Examine this thread and you’ll see that all the negativity expressed, all the personal attacks, all the bitterness and hate, all the childishesness, all the bad feelings, and everything that gives Talk the reputation it has, is very much one sided.
Yet, I still love you all, and I love Dallas Makerspace.
Fwiw my information is public record because of where I work. Any stakeholder has the right to request it under Open Records. There’s a form we do at the beginning of the year that we must fill out to redact info like our home addresses and contact info outside standard channels like work email. The reason for protecting that level of information release is all over the board including
The least likely…witness protection people
The sort of likely…I don’t want my house robbed because someone knows my exact whereabouts or have a raging stakeholder beating down my door whenever they want
The most common…victims of domestic abuses who relocated and for their own safety can’t be found
First thing to establish is if as a nonprofit open records applies. If so, then the form must be provided because without it release without a chance for redaction is grounds for a very large lawsuit
I thought I recalled that the voting list was reset to zero after each board election, and one had to make a written request for voting rights again.
Wouldn’t that mean there’s basically no list to be had?
I personally don’t know you very well, and didn’t know your history with the space until recently. I have only observed your behavior at meetings and via this forum in the past few months. I haven’t once attacked you personally, only the ideas and suggestions you’ve made.
With that said, I have only seen suggestions that I disagree with, and some that were downright inflammatory in nature.
You can claim that all of this behavior is due to personal attacks and the history you have with the space. While I agree that you have friends and you have some people that may not enjoy your company at the space, I can’t agree that threatening a lawsuit against the DMS is the best course of action.
No matter the history, no matter the current state of your relationship with the space, no matter your relationship with the people at the space, I can only say that I have seen what I would consider temper tantrums and ideas/behavior that do not make the space excellent.
I hope that all of this is just a rough patch for you and the space. I’m not suggesting we have a campfire, sing kumbaya, and just all get along. I just hope that we get to building things and making the space better for current and future members.
We may disagree in the path to making things better, but hopefully with the number of intelligent people concerned with the space, we move forward as best we can.
Does this mean that up until today, DMS has not been tracking or asking for consent? If so, then @mrhavens request moot. There are no members who have given consent to even contact.
For many years, social pressure was used to avoid legal escalations. “If you undermine or don’t agree with (authoriatarian) leadership at the Space, you will lose your friends and everyone will ostricize you.” This is no longer true, as the Space has grown beyond the influence of any single person or group.
DMS was designed so that the membership keeps the leadership in check. There is no other oversight. Who else will do this job? The government? Maybe for the really big things. A watchdog agency? Not likely. Right now, all we have each other. That’s it.
I am enjoying more meaningful relationships with people at the Space now than ever before, in large part because of the shift in our leadership culture.
For the record, my relationship with the Space is the best that it’s been in years. I told Tapper the other day that it was about time we disagreed on something, because we’ve been on the same page for practically every other issue; even before his board term started.
Most of the temper tantrums you see in this thread comes from echos of influence (rumors) from the same small circle of people, many of whom are strangers to me. Love you all anyway, 'cuz you’re still my kind of people.
I would not want my physical address, phone number, email address released to anybody. Any official business correspondence can happen right here on the forum as post or pm. Physical address, really! So one day someone lacking better judgement shows up to my house for GOD knows what purpose.
Property records, with few exceptions, are public records. So are professional licenses. It’s generally not hard to figure out most people’s home address, unfortunately. Phone number and email are more difficult, but social media has made that considerably easier since people don’t curate their accounts well.
Most information a citizen provided when registering to vote is provided, en masse, to a candidate/campaign or others with permissible purpose upon request. This is why you get political phone calls and junk mail. It’s also why/how a citizen gets called up for jury duty. This information being gathered and then distributed to vetted third parties is just part of a democracy, for good or bad.
Just FYI, registering to vote is only 1 of the myriad ways to get a jury summons these days…
http://www.txcourts.gov/about-texas-courts/juror-information/jury-service-in-texas/
State law mandates the process for selecting prospective jurors. Each county receives a list of potential jurors from the Secretary of State that consists of those individuals in the county that are registered to vote, hold a Texas driver’s license, or hold a Texas identification card. Citizens on the list are randomly selected and mailed a summons to report for jury service.
As voting member, you really can’t op out. There are long-established precedents allowing for shareholders of a corporation (or in our case, members) to contact one another independent of venues controlled by management in the name of governance. The bone of contention is whether the bylaws as written are in alignment with state law and when we should release what information to who.
But isn’t the request for all members (including non-voting) and former members?
As I understand it, the compelling interest is for discussing business of the corporation. Non-voting members and ex-members are not relevant to this interest.
The only concern(s) then being that 1) non-voting member can very quickly and easily become voting members, i.e. virtually zero barriers for this change in status; and 2) if organization is still cleaning the slate after each election, all voting members suddenly become non-voting members whether they wish it or not.
The upshot is that as of any given point in time, it is pretty difficult to tell who was a voting member in a previous election or who is going to be a voting member in the following election; the potential pool of both is almost all members.
I will happily release my information to you, if you wanna pay for it.
What happens to member’s information when they are no longer a member? What responsibility does the DMS have to protect that information.
In light of recent hacking breaking where consumer information was stolen, what is the makerspace doing to protect its members info? Most companies currently do no provide proper security because the class action lawsuits and the fines that come from a possible breach are less than the cost of properly doing IT security.
That was never voted on by the Board, and is not a rule or policy of the Dallas Makerspace.
Good to know…thanks for clarifying.
What is the “…and more”. Whether you are or not,it sounds like you aren’t willing to spell out your intentions. When someone says they want me to join them for my own benefit, but doesn’t disclose their plan, I get red flags.
That was to summarize the excerpted legalese from a prior post.
If you have any specific questions to ask, or need some myths dispelled, I’d love to talk in person. I’m often camped out Tuesday and Wednesday in the common room.
I’m a tea drinker. If you bring a cup, we can talk over tea. I make a fairly good Dirty Chai.
That’s how I describe my aura.