User:Doug/Various

Purge

Event (annual)

In the film of the same name (that I didn't watch) everyone does all the bad stuff on one day in the year to get it over with. We have stuff which is not fun and has roughly an annual cadence, such as:

• renewing the digital waste calendar
  • see calendar#Adapting the KELL (waste disposal)
  • KELL calendar seems to be available at least from the beginning of December
• pinging absent people about stuff they have stored, and moving it to the Spitz storage room
  • could also be beginning of December.... could offer to send stuff as Christmas presents lol
• obfuscating links
• rotating key tag secrets
• changing password manager password
• HKW & WaWü MV's
• checking fire extinguishers/alarms
• replacing the Ventilation filters
• deep cleaning
  • cobwebs
  • door handles/frames

Also, there is a wonderful Infrequent maintenance page.

Moment of reflection

Facilitation practice

For many years we're had a sound bowl and used it for quiet moments before and during meetings. Yet the practice varies to the point that it is unclear what the purpose is.

For me, I always perceived such moments, with or without sound bowls, as an opportunity for internal calming / mindfulness meditation. Yet we've been calling them "moments of silence". "Silence" puts emphasis on people (and the carers of children!) to make no noise, which can be stressful if you need to change position, cough, etc. Additionally, silence is not possible due to cars driving outside, planes flying, food frying, etc — while we can reduce them, noises are always part of our environment.

I see the aim of these moments rather for us to quiet ourselves internally and engage with our sensations, emotions, thoughts and consciousness — together. (In contrast, runners in a race are silent before the starting gun, but their minds are poised for action... we have had "moments of silence" like this!) If we choose to move towards the mindfulness direction, I see the following changes being helpful:

• renaming "silence" to "reflection/mindfulness/calmness/etc"
• calm and consistent practice:
  • moment facilitator makes announcement, waits for people to arrange themselves
  • strikes bowl (padded side of striker)
  • breaths slowly, listens to sound, and when it's completely gone, takes one more slow in- and out-breath
  • strikes bowl (padded side of striker)
  • stops sounds by pressing hand into side of bowl
  • places striker to side of bowl
  • takes one more slow in- and out-breath, looks into faces/eyes of people in room
  • meeting facilitator begins calmly, without jokes or reference to moment

Getting another sound bowl for attic use would be nice, because improvised objects are invariably bad. (Humming is a much better alternative.)

Minimal support at evaluation votes

Constitution change

The current procedure states:

if there are 3 or more times as many ‘support’ votes to ‘oppose’ votes, the person is adopted at their requested position —Constitution, §6.5.1.

This leaves ambiguity about what should happen if a person exclusively receives 'accept' votes. The practice until now has been to treat this as a successful application. I think this is not good, and when I was interrogated why privately wrote:

...in my experience, it is actively bad to have a person in a group who everyone is "just OK" with. This leads to situations where they feel left out, because no one has a strong, positive connection (read: support) with them. This often means the barrier for receiving critical feedback is higher, and the person only gets feedback when it's already "too" late. Conversely, it is my experience that exclusion is much harder for both parties than delayed-inclusion: waiting until there is active enthusiasm reduces the risk of exclusion. Further, the act of excluding is hard social work that no one wants to do, and if no one felt responsible in the first place (i.e. no support) then the work of exclusion can just "float in the air" (dilution of responsibility → Tragedy of the Commons)

My basic proposal would be to add the requirement that at least one 'support' is required, modifying the clause simply to:

if there is at least 1 'support' vote, and 3 or more times as many ‘support’ votes to ‘oppose’ votes, the person is adopted at their requested position