DoOcracy doesn't scale!, What should we do?

General lounge
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This is part of the VHS Culture series
This topic is to start conversation, I’m being a devil’s advocate.

Currently

VHS operates under the DoOcracy.

Short version
If you see something that needs to be done, You should be doing it. You have the power to change things at VHS and you should! You don’t need to ask permission you can just do it! If you don’t do it and no one else sees it as something that needs to be done, then it won’t get done.

A few amendments to DoOcracy has become necessary as we grew.

  • If you are making permanent changes and these changes will take longer than 4 hours to undo. You should ask the list first for advice.
  • If you are spending money AND expect to be reimbursed you must ask the list first. If you are spending your own money go right ahead.

People in VHS are responsible for how VHS operates. There is no central authority that defines how things should or shouldn’t be.

VHS has a BoD that are required by the societies act, for us to have non-profit status from the Government of Canada. Ideally the BoD do not do any more jobs or work than any other member of VHS. They also shouldn’t have any more power or control over VHS then any other member.

DoOcracy heavily depends on people NOT being a dick and not taking advantage of the community. Both of these requirements are subjective. One person’s version of not being dick could be dramatically different than others.

A really good description of DoOcracy (with examples) can be found on the community wiki CommunityWiki: Do Ocracy

History

VHS was a DoOcracy before I joined.
VHS was started by a group of people that came from the open source movement (Gnu, Copyleft), Free geek, Anarchist bookstore (SpartacusBooks), Burning man, Hackers, privacy, freedom of information, Chaos Communication Camp, and many grassroots political movements in vancouver.

VHS met all the necessary conditions of a DoOcracy

  • Stakes are low. Typically, if job X or task Y didn’t get done, or got done poorly, it’s not a life-or-death situation.
  • Work is plentiful. There are lots of jobs to do
  • Culture of participation. Each member of the community feels a right and a duty to take on responsibilities. This comes from the Burning man community.
  • VHS had no money - We couldn’t pay anyone to do the work for us.

At the start DoOcracy worked and worked really well. Everyone knew each other and things got done. When someone wasn’t carrying their weight a conversation was had a talk and things were good. When new people came in to the space they where indoctrinated by the culture and normally they found a job to do and did it to the best of their ability. There also wasn’t a huge amount of jobs that needed to be done and If VHS disappeared tomorrow it wouldn’t matter.

As we grew the BoD are getting more and more power, less people are taking on jobs, less people are being introduced to DoOcracy or are following its principles. (see problems)

Problems

Over time and as we grew, VHS has encountered many problems with DoOcracy.

Burnout. People can get too attached to the do-ocratic system and volunteer for too many jobs, or too much work, and tend to have a low quality.

We have had many people burn out of VHS. The going rate is 2-3 years at a primary position before burning out. All of our founders are gone, All of the people on the first two years of BoD are gone. We have a high burn out rate.

Despotism. A person who’s doocrat’d themselves into control of a very necessary system (network, food pool, etc.) can get heady with power and demand rewards or tribute for their work.

This has happened, we are lucky to have so far notices it early and stopped it in most people.
(People have had THIS talk with me personally in the past, I am an offender, its hard not to be.)

Frustration. Some people don’t have the time or means to do something, but they do have (real or imagined) expertise. In a doocracy, they will feel overrun and perceive the situation as slipping out of their hands. This can cause frustration. And remember: “Fear is the path to the dark side…”

Often happens. Steve the Teeth guy is an example of this. Safety, Electrical, etc…

Fair Process. Doocracy is not always explicitly defined, so there are diverging perception dangers about “fairness”.

Every week it seems, I am talking to someone that feels that something wasn’t done fairly.
The amount of times I have to repeat. “I am not your damn therapist, grow up, and deal with it”

Resentment. If only a minority of participants in the community do-ocratize themselves into the hard jobs, they can resent others who don’t take on responsibility.

BoD, Moving committee, Packing up committee (me), Space clean up, Safety committee… actually all the committees???

