Talk:Harbor Commons

General Meetings - open to all community residents, held regularly to discuss issues that affect the Commons as a whole. Since actually playing out meetings on cam would get tedious and annoying, use this section to outline agenda points your chars may have brought up or weigh in on the points already there. Please put concrete decisions in bold for easy skimming.

Thursday, 18 June, 2014, 19:30. Attending: B, Daiki, Dusk, Flicker, Hive, Horus, Jax, Jim, Joshua, Melinda, Micah, Rachel, Shane, Zombie

• Finances
• General Meeting Schedule (How often/when to have meetings)
  • Hive suggestion: every two weeks UNTIL all the setup of everything has been hammered out (rooms fully furnished, chores fully assigned, new applicant processes in place, everything running smoothly) after which, once a month.
  • Jax: A+ sounds excellent.
  • Dusk: Thirded. Next meeting Saturday morning, July 5? Just over two weeks and making it a weekend next time might help if weekday evenings were a struggle for someone.
  • Jim: nods >:|
  • Next common meeting: July 5, 10 am. Common meetings to happen every two weeks until all Moving In details have been ironed-out, then will be once a month.
• Common House Furnishing
  • Nearly done, yay! Still need some things for the guest rooms and entertainment/media rooms and gym. Assign budget/people to finish acquiring Things.
  • Micah: Can drive people to Acquire Things, just nudge at me.
  • Jim: I got some photos of shit around the Commons 'n people live here that'd go alright on a few the walls. Been uh, thinking of trying out plant-shaping some furniture. Seen that shit? I pull it off, we could put some of those around.
• How To Handle New Resident Applications
  • Need someone to take point on writing an application over and above the standard sort of credit check. (Jim will start on this; researching NY tenant laws.)
  • Need someone to take point on devising interview process. (Dai and B volunteer to help with formulating Suggested Topics to cover in interviews, will send to mailing list for approval after.)
  • Once these are done, need people to take point on actually BEING the ones to receive and process new applications and schedule interviews etc.
    • Jax: definitely don't have enough FreeTime to reliably handle being the pointperson on intake but would be glad to help out with the interviewing as necessary; presumably we'll have a pool of volunteers to draw from when scheduling interviews?
    • Dusk: Can we make sure to have at least one teep present at interviews, that'd probably be excellent. Even if we're not specifically asking anyone questions about their feelings on freaks, having one psiperson present -- probably together with one person with a visible mutation -- will likely be plenty enough information on their feelings re: freaks.
    • Micah: Seconded on the idea of exposing any potentials to at least one individual with physical manifestations of their X-gene. If someone's going to bothered, best to know up-front. The teeps are probably a good plan, too. Um...I'm willing to help interview but I am neither of those things. Or even having special abilities. But I could tag along if we want more than one person?
    • Jim: I can sit in; 'm around a lot. The kids don't have t' be the only ones on 'token freak' duty.
    • Shane: I probably shouldn't sit in any interview unless we want people to be scared off for reasons entirely unrelated to being blue. I volunteer B for it, though. Can I do that? B, you get to help interview people.
    • Daiki: -- I also probably should not sit in any interviews, for entirely the opposite reason; it would be impossible to get an accurate read on someone's reactions and mood if I were.
• Community Chore Division (what needs to be done, who will do it -- anyone who wants to help, get in touch with the people responsible for making sure it is done)
  • Common house cleaning -- probably should be divided up by rooms the common house is BIG. Everyone needs to be responsible for cleaning up after THEMSELVES when using common areas, though. (Need volunteers for the various areas of the Common House) Jax: can handle Kitchen, Sunroom, Arts & Crafts Room. Horus: Elevator, Hallways/stairs, giant climbything, foyer. Micah: Dining Room, Game Room, Playroom. Sharkpups: Guest rooms, music room. Daiki: Laundry, Storage organizing. Flicker: Media Room, Fitness Room.
  • Keeping track of/restocking inventory (cleaning products, bathroom needs, commonly-used nonperishable staples and spices in the kitchens, etc.) (Need volunteers for inventory management)
    • Micah: I can do fetchquests and transporting of items.
  • Security system -- Dusk has installed security in and around common areas. This includes cameras as well as a system to notify people of unidentified visitors; please contact Dusk if you want to be on the notification list. Dusk will maintain electronic security systems. Jim has already begun to put in the seeding of physical security. Can briar patch barricade the place off in emergency. Freaking Sleeping Beauty the place off. Or non-thorny vines for less painful snare traps- Probably work with Dusk on other measures.
    • Notification list for security alarm alerts: B, Daiki, Dusk, Flicker, Hive, Jax, Jim, Joshua, Rachel, Shane
  • Internet infrastructure -- Dusk has wired the Commonhaus and Treehaus and Workshop for internet; additionally there is wifi access all through common areas. Dusk will maintain Commons network; additionally is handling upkeep of the website and other online community presence e.g. mailing list
  • Building Maintenance -- Not actually responsible for FIXING everything, just for coordinating any structural upkeep that needs doing and getting other people to fix it if need be. Hive will keep an eye on building maintenance.
  • Planting Gardens -- Jax and Micah have been tending to the Gardens & sunroom herb boxes re: what gets planted and when etc. Jim will aid in this; upkeep and weed control. :9
  • Grounds maintenance -- Jim has been on Groundskeeper duty.
  • Finance management -- (Need volunteers for keeping track of finances -- Hive has been doing this through construction and opening but would seriously like to not handle it anymore now that building is completed.)
    • Micah: Can help take some of this off Hive's plate in the short term but we're probably going to need someone with more time to dedicate to it over the long haul.
