There are a few things on my mind at the moment, that are overly complicated:
Colour Laser Printer, Make it free, there’s no point in collecting 10p a sheet, let’s just absorb it into running costs as a perk for members, but ask people not to abuse it.
The whole printer was £210 and will last as much as 10k sheets
3D printer, The idea of us needing people to do 3D printer inductions are probably my fault as I didn’t want to see the machine abused after managing to get it donated. However the risk level to those using it and the machine is low, we can offer workshops on how to use it still but those that know how to use it should be allowed to in my view, with the PLA only restriction still in place.
Laser Cutter, the machine is not making it’s costs back with all these repairs at 20p a minute. The whole thing seems a senseless bureaucracy. However equally those who want to use the laser cutter like me should have to contribute towards these costs.
Given that the membership system will be responsible for laser cutter access, but also payments, it would make more sense to have a annual maintenance fee per member of say £20/year, with unlimited use within reason after that.
Terminology, shutterers. This terminology is confusing to new people, and is a way of trying to hide the reality that there are tiers of membership within Makerspace. In the new leaflet we finally recognised this with the term Keyholder.
The Keyholder term is nice because it makes it clearer to people that this person has the keys to the space, i.e. they can get in, where as non-keyholders cannot. Key holders are recognised as trusted members.
Lets make use of this term instead of shutterers as it’s easier to dispyhper and when it comes to things like nominations for elections we can say that a only keyholders can nominate, in the same way as shutterers can nominate new shutterers, keyholders can nominate new keyholders.
Just briefly cos I’m rushing out the door, per-group styling is possible for the user info, but crucially it can only be ONE group (plus admin/moderator). So if we do a keyholder icon, it prevents us doing one for any @roles. But it’s totally doable.
###2D printer:
Yeah, a few pages here and there should be free, we paid for it after all. If someone wants to print 100 pages, then a donation would be nice.
###3d printer: @laurent_muchacho does a terrific induction, however I think experienced users could have a fast-track version. An important point is that having had the induction members sign a form to agree to use the printer according to the induction guidelines.
###Laser cutter
For the record, I always thought 50p a minute was a bit steep to pay to use a machine that we own. However, not sure £20 is good value for a member who wants to do the occasional cut. Is there a way to allocate laser time to members? Say 1 hour a year included in membership? Then pay for further time?
###Terminology
Any members who uses the space regularly and engages with other members gets shutter access, usually quite quickly, so it’s not really a tiered system: you just need to be a regular. ‘Shutterer’ is a bit inelegant and obscure, I do agree, but as soon as you are in the space it’s an easy enough term to pick up.
Do people think it’s useful to have this flagged up on Discourse? To me that seems to heighten the idea of a ‘tiered’ system by creating a status that has very little real-world meaning. The term ‘shutterer’ came about as everyone gets a ‘key’ when they become a member, and this differentiates those who have shutter access fairly clearly.
3D Printer: Yeah @laurent_muchacho does a great workshop on 3D printing but it’s not an induction as such. The point of an induction is for safety and there is no substancial risk to using the machine, I wrote the risk assessment for it. We don’t require them at work either and they are much hotter on safety there, there is no need for members to sign an induction form for a machine which is safe to use.
Laser Cutter: Having a included number of minutes defeats the point of simplifying, if members don’t agree that a fixed annual fee for unlimited use within reason is worthwhile then we should keep it as it is. A qualification could be that the unlimited use is for non-commercial use. This could be subject to the same rules as membership to contact the directors if you aren’t able to afford this.
The logic behind this is that members shouldn’t have to pay all of the costs of maintaining an expensive machine, and although there is a surplus now, if we want more space we’ll need that surplus income. Also charging people a small fee per minute on an honesty system doesn’t work as the money just disappears into petty cash, so the space still has to pay for the electricity and maintenance out of pocket.
Terminology: The purpose of having a key next to their name is so you know who can help you get in and vouch for you, as right now the only way to know who has shutter access is to ask them or have level 50 access on the membership system.
This isn’t about creating a tiered membership, we already have that but about removing jargon like shutterers. The terminology was already changed for the leaflet by Tom and myself ages ago with the new design, so we have the term Keyholder there and on our main site, but we don’t use it in common vernacular, which I am suggesting we should. Aside from removing the jargon, it also to me is quite a positive message of trust.
It’s incredibly hard for members who are used to these systems to know what the experience of new or prospective members is.
For example: is it useful to know who can vouch for you or open the shutter? So far the general form has been something like: “anyone with shutter access around tomorrow?” Or: “can I have shutter access please?” Sometimes accompanied by tagging members they know. Is this a problem, and does a keyholder icon ease it?
Would be incredibly useful to hear experiences of people just arriving at the space or Discourse.
Having our own names for things adds to the fun/community of it, but not if it’s alienating.
Every new place you join has conventions and terminology that you need to learn. And some definitely have too many.
Yes I agree. A donations box for people doing large jobs maybe?
Safety isn’t an issue, but breaking the tool due to improper use is. A short “these are the things you don’t do” induction is still required I think.
There’s definitely something to this but it’s hard to get right. 50p/minute feels too expensive, yet so does £20/year if you only use it a few times. Maybe £2 per month but only if you use it?
I’m ambivalent about jargon. Shutterers or keyholders are both fine by me.
Point 4 does lead me on to consider the “discoverability” of groups. Right now, you have to see other people @mention roles/groups to know they exist. Annoyingly, https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/groups doesn’t exist.
Actually the new membership system will be able to do this automatically, we just never discussed using the user title field for the shutterers group to make it say Member
Great. The key is a subtle touch that distinguishes people. Not in a twat ish way. But like something blah blah.
I think “shutterer” is cool though. It’s Makerspace specific. It adds to the romance. The mystique. The “what’s the French for” joy of life! The “oh shit, I have to be nice to people and make an effort to get to know people before I get in by myself” blah blah.
I know this is an old thread but +1 for adding a key icon to people’s profiles. Anything that helps demystify Makerspace for new members is a good thing in my opinion.
It would also serve as a prompt for people to nominate - if you notice on here that someone you know hasn’t got access yet, you could suggest them. (Confession - when I first joined I didn’t get shutter access for several months because I was too scared to ask anyone.)
I think it’s a bit cluttered to have the keyholder symbol. In the end every member who uses the space with any regularity has shutter access. So once you’ve got it it’s no longer useful to see it.
Maybe a ‘not keyholder’ symbol? So by default you can ask anyone who doesn’t have that symbol to vouch for you? Plus established members would notice that a familiar face didn’t have shutter access and might offer to vouch for them?
The system that overrides the user title is not very sophisticated and gets confused when there are multiple groups fighting for “primary” status (and therefore actually changing the user title). Unless this system is upgraded by the discourse developers, we would have to write some extra code in our membership system to drive the user titles. While @systems is in transition, this is probably not a realistic prospect.
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