As someone who's still trying to keep a local hackerspace alive, it seems like much of the organisational and grunt work, as well as financial support, has to be done by a few core people.
Many people aren't willing to financially support community spaces, especially if they haven't had the chance to develop memories from it. Many people can't seem to fathom that rent is an ongoing concern, and we'd rather someone commit to paying $32 a month than give us a one-time $100 donation.
I find it difficult to trust that people will contribute their share of work necessary to upkeep a space. Many users are slobs, and are happy to leave the space worse than it already is.
Funny I was looking at a hackerspace near me and it was $100/mo was like what... but I get it, machines cost money but yeah. I have my own workshop so don't really need it. At least your price is more manageable.
I think that's the point, these spaces greatly prefer recurring donations because a) the aggregate value is usually more than a one-off and b) they're much easier to reason about, as they're more "evened out".
> Tons of people helped out – more than I ever expected – but none of them had the bandwidth to take it on as a full-time job with me, which was what I really needed.
Even in the best case, that wouldn't have ended well:
Author: I found a retired domain expert willing to devote full-time energy! The two of us combined will be unstoppable!
Retired domain expert: Author's funding is 1/10 of what this place needs to thrive. Looks like I'm going to need to find at least ten donors at that same level.
Governance: basically anarchic, but with one person ultimately calling the shots.
That's the classic problem with pseudo-anarchies. They're really dictatorships.
The larger scale form of this is the non-profit with the self-perpetuating board, where the board of directors appoints its successors.
It's the standard form for big non-profits, such as hospitals or national organizations.
Non-profit organizations with real elected officials, where the incumbents get kicked out now and then, are rare. They take too much attention by the members.
Nobody knows how to run a meeting under Robert's Rules of Order any more. The whole point of such meetings is that the group is in charge and the outcome is a binding decision. Most organizational leaders don't want that.
It may have something to do with the audience though. I would say it is closer to Pratchett's idea of monarchy in Ramptops than anarchy. It is not that people there were not interested. They may even cheer the king on principle. After all, kings are supposed to be kings.
It is rather that when kings did something stupid enough, pitchforks were there to remind them. In this case, the audience can simply stop being part of the group.
I think there's a pretty critical difference between a "dictatorship" and what this is, which is rule-by-the-least-apathetic; maybe let's call this "pathocracy" (from pathos). The minimum number of pathocrats needed to sustain such an organization is one, and the pathocracy either successfully grows until it warrants a more formal organizational structure or it dies when the sole remaining pathocrat bows out. For plenty of community events--maybe even nearly all of them--this is sufficient; the bi-monthly knitting circle at your local library probably does not greatly benefit from imposing a bureaucracy upon itself. And I say this as someone who's sitting within thirty feet of a copy of Robert's Rules of Order.
thanks for sharing this. not sure if you are the author, but it's really useful reading this right now.
I am working, quite literally as I write this, on starting a community space like yours for 'digital makers' in Portland.
I wake up every morning feeling charged and ready; I go to sleep every night full of anxiety and doubts -- "who am I to start this thing? does anyone want this? I don't know what I'm doing!". ultimately, I feel, failure is better than not trying.
and it helps to know it's not about me. every person I talk to in my community feels the need for this thing. and that's why we want help from other people like us. we're just getting started!
if you live here and this sounds interesting to you, you can find us here: https://rcdc.space
hey man, live on the other side of the country from you but just want to share that the collective desire for a third space is so strong that i think no matter what you do you are doing the right thing (so long as it isn't like actively harmful or exclusive, etc.).
like, i live in a big city with a tech scene and i still yearn for a space to just go and hang out to hack in that isn't a college. you are doing a service!
FWIW, not sure how you're funding it and i have no experience just offering a take: I've always felt like I would definitely be fine with spending like $15/mo on having access to a barebones space. Maybe $20-30/mo if there was more that came with it (e.g. coffee machine, occasional events). I know rent is a PITA but I get turned off by coworking spaces that charge upwards of $200+/mo, it's just not feasible obviously for a community space.
Take with that what you will, just offering one person's pov prob in your primary demographic. i'm also kinda cheap lol so maybe i'm the low end, lol
This looks awesome, the owner of this substack is a good resource and writes lots of case studies.