The Martyrdom Complex. Some people have a psychological need to work strenuously most of the time, perhaps because they are seeking persecution and suffering, motivated by a desire for penance. In do-ocracy, people with these psychological needs tend to take more responsibility and sometimes make strict rules to impose on others.

Not touching that one.
I am not a therapist.

Complacency. If a minority of people take on jobs, the others can become complacent and ignore new tasks, since “someone else will do it.”

I would say that 90% of the jobs at VHS are done by ~12 people.

Social Exclusion. People who can’t do things, or choose not do things, are often marginalized in decision-making, which compounds social divides.

Often

The TyrannyOfStructurelessness

We can’t HAVE rules because that would go against DoOcracy. So because you are trying to make rules you HAVE to be wrong! (This is a huge problem, that I will come back to another time.)

Proposals

1) Give up on the DoOcracy, and pay someone to be the executive director ( or shop steward ) directed by the BoD (Benevolent dictator)

Basically this would work like this. The BoD are voted in. They hire an Executive Director (ED) and give the ED a set of goals to accomplish that year. The ED only answers to the BoD, and has full power over the space. The BoD answers to the membership. When something needs to be done at the space, the ED has the power to either hire someone or outsource it to the membership under their management. Picking the right person would be very hard as a good person in this position should be paid around 60k a year. (More than VHS spends on rent or could afford)

2) Since most of the problems are to do with scale, We split VHS up into two smaller groups

Don’t even think about calling dibs on any of the tools or equipment. This is hypothetical and it won’t help the conversation. I will delete your reply if you do. Don’t be a opportunistic dick!

We could split into, two smaller groups, one for electronics and software and the other for shop tools and equipment. With smaller membership it would be easier for DoOcracy to function properly. We could also focus on a single topic instead of diversifying a single space. Less problems with the shop people wanting the space being a shop and the software people wanting a nice clean quite space to work. One of the reasons that we can’t find space is that we are in between the two most common sizes for space. 1000 sq/ft and 5000 sq/ft. If we had two smaller groups we could go for the nicer smaller spaces. We can also split up by geographical location, BETA space, etc…

3) Shut down VHS and donate all our tools and equipment to other spaces in vancouver

Don’t even think about calling dibs on any of the tools or equipment. This is hypothetical and it won’t help the conversation. I will delete your reply if you do. Don’t be a opportunistic dick!

We have had a good run, But VHS isn’t VHS without DoOcracy. So if we can’t have a space that follows DoOcracy then VHS shouldn’t exist.

4) Keep calm and carry on.

Its not that bad, and so what if some people burn out, or feel buthurt. Thats their problem. Lets keep going like we have been going and see where this rabbit hole goes.

Discuss !
Please don’t kill me

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/me sharpens axe.

Kidding :wink:

I think that many hackerspaces have these issues, i see it come up ever few months on the Protospace mailing lists. I also don’t think there will ever be a good solution, you can’t have it both ways.

One way I have seen another hacker space deal with things not getting done is to have a mandatory minimum number of volunteer hours/points per month. This could be as simple as working the open night greeting people, taking registrations and doing tours, or doing training to working around the space on things that need doing.

One thing I don’t like about VHS (from afar hehe) is the lack of shop equipment. I want somewhere I can make, I can write software at home, or at starbucks, or in a park. I can’t use a drop saw and do some milling at starbucks (but that would be AWESOME). I’d donate/loan/build considerable moneys worth of workshop equipment to VHS if there was space for it, however it’s looking more and more like i’m just going to have to stick this stuff at work where I (and the other staff) am the only one who can play with it :frowning: Unless of course I open up the warehouse/workshop at work to all and sundry (which isnt out of the question)

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Something I’ve been doing is trying to turn the phrase “Somebody should do x” into a taboo.

I’ve been treating it as a synonym for “I’m going to do x” and respond accordingly (I am usually willing to help, I’m just not going to take point)

It very rarely has the best result (Task x gets done), but it usually has the second best outcome (Person Y stops trying to give other people work).

That doesn’t mean suggestions are bad!
When I have one and I don’t have the time/resources/whatever to do it, I’ll word it more like “Somebody should do x, but I will get around to it if no one else does”.
This seems to result in me doing it 70% of the time, someone else doing it 10% of the time, and 20% of the time it is low on the priority list and it doesn’t get done.

