Noisebridge uses the following consensus process.
Noisebridge has a membership meeting once per month. The meeting happens on the first Tuesday of the month, and starts at 7pm. The meeting is open to all Noisebridge members who are present in person.
Members may bring guests to the meeting. Guests are only spectators, they are not entitled to participate. A member who is present may ask a guest to speak on their behalf.
There is no provision made for remote participation. If a member is unable to attend a particular meeting in person, they must trust that others will make prudent decisions in their absence.
Quorum at a membership meeting is three members.
Decisions are made by consensus of at least two thirds of participating members. A member is participating in a decision only if they support it or object to it. Members who stand aside from a decision are not counted. There is no quorum requirement for each decision: as long as a quorum is present, a decision may be made no matter how many members stand aside.
If at least two thirds of participating members support a proposal, the proposal is agreed. If no more than one third of participating members object to a proposal, it is rejected.
Decisions are made only on the basis of those members physically present.
Proposals must be raised in the form of an issue or pull request on the Noisebridge Github organization. A proposal which impacts material formally documented within the Noisebridge Github repositories must be in the form of a pull request. Only proposals which have no impact on the content of any material formally documented in a Noisebridge Github repository may be raised as a Github issue.
Issues should be filed in the bureaucracy organization. Pull requests should be made against whatever repository contains the formal documentation to be changed.
Only proposals raised before the threshold of 2359h on the Thursday before a membership meeting are eligible to be decided at that meeting. Github's timestamps are presumed accurate. Proposals may continue to be discussed or amended after this threshold. Proposals raised after this threshold will be eligible for a decision at the following meeting.
The decision reached at a meeting must be related to the issue raised, but the decision does not have to be identical. A proposal may be modified at a meeting. There is no limit to the amount of modification which may happen at a meeting. A meeting may make whatever changes and compromises are necessary to reach two-thirds consensus.
If a member believes that the modifications to an proposal agreed at a membership meeting make it truly unrelated to the original proposal, that member may make an appeal to the board. The board will decide on an appropriate resolution, at their discretion.
At a membership meeting, a decision may be made to create, abolish, or amend a working group.
Working groups must have a name, a purpose, and a designated responsible person. A decision may be made to delegate any duty, decision or authority properly decided at a membership meeting to a working group. Unless otherwise specified, decisions at a membership meeting may overrule decisions made by a working group.
The responsible person has discretion to decide on a reasonable time, place, and manner for meetings of that working group. They may make any other reasonable decisions regarding the process, tools, and communications of the working group. They may recruit, approve, deny, and eject other members of the working group. A working group is not required to consist only of Noisebridge members.
A working group may make whatever decisions and take whatever actions are within the scope of the responsibilities assigned to it.