Guidelines

These are the few rules and procedures we have agreed on adhering to, as well as decisions taken previously.
Should you not like any of these rules, use the discussion tab to initiate a debate.

Internal regulations

Anarchy is rules without rulers

Guiding principles

Excellence

Be excellent to each other is the guiding principle of Syn2cat. Wikipedia uses a somewhat similar rule, which they call "the fundamental rule of all social spaces. Every other policy for getting along is a special case of it." Unlike Wikipedia, Syn2cat takes a positive approach, and tries to avoid the practice of officially enumerating the myriad potential special cases; "be excellent" is enough.

Consensus

We make official Syn2cat decisions by consensus, which means the willing consent of all of our members. Decisions are made at our monthly Bootstrap Meeting, and items proposed for consensus are announced in advance to give everyone time to hear about them.

Do-ocracy

Doing excellent stuff at Syn2cat does not require permission or an official consensus decision. Decisions are taken by those who do things, and if you want something to get done, you just do it. If you're uncertain about the excellence of something you want to do, you should ask someone else what they think, or discuss the topic at our monthly Bootstrap Meeting

People often make suggestions like "We should do this and that." If you're suggesting an idea, you're automatically volunteering to do it.

See: Community Wiki and Noisebridge

Example policy applications of our guiding principles

General order (noise, general use, keys)

1. Law in state counts. No excessive noise between 22h00 and 07h00 In between these hours, please respect your neighbors.
2. After your initiation, you may ask to receive access tokens. If you lose or break your access token, you must pay for a new one. You may not alter your access token, and must tell office@syn2cat.lu right away if you lose it. For the procedure how to open and close the hackerspace, please see PiDor
3. We welcome members under 18 with the written consent of a tutor or parent, and encourage members to bring their children.

Housekeeping

1. Store your projects in your box between hacking sessions; if it doesn’t fit in your box, take it home. Exceptions must be authorized by office.
2. Clean up after yourself, leave your table empty
3. Return all material to it's location after use
4. Signal breakage or accidents immediately to the office (to handle insurance)
5. Refill any consumables you used, tell the office if we’re out
6. The hackerspaces are non-smoking areas (including e-cigarettes)
7. Use the QR-codes attached to certain items to find specific information on our wiki. Put QR-codes on your own items to define their usage and ownership.

Food and disposal of old food

1. Everybody taking food and/or drinks to hackerspace is supposed to check regularly for their expiry dates and dispose of them, in case they're no longer consumable. You should check to dispose waste in an appropriate waste-bin and separate trash if possible! Adequate labels are available.

Consequences for not respecting the space or its members

In both cases, it was convened on a case-by-case trial. The person concerned should be invited in front of the administrative council, accompanied by the person who vouched for him/her on the membership application form. Matters should be discussed face-to-face and solutions primarily be proposed by the person standing "trial".
(Decided on Bootstrap Meeting of 04.12.10)

More rules

1. There is only one more rule: Don't make any more rules necessary!

Procedures

Procedures help fulfill important tasks using the same standards/methods every time for all users. It is important to have some for our not-so-regular members.

• Startup
  • Entering the syn₂cat locations implies opening the blinds and switching on the lights. This is to show that there is life at the space.
• Shutdown
  • The last person leaving the hackerspace, is also responsible for its proper shutdown. Before leaving syn₂cat, please make sure that the following was checked :
    • Everyone belonging to your group (including invitees) must leave the house
    • Power needs to be cut. Especially check any soldering irons and other devices in the lab.
    • Check that all computers are down, except those which are supposed to be running.
    • Control the fridge and other food/drink reserves you/your group used. Do not leave anything opened or unconsumed lying/standing around!
    • Check if the trash needs to be brought downstairs. Trash bins are in front of the building.
    • Make sure you lock tightly the lab door.
    • Are all the lights turned off? The blinking gimmicks should stay on.
    • Follow PiDor for the final closing of the front door
    • Check that the door is well locked.

See also

• https://labitat.dk/index.php/Guidelines
• http://metalab.at/wiki/Agenda_zur_Kandidatur_benko_2009-05-30
• The poster inside the syn₂cat rooms: Media:syn2cat-regulations.odt

Jurisprudence

Buying Club-Mate crates

You may buy entire crates of Club-Mate or Club-Mate Cola from the space for a fee of 30 EUR41.808 $
26.157 £
36.596 CHF/crate (5€ deposit included) as long as a specified minimum of crates is still available. If there are less than 10 crates of either flavor remaining, you may not buy a crate and take it home.

Council spending limit

The Administrative Council is by our internal rules not allowed to spend more than 500 EUR on any object or any collection of objects, without a majority vote on a Bootstrap Meeting. See Funding.