    • Daiki: I would volunteer for this but I have no idea what my schedule will be like when class starts. I can, though, help organize the way we do accounting to be simple for whoever takes it over long-term.
  • Events planning -- person to coordinate community events (weekly/semiweekly/whatever group meals, etc); not necessarily in charge of planning events themselves (though if they want to, rad!) but a point person to talk to if anyone in the community wants to plan something. Make sure there's no room/supply use conflicts, disseminate information to the community when events are happening, etc. Daiki and Inès would happily coordinate this.
    • B: What kind of regularly scheduled events are we going to have? Meals? Game night? Drum circles? Seances? Ritual human sacrifice?
    • Micah: Voting for a weekly dinner and a weekly game night? Maybe some other things? I can go in on dinner cooking rotation.
    • Shane: I would be so pleased with weekly dinner. Maybe monthly BRUNCH. I can't help cook. Dai can. Look I'm volunteering fucking everybody toni--
    • Daiki: I can volunteer myself. I would be glad to help cook.
• Community Etiquette
  • Smoking in common areas -- NO indoor smoking in common houses; outdoor smoking is acceptable but NOT in the Gardens, Playground, or Gazebo. Please respect individuals' preferences with regards to smoking in their yards/near their private houses. Hive will get receptacles for cigarette butts to install in the courtyard near the trashcans and doggie-bag-dispensers already there.
  • Drugs in common areas -- though general sentiment is Nobody Really Cares, keep illegal drug usage out of common areas as it is a legal liability for every member of the Commons.
  • Nudity in common areas
    • In favor: Dusk, Hive, Shane, B, Jax, Micah, Horus, though agreed that clothing should be worn in kitchen & dining areas.
    • Opposed: Zombie, Joshua, Jim, Rachel
      • Jim is generally anti-nudity but okay with specifying which parts of the Common Areas are OK and which parts aren't.
      • Rachel is meh on the idea of overall nudity but thinks it is important that female & male toplessness are treated equally (No dissenting opinions there?)
    • Daiki and Flicker are both abstaining; not entirely comfortable with nudity but also entirely uncomfortable with regulating if and how other people need to dress.
    • Dusk: seriously, there's people here for whom clothes aren't just an inconvenience, they're an active burden given their different physiological needs. It's kind of a luxury for most people that clothes are designed with their body types in mind and they don't have to deal with constant painful irritation or deal with special tailoring just to HAVE things to wear at all. Not all of us are that lucky though.
    • Horus: auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh pants no seriously where would I even get legclothes?? they don't make birdclothes and I don't know if I could fly well with clothes on.
    • Shane: Yeah... I mean, we get specially tailored clothes that are slightly better? But they still chafe horribly and dry us out and give terrible rashes and, you know, generally suck. And that's the IMPROVED version of clothes over Things I Can Actually Buy In A Store.
  • Commonspace usage overall
    • Jax: Though the commmonspaces are definitely just there for anyone to use, propose having some system of reserving space if you know ahead of time you might need it for something in particular (guest room for out of town visitors, kitchens for HUGE COOKING, game room for... games, workshop for big projects, etc.)
    • Dusk: I can set up a system online and tie it into our community calendar, for reserving rooms for shit. If B wants to help equip me I can put tablets at the door of the rooms to say if they're reserved or not and sign up for timeslots if you want to reserve them.
    • B: Yup, can do.
  • Strangers on the grounds
    • Dusk: So okay we get notified if they are strangers (and even if you're not notified you can probably. SEE them wandering around) and while the buildings are locked to anyone who doesn't have a key, the grounds are -- semi-private but easy enough to just ENTER, you can hop a wall or come in through the side gates without much fuss. So how DO we want to deal with people Lurking Around cuz, seriously, our courtyard is like a park in itself, I'm sure people are going to wander in and hang out without actually meaning any harm by it but that could get obnoxious if they start giving people crap.
    • Horus: So kick people out of the grounds IF they start giving people crap? Otherwise they can play too? Not in the buildings though. Just the park. Courtyard. Parkyard.
    • B: I mean, I'd be happier just. Not having strangers around. At all? Or as close to at all as possible? Residents and guests of residents, sure, but can't we just tell everyone else that this is private property?
    • Micah: This is gonna sound...something. But I'm kind of less inclined to shoo away folks with special abilities that need a place to go? I mean, folks have run into our stray catgirl about the grounds, right? Prooobably I should have a talk with her about how open windows aren't invitations to /everyone's/ houses since maybe not everybody is as keen on uninvited guests as Jax and I are. But I wouldn't boot her out of the courtyard or the gardens or anything. Maybe our folks that get pinged about strangers can go check them out or...something. Other thoughts?
    • Jim: Not really fond of strangers around when I've got roots down. Could post hours; the premises is closed after what - 4pm. Not against Micah about exceptions. Fuck, feels like more of us are strays from one time or another than aren't.
    • Shane: How would we even tell who has special abilities when they wander in? I mean do we only allow the FREAKIEST of freaks or do we ask for their registration or just EYE them suspiciously until they shoot us with eyeball lasers? Uh anyway I'll talk to any-fucking-body but actually I am not a fan of strangers either and I would probably GUT someone who climbed in through my window without explicit invitation so fuck that shit with a rusty poker. Otherwise I don't care too much about people loitering around the grounds but I'd be down with Jim's suggestion? Maybe like a "closed after dusk" thing like parks do -- well okay yeah shuttup Dusk is open 24/7 I know that.