.

Another one of the problems I’ve noticed is that it’s really hard to convey the idea of do-ocracy to newer members.

It’s a paradigm shift from how most of society works. Members come into VHS thinking that at some point, do-ocracy ends and certain people have responsibility to do certain tasks.

I haven’t figured out how to get them to actually believe in the system and start tinkering with VHS stuff on their own. When I suggest that newer members mess around with infrastructure, I often get the question, “Are we allowed to do that?”
Of course you are! As long as you don’t break the lock, set off the alarm, or set anything (important) on fire.

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  1. Since most of the problems are to do with scale, We split VHS up into two smaller groups

I think this has already kind of happened. The Vancouver Community Lab
(VCL) is a group similar to ours, but focused on woodworking,
metalworking, and crafting. They’ve got a space big enough to handle
larger projects, but no space to sit down and code ( unless you count
the sewing area they’ve got on the second floor ).

Their costs are a bit steep compared to VHS ( $50 a month for a drop-in
membership ), but you are getting access to some pretty awesome
tools. For example: working wood and metal lathes, welding equipment,
and a ton of hand tools.

I can totally understand people wanting to work on a project that
requires woodworking, metalworking, and electronics. I’ve got two
projects on my list that would probably require all three of those:
building (from scratch) a pinball machine and an arcade cabinet.

However ( and this is totally a personal preference ), I’d rather do the
woodworking and metalworking in a different space. That way, I wouldn’t
be bothering people with the noise & dust, and I wouldn’t be taking up
a fair amount of space in an area geared a bit more towards electronics
hacking.

I understand we’ve got things ( or will have things ) that kind of
stradle the line between wood/metal-working and electronics. Stuff like
the laser cutter, and maybe a CNC machine if we ever got one. It’s hard
to say where something like that belongs – it’s for cutting wood, but
it’s got delecate electronic parts that probably wouldn’t like being in
an environment like VCL’s space.

With the new space, it sounds like we’ll have the laser cutter sorted
out. But for stuff like the ( apparently non-working? ) lathe and other
tools, I think we might be better off letting VCL handle tools like that
( ie, they get a few more members, in return they take care of
maintenance of a tool that gets used a bit more often ).

I think if our two groups combined and got a huge space that could
accomidate all of the needs of both groups it’d be incredibly awesome,
but at this point I think the ideas behind the two groups would have a
bit of trouble meshing. Be worth thinking about next time our lease is
up, maybe?

Just some thoughts.

Please don’t kill me

Ditto.

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I think the greatest opportunity for the VHS is to go meta. (Obviously?)

Given that:

  • In The Future, there will be need for a hackerspace-type-thingy in every neighborhood
  • We already see other *spaces popping up in the valley & around town
  • All these spaces need to solve the same org/finance/community tooling problems
  • The VHS has 5 years of experience & skill w/ solving these problems

VHS Should become a meta-organization that offers the following services to any hackerspace in [GVRD/BC/Canada, pick one]:

  • Access to talk.vanhack.ca + private members-only forums
  • Access to vanhack.ca membership system (or a fork of it)
  • Legal cover - new orgs can become a new Location of the VHS
  • Broader community of amazing folks!

As part of this proposal, the current Bunker++ becomes just one location of the VHS. This could allow it to focus more - (eg: electronics + crafting + 3d printing + laser cutting, but no mill/cnc/lathe).

By making it CRAZY EASY for other VHS locations to pop up (eg: VHS BETAMAX in burnaby, or VHS REWIND in richmond) we would be building a brother and sisterhood of groups and infusing our do-ocratic and small community
culture in a much bigger way.

I come to this proposal by starting in the year 2029 and looking back at how we got there.

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Are you proposing some sort of “hackspace accelerator”?

I have it on good authority that was already have some relevant infrastructure to support that.

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The big glaring issue we have with DoOcracy is that it falls down when people aren’t doing it with the intent of playing well with others. Loud, bullish attitudes trample everyone else trying to follow the intent of the principles in a DoOcracy, especially when you have a lot of quiet/introverted members like we do.

