Attention Dallas Makerspace Members

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. ā€œIf you undermine or donā€™t agree with (authoriatarian) leadership at the Space, you will lose your friends and everyone will ostricize you.ā€ 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. Thatā€™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 itā€™s been in years. I told Tapper the other day that it was about time we disagreed on something, because weā€™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 youā€™re still my kind of people.

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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.

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Property records, with few exceptions, are public records. So are professional licenses. Itā€™s generally not hard to figure out most peopleā€™s home address, unfortunately. Phone number and email are more difficult, but social media has made that considerably easier since people donā€™t curate their accounts well.

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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. Itā€™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.

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Just FYI, registering to vote is only 1 of the myriad ways to get a jury summons these daysā€¦
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 driverā€™s license, or hold a Texas identification card. Citizens on the list are randomly selected and mailed a summons to report for jury service.

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As voting member, you really canā€™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.

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But isnā€™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.

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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 memberā€™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.

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Good to knowā€¦thanks for clarifying.

What is the ā€œā€¦and moreā€. Whether you are or not,it sounds like you arenā€™t willing to spell out your intentions. When someone says they want me to join them for my own benefit, but doesnā€™t disclose their plan, I get red flags.

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That was to summarize the excerpted legalese from a prior post.

If you have any specific questions to ask, or need some myths dispelled, Iā€™d love to talk in person. Iā€™m often camped out Tuesday and Wednesday in the common room.

Iā€™m a tea drinker. If you bring a cup, we can talk over tea. I make a fairly good Dirty Chai.

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Thatā€™s how I describe my aura.

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Thanks for the invite and Iā€™ll take you up on it when Iā€™m up there. I try, to varying degrees of success. Iā€™ll say up front even when I agree with a point, for that point to be worth giving money to lawyers over it has a really high bar for me (no pun intended). Iā€™m making assumptionsā€¦maybe youā€™re thinking of arbitration. In any case, I look forward to talking with you.

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