Saturday, 5 July 2014, 10:00. Attending: B, Daiki, Dusk, Hive (mentally), Inès, Jax, Micah, Zombie, Jim

• Finances
• Chore Division
  • Finance Management still needs a person
  • Inventory/Restocking still needs a person
  • Cleaning: Treehaus, Workshop still need people - Jim can maintain Treehaus. He'll be up there a lot anyway making sure it stays healthy and sound under all that weight.
  • Already claimed chores: All the other commonspace cleaning, security systems, building maintenance, sysadmin, webmaster, garden planting, groundskeeping, event coordinating
  • Are there other regular upkeep things that need doing?
• Community Etiquette
  • Alcohol in commonspaces
    • Dusk: Have no opinion inherently on alcohol in commonspaces but I can code the locks on the refreshment fridges/cabinets so that one specific cabinet can't be opened by the keys of anyone who is under 21. Would not be that difficult, we'd just have to designate whichever is going to be the alcohol place.
    • Hive: would prefer to just keep alcohol out of communityspaces entirely. I mean not entirely like who cares if you bring a beer to the gazebo but in terms of what we actually store in communal refreshments.
    • Micah: I second Hive there, outside of cooking wines or the like. Also, as far as minors drinking, I think that needs to be a no in the public areas. It's one thing for me and Jax to let Shane drink at /our/ house, for example, that's our responsibility if someone decides to raise a fuss. Common areas get a little fuzzier on that, especially when legal guardians aren't present at the time, etc.
    • Jim: Third.
  • Actually come to some agreement about clothing requirements
• Next meeting in one month? Propose Thursday August 7 @ 19:00