@seanhagen: I’m strongly with @MarkHarris on this one. My vision for VHS is to be able to make (or learn how to) anything you desire - especially around robotics, animatronics, props, etc. For all these things you need a well outfitted shop (as well as the space for electronics and software), especially with regards to machining tools. As Mark says, software and electronics you can easily do anywhere; you don’t need a dedicated space, and there’s a million places around the city you can hotdesk at. The value VHS brings to the community is a space where the software, electronics, craft, and shop all co-exist. A narrow single-purpose space like that may be fine for some people, especially those newer to VHS and those fields, but to keep many of the experienced 10% of the membership who put in 90% of the work to run the classes, maintain the space, and bring in new things, you need more than that.

Our previous move that resulted in The Bunker we actually worked closely with VCL on several opportunities (as we were both hunting at the time), including taking the upper floor of their current space. Ultimately, the needs of the two groups differed and our membership voted a firm no on the VCL space due to the location. We’re very tied to the skytrain in the downtown/central Vancouver area, which wasn’t a concern for them. VCL is now in a long-term lease at that space, so won’t be looking to move any time soon (lucky them!).

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Fair enough, I get what you’re saying.

It seems like right now though, we don’t have the members to support a
space big enough to have and use those kinds of tools. Or maybe we’re
just not charging enough for the kind of space that we’d like to be?

I think that if VHS wants to get serious about having and operating big
machines like the lathe and whatnot, maybe it’s time to get serious
about membership fees and access? I totally understand that VHS has a
history of “pay when you can if you’re down on your luck at the
moment”. It’s a pretty awesome way to run things, from the perspective
of hackers and tinkerers looking for a space and tools to work on
projects. From the perspective of people who’d like to have a space big
enough to support the “big fun tools” like a lathe, it’s probably not so
awesome.

I’m not sure how it works in larger hackspaces elsewhere, but I have the
feeling that the way VHS treats people who can’t pay might be starting
to bite us in the ass. While it creates goodwill among the community,
I’m not sure it’s creating what we need to sustain a larger space with
more shtuff: cash flow.

I know that money/membership fees is a big, touchy topic. However, I
think that if having big tools, and lots of space to use said tools in
is what we want to aim for, then it’s a discussion that needs to happen.

I also don’t know how well this sort of thing meshes with the idea of
being a do-ocracy. Having stuff like a big space ( more cleaning? ), big
tools ( expensive parts, maintenance? ), specialized tools ( expensive!
require lots of training? ) sounds awesome, but how well would it work
in practice? Do other large spaces run via the do-ocracy method, or are
they a bit more like a traditional non-profit, with staff and whatnot?

I’m not sure if this is really a problem, or what the solution is. It
depends on what everyone wants and where they’d like to take VHS in the
future.

But I think it’s good we’re talking about it, at least.

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You’re totally right on a few things, Sean:

Membership fees for VHS are below the “market value” for what we are. Voted in at the QGM in August, membership rates are going up in January (but not for current members - see grandfather clause in the minutes). We can go into this more, if you like. It might be more appropriate to spin that off into a different thread.

Assuming we get the Cook St place, it is buzz-in access. We’ve already bikeshedded some plans to tie it into the current membership system, and it will implicitly encourage “drop in” members to be more regular members.
Implicit is good here, in my opinion. There are no policy changes or anything, but having to buzz in to an automated system will be a better reminder to people that their memberships have lapsed or whatever.

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I’m not sure how we would increase revenue by ending our policy to waive dues for those who are unable to pay. If they are already unable to pay, that’s not going to change as a result of the policy change. Maybe I’m too trusting? I think if VHS truly is a community, then we should be willing to help each other out, otherwise VHS is just a service and its members just customers.

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Perhaps with those that are unable to pay, they have to contribute to the space in regards to putting on workshops, or to the daily logistical stuff that has to happen for the space to be a happy hacker house. Some people pay $$ some pay with Sweat equity, or sharing the goods they have stored in their grey matter.