I am not based in Portland myself but I run the ticketing and membership program for Synth Library Portland which is a really cool spot. The biggest thing with all these spaces is how to make it work financially over the long term.
hello!! I have been planning to reach out to Synth Library Portland; it's awesome to hear from someone connected to it. I know they recently got kicked out of their Lloyd Center location and were looking for a home. I was hoping to talk to them about this. I will email you
Shoot me email, I might not be the best for the details on that but I could intro someone on their who might be better on their team. I run their memberships as part of a platform called Pools https://pools.events/o/synth_library_portland/
Awesome. Good luck. Unfortunately I'm no longer in PDX or I'd be there. I always wanted a "hacking dojo" -- a sacred place to think and create with other in flow, together. Shower before entering, robes and laptops only :)
> just start. Find a space that’ll work well enough, start inviting people to it, and be the best host you can be. In the end, spending time with other people is the most important thing. Everything else comes from that.
It doesn’t go over costs. Starting a “community space” in Brooklyn cannot be cheap. There seems to be an ever growing divide in art as those who can even afford to open a community space. “Just start”? I work 5 days a week and my parents would not give me the rent money to open a Brooklyn art space. This reads like someone had no money problems to worry about even when profitability was a question.
i threw some good parties in the 90s at warehouse spaces I lived in, and this is distinct from a community space, but closely related. with hindsight, there is a specific talent for doing that.
Alex Danco's writing on "Scenes" [1] codifies a lot of the details, but nobody so far has been able to scale it.
The main factor when I did a hacker/artist space, it was the effect of relationships with musicians and scene people, not the affect of a vision to make something cool.
The defining factor of the spaces I've seen succeed vs. fail was something physical, and explicitly not software, and to a lesser extent, politics. You can have software and politics flavored things, but unless you are doing something physical like robotics, motorcycles, puppeteering, bookselling, pyrotechnics, music production, mma, it's not going to survive. Sure, there are spaces that don't do anything physical, but if you scratch the surface there is always a mysterious source of funding by the usual suspects who want to direct the scene to some other end.
The physical activity creates the competence hierarchy that is a stable and self regulating social dynamic.
As someone who's still trying to keep a local hackerspace alive, it seems like much of the organisational and grunt work, as well as financial support, has to be done by a few core people.
Many people aren't willing to financially support community spaces, especially if they haven't had the chance to develop memories from it. Many people can't seem to fathom that rent is an ongoing concern, and we'd rather someone commit to paying $32 a month than give us a one-time $100 donation.
I find it difficult to trust that people will contribute their share of work necessary to upkeep a space. Many users are slobs, and are happy to leave the space worse than it already is.
Funny I was looking at a hackerspace near me and it was $100/mo was like what... but I get it, machines cost money but yeah. I have my own workshop so don't really need it. At least your price is more manageable.
Well sure; $32/mo is a lot more than $100 inside just 1 year
I think that's the point, these spaces greatly prefer recurring donations because a) the aggregate value is usually more than a one-off and b) they're much easier to reason about, as they're more "evened out".
> Tons of people helped out – more than I ever expected – but none of them had the bandwidth to take it on as a full-time job with me, which was what I really needed.
Even in the best case, that wouldn't have ended well:
Author: I found a retired domain expert willing to devote full-time energy! The two of us combined will be unstoppable!
Retired domain expert: Author's funding is 1/10 of what this place needs to thrive. Looks like I'm going to need to find at least ten donors at that same level.
Governance: basically anarchic, but with one person ultimately calling the shots.
That's the classic problem with pseudo-anarchies. They're really dictatorships.
The larger scale form of this is the non-profit with the self-perpetuating board, where the board of directors appoints its successors. It's the standard form for big non-profits, such as hospitals or national organizations. Non-profit organizations with real elected officials, where the incumbents get kicked out now and then, are rare. They take too much attention by the members.
Nobody knows how to run a meeting under Robert's Rules of Order any more. The whole point of such meetings is that the group is in charge and the outcome is a binding decision. Most organizational leaders don't want that.
It may have something to do with the audience though. I would say it is closer to Pratchett's idea of monarchy in Ramptops than anarchy. It is not that people there were not interested. They may even cheer the king on principle. After all, kings are supposed to be kings.
It is rather that when kings did something stupid enough, pitchforks were there to remind them. In this case, the audience can simply stop being part of the group.
