I've been wanting to start this discussion on the list for a while, and have talked it over with a few people, but keep writing and rewriting this. Several times, I've been on each end of this situation:
Someone goes into the hackspace in the morning, and someone else is asleep on a sofa. Person one apologises and feels the need to be quiet, and person two says "No, no it's fine". I've been on both ends of it, and no matter how polite we are it's always uncomfortable for everyone.
London Hackspacers have devised a name for people that spend huge chunks of their lives in the Hackspace: Hobo hackers. I think there's also only one good solution, and that it might need to be come a new hackspace rule: The right of others to hack comes before the right of someone to sleep. If people agree, it's something we could all vote on at the next board meeting.
So, here is what I think, with some fairly strong opinions:
If any other member ever says to you "Can you not do that please? I'm trying to get some sleep", I think the answer is always "Go home then". As far as I'm aware, nothing this confrontational has ever happened at Nottingham Hackspace, but I've heard about people at London Hackspace occasionally asking people to not machine so they can sleep, or blocking doorways in sleeping bags. I'd hate for that to ever happen here.
Many of us have occasionally stayed overnight at the space. Personally, I think this is fine. For example, sometimes I'm not on my bike and miss the last bus home, or work really late on a project, or lose track of time while chatting to people on a Wednesday.
There are bad reasons too. Being evicted, not sorting out problems at home, or using the hackspace for your romantic dalliances and errors of judgment are among the much longer list of bad reasons to stay overnight.
Now and then is fine. All the time is not. Living in the hackspace, regardless of whether or not rent is being paid, is the embodiment of the Roommate Anti-pattern:
Spending time in the hackspace to the point of almost living there implicitly sets up parts of it as your territory, whether intentional or not. In turn, this makes other hackspace members feel awkward and hesitant.
Rather than "someone in charge" drawing a specific but inevitably too harsh or too lenient line on this, or even people having to deal with it on a case by case basis, I think it's something that should be dealt with behaviourally. Hackspace is not sleepspace, so projects take priority. When you arrive at the hackspace, at any time of the night or day, do what you planned to do. Typing, knitting, machining, making a video… whatever it is, do it even if there are people sleeping. Getting your projects done takes precedence over other people snoozing. They should have somewhere to go for that, and if they don't, the hackspace is not the solution.
People staying over occasionally isn't the problem. The problem is that when it's done wrongly or too much it makes other members uncomfortable. For people to use the space this way at all, it's reasonable for other members to expect the space to be tidier as a result, not messier or dirtier. So, if people do ever stay overnight, we should have consideration for other members and try not to do anything that would make them uncomfortable. Additionally, I'd expect to be woken by power tools or worse.
David