This availability of knowledge is what appealed to me more than any of the shop tools and such. It’s the knowledge that is available that is a powerful tool.

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Speaking personally, a lot of what I get out of VHS is the community and learning, not the stuff - be it tools or supplies.

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I remmeber about the membership fees going up, and that whole thing is
good with me. Especially with the new space and all that.

I definitely agree, implicit is better – and internal motivation is
best. I could go off and ramble on about intrinsic vs extrinsic
motivations, but that’d take too long and I don’t write so guud :P.

Is there someone already on the hook for doing the buzz-in system? I’d
like to be part of the dev team on that, if possible ( always wanted to
do something with Asterisk :smiley: ).

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Cool. We don’t have anything formal set up, but I’ll let you know when we start looking at the system. In the meantime, get yourself on the VHS GitHub if you’re not already. Our membership system is in a private repo and I’ve been actively working on it.

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You have summed it all up very well. I can’t think of any important points missed with your write up.

I have lots of thoughts and ideas on the subject. I’ll have to edit the whole thing first though to reduce misunderstandings that can cause for flamage.

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I need to respond to this thread, as I have a ton of ideas, but currently working on some deadlines.

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Ultimately, until we are bringing in more revenue, the “sweat equity” idea isn’t feasible due to our monthly expenses. I don’t think it’s a bad idea if our revenue is good enough to support it though.

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Perhaps it should be reworded as “VHS cannot scale on individual do-ocracy alone”. I like to think that do-ocracy still has a place but it’s not going to help VHS grow in the current state.

You want a larger space or better tools? VHS needs to grow and you cannot do long term planning with do-ocracy alone especially with caveats such as the 4 hour undo rule.

I would suggest that we encourage the formation of smaller groups to handle projects that take more than 4 hours to undo.

Here is a hypothetical case: We have a new space that has an intercom access system, we need to provide member access somehow.

Current way of addressing the problem: People post their two cents to talk and people talk about how it should be done and if we are lucky someone will volunteer to do the work and it goes off without a hitch. If we are unlucky the solution will be bikeshedded to death or no one will actually do the work, or the person that volunteered has issues that came up and leaves the project 50% complete.

But what if we did it this way?:

We state the problem here on talk and ask if anyone would like to be part of the solution either as a technical advisor, implementor or spectator. When you have a bunch of volunteers then it’s up to your group to come up with a plan and deliver the first iteration and provide some basic documentation for future iterations.

What I’m aiming for is this, a solution where you get:

  • Redundancy of volunteers
  • Better collaboration and reduced bike shedding
  • Encouragement for people that want to learn to get involved

So that is for dealing with specific problems and tasks but what about growth and operational tasks? Form groups for different areas of space or interest and have the group come up with long term goals and strategies.

Another hypothetical problem (although not very hypothetical), the workshop.

There is no direction in the workshop right now, no planning and generally little to no maintenance for the majority of tools there. I think areas like these should also have a group responsible for growth and maintenance, something that just can’t be done with do-ocracy alone.

Other potential groups or committees (some already exist):

  • 3D printers
  • CNC mills or routing
  • Soldering
  • Grant Applications
  • Membership management
  • Cleanup

TL;DR: So basically what I’m suggesting is we split off in to different working groups to tackle the larger problems at the space. Do-ocracy by individuals gets upgraded to do-ocracy by group or committee where they can work in a bikeshed free environment. You want a say in xyz area, then you become part of the group and contribute.

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I like that; a lot of things need a similar organizational structure to committees, but don’t require the executive power that committees carry.

I think a critical part of the flow that’s missing right now is that we don’t ever ask ourselves “what could benefit from collaboration?” - almost everything is formed ad hoc. Another group I’m slightly involved with has a 5-year strategic planning meeting (7 hours!) coming up soon, and while we’re too young and rapidly changing to have that kind of long-term planning, perhaps we can do the same for the shorter-term - say the next 18 months. I think having a members meeting that’s just about pie-in-the-sky awesomeness planning could be great for the membership, as the only time we meet together currently is for our GMs… which nobody loves.

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richard++