I think there's a pretty critical difference between a "dictatorship" and what this is, which is rule-by-the-least-apathetic; maybe let's call this "pathocracy" (from pathos). The minimum number of pathocrats needed to sustain such an organization is one, and the pathocracy either successfully grows until it warrants a more formal organizational structure or it dies when the sole remaining pathocrat bows out. For plenty of community events--maybe even nearly all of them--this is sufficient; the bi-monthly knitting circle at your local library probably does not greatly benefit from imposing a bureaucracy upon itself. And I say this as someone who's sitting within thirty feet of a copy of Robert's Rules of Order.
Highly recommend the Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/), also in NYC, as a communal space for programmers.
> In the end, spending time with other people is the most important thing. Everything else comes from that.
yes!
thanks for sharing this. not sure if you are the author, but it's really useful reading this right now.
I am working, quite literally as I write this, on starting a community space like yours for 'digital makers' in Portland.
I wake up every morning feeling charged and ready; I go to sleep every night full of anxiety and doubts -- "who am I to start this thing? does anyone want this? I don't know what I'm doing!". ultimately, I feel, failure is better than not trying.
and it helps to know it's not about me. every person I talk to in my community feels the need for this thing. and that's why we want help from other people like us. we're just getting started!
if you live here and this sounds interesting to you, you can find us here: https://rcdc.space
hey man, live on the other side of the country from you but just want to share that the collective desire for a third space is so strong that i think no matter what you do you are doing the right thing (so long as it isn't like actively harmful or exclusive, etc.).
like, i live in a big city with a tech scene and i still yearn for a space to just go and hang out to hack in that isn't a college. you are doing a service!
FWIW, not sure how you're funding it and i have no experience just offering a take: I've always felt like I would definitely be fine with spending like $15/mo on having access to a barebones space. Maybe $20-30/mo if there was more that came with it (e.g. coffee machine, occasional events). I know rent is a PITA but I get turned off by coworking spaces that charge upwards of $200+/mo, it's just not feasible obviously for a community space.
Take with that what you will, just offering one person's pov prob in your primary demographic. i'm also kinda cheap lol so maybe i'm the low end, lol
This looks awesome, the owner of this substack is a good resource and writes lots of case studies.
I am not based in Portland myself but I run the ticketing and membership program for Synth Library Portland which is a really cool spot. The biggest thing with all these spaces is how to make it work financially over the long term.
Feel free to ping me.
hello!! I have been planning to reach out to Synth Library Portland; it's awesome to hear from someone connected to it. I know they recently got kicked out of their Lloyd Center location and were looking for a home. I was hoping to talk to them about this. I will email you
Shoot me email, I might not be the best for the details on that but I could intro someone on their who might be better on their team. I run their memberships as part of a platform called Pools https://pools.events/o/synth_library_portland/
Awesome. Good luck. Unfortunately I'm no longer in PDX or I'd be there. I always wanted a "hacking dojo" -- a sacred place to think and create with other in flow, together. Shower before entering, robes and laptops only :)
> just start. Find a space that’ll work well enough, start inviting people to it, and be the best host you can be. In the end, spending time with other people is the most important thing. Everything else comes from that.
It doesn’t go over costs. Starting a “community space” in Brooklyn cannot be cheap. There seems to be an ever growing divide in art as those who can even afford to open a community space. “Just start”? I work 5 days a week and my parents would not give me the rent money to open a Brooklyn art space. This reads like someone had no money problems to worry about even when profitability was a question.
i threw some good parties in the 90s at warehouse spaces I lived in, and this is distinct from a community space, but closely related. with hindsight, there is a specific talent for doing that.
Alex Danco's writing on "Scenes" [1] codifies a lot of the details, but nobody so far has been able to scale it.
The main factor when I did a hacker/artist space, it was the effect of relationships with musicians and scene people, not the affect of a vision to make something cool.
The defining factor of the spaces I've seen succeed vs. fail was something physical, and explicitly not software, and to a lesser extent, politics. You can have software and politics flavored things, but unless you are doing something physical like robotics, motorcycles, puppeteering, bookselling, pyrotechnics, music production, mma, it's not going to survive. Sure, there are spaces that don't do anything physical, but if you scratch the surface there is always a mysterious source of funding by the usual suspects who want to direct the scene to some other end.
The physical activity creates the competence hierarchy that is a stable and self regulating social dynamic.
[1] https://danco.substack.com/p/how-scenes-work-with-jim-oshaug...