Thursday, 7 August 2014, 19:00. Attending: Clarice, Daiki, Flicker & Jim (from Thailand via Skype), Inès, Jax, Joshua, Micah, Shane, Neve

• Finances
  • Micah - Dai and I have been doing the bookkeeping so far, but Dai's going to school and I really don't think I can keep this up solo once he does. Somebody's gotta love spreadsheets out there.
• Security
  • Jax - For a little bit at least, we're probably going to be needing a bit of extra watchfulness on the security systems. I think until things quiet down we should shoo strangers off with prejudice, mutant or no; I suspect we might have equal problems from both.
    • Micah - Right now that seems wise.
  • Jax - In a more general sort of way, we talked about general sentiments on having strangers on the grounds -- does that include indoor spaces? With warm weather people frequently leave doors/windows open to commonspaces, which is fine, but I'd like to not have strangers in any of the common buildings. We have intermittently had kids/families using the playground during the day which is okay (though again I think we should be extra-vigilant about it for the next little while.)
    • Micah - I think it's fair to ask people we don't know to stay out of the buildings unless they're invited. That /should/ be pretty common etiquette and I definitely wouldn't object to that being enforced. Should we make some signage? Of the "private property" variety?
    • Shane - Yeah I think the problem is that with the courtyard and the playground people think this is some kind of park? And that the building is some kind of public park-building. Rec center. Whatever. So if the door is open there is nothing telling them they shouldn't come in. So signs would be good.
• General Common Space Upkeeps
  • Jax - I would love to put a couple beehives in around the gardens, they will help most excellently with things flourishing Even More. Does anyone have any objections to that slash is anyone else interested in helping with hive maintenance? You don't need to know anything about beekeeping, I can teach you!
    • Micah - Do we have anyone with a strong bee allergy or phobia living here? Those would be the primary issues I'd anticipate, but otherwise, yay!
    • Flicker - Bees! Yay!
  • Jim - So. It was hot as balls when I left but it's gonna get cold again in a few months. I can only do so much keeping the outdoor garden alive once the ground freezes over. Anyone got ideas for winter proofing the garden boxes? Close 'em in, turn them into mini greenhouses? Solar panels?
    • Dusk - I thiiink Hive had started setting up some way to enclose them in winter; if the transformation requires heavy lifting I am happy to help with whatever needs to be done.
• Next meeting time: Propose Wednesday, 10 September, @ 19:30

Monday, 11 August 2014, 19:00. Attending: Dusk, Jax, Joshua, Micah, Neve, Rachel, Shane, Kay (guest)

Meeting on-cam.

Sunday, 7 December @ 13:00 Attending: B, Clarice, Daiki, Dusk, Inès, Joshua, Micah, Shane, Random NPCs

