available, but I should have made that clearer.

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