• Finances
• Chore Division
• Guest Policy -- Official policy for Common House Guests? Standards about duration of stays? Common agreements about when/how/etc to notify (and/or request permission) re: guests staying in guest rooms?
  • Clarice - Definitely there needs to be some kind of notification, at the least. It doesn't even need to be like a bulletin that goes out to everyone but if there's some kind of guest room schedule online or something, we could at least look in and see if the rooms are meant to be occupied and by who, which cuts down on the what-the-fuck factor when there's strangers roaming around.
  • Joshua - Agreed. Don't think permission should be necessary for short stays, but we should work out a protocol for longer ones. Also what 'longer' means. More than a weekend?
  • Dusk - In a practical matter, I can't make anyone guest keys if I don't know there's a guest, and they can't get IN to the common house without a guest key, which is just going to be a pain for them since they'll need their host around. We don't have spare guest keys just lying around, I blank any key not in use so we can track all the extant keys and who has them when. So if you have a guest and you want them to be able to get in and out on their own, you're going to have to talk to me anyhow. Some sort of formal notification/request system would be ideal.
  • Micah - Also, official apologies on springing the current unexpected guest on folks. He was unexpected from /my/ end, too, just when it's visible mutant kids stuck out on the street, I... Um. Right. There is no intention for him to be long term in the common area. I was really just trying to get him out of the bad weather that was happening that night and. Will work with him on what he should do next. I think he may be transitioning over to the school, but regardless it's my mess to handle. Just give me an idea on how many days I need to handle it within and I'll stick to that.
  • Daiki - Actually, aside from the logistics on things like duration of stay, I would like to have a concrete policy in place regarding guest behavior. As in, if someone's guest is disrespecting common facilities or disrespecting residents, we should have a set understanding on how to handle that. Who, if anyone, is authorized to tell Someone Else's Guest they need to get out? Of common areas, at least.
    • Micah - I would say it depends on the degree of the behavioural issue? If someone is being a danger, or getting into physical altercations, I'd say /anyone/ should be cleared to tell them they need to go at any time. For more subtle concerns, like someone is just being a giant jerkface, perhaps taking it back to the person who brought them and having that person tell them to pack it in might be the most politic/least likely to cause more problems. Though that would still require a policy on when we need to tell people that /they/ need to tell their guests to go.
    • Dusk - Yeah, I mean, for serious things anyone should be able to say. And for minor things can bring it up with their host. I mean it's not like we can stop people hosting assholes in their own private homes but you can tell someone to keep their guests out of communal space if they're being terrible.
    • B - On that same note, though, I don't think anyone should feel pressured to be the one to confront a problem-guest directly even if everyone's allowed. I think at any time if there IS a problem guest, you should always be allowed to go to their host and tell the host they need to deal with it/tell them to leave/tell them to only stay in their private home etc. Also back onto the practical side, I think any stay longer than two nights should require some kind of approval process.
    • Shane - Agreed on the approval, but also I don't know if it's something we want to make more work for anyone on. Maybe it should be like a /dis/-approval process, instead? Like, if you're going to have a guest for longer than that period, you can book them in whatever form of guest-room-sign-up gets implemented, but unlike with short term guests booking guests longer than two nights/three days/whatever does send a notification to everyone. And then people have the option to weigh in with vetos. That way it's not an onus on any person to have the chore of Guest Approver or whatever the fuck.
    • B - That makes sense. Opt-out rather than opt-in sounds way less tedious. Just means we need to have a requirement for booking longer-term guests enough in advance to give people a chance to veto.
  • Joshua - All sounds sensible to me. I'd like to add a clarification: two nights in a how long period? Two-week period? Otherwise staying two days-leaving a day-staying two days won't count. Probably relevant, though, if Dusk is automating the whole notification system to just automatically trip some kind of notification when a guest will be there for however long.
    • Dusk - Oh, right. I'm okay with it being a two-week period. So basically more than two weekends a month. That definitely sounds like 'someone who will be around enough I'd want to at least know about it' territory. Since there is no reliable way for me to do it per-guest though, how do people feel about it being per-resident? Like, if I wanted to have Guest A over this weekend and Guest B over next weekend, the only way I could do that would be to make people put in way more information about their guests than I give a fuck about putting. But if I do it per resident, then it's just a blanket: if I'm going to be using the guest room this often, regardless of who I am keeping there, the notification will get tripped for people to be able to look at it and veto. On that note, though, what information DO we want me to require when booking guest rooms? Just a name? It'll already tell you whose guest they are.
    • Micah - Two weeks sounds reasonable. And doing things by host is fine, but I'd recommend /also/ doing it by guest. Otherwise you could end up with the same person staying here two days at a time just using different sponsors for each two days. Or other such chicanery. I think a name, age, and picture would be helpful. That way we know if they shouldn't be drinking in public areas, for example. And we'll know who /isn't/ just a stranger wandering around.
    • B - Also preferred pronouns. And maybe past those required fields just a freeform entry slot for anything the host or guest feels like is relevant, since that will be a really wide range that's super individual. Most people might not care about anything more, some people might have intense allergies or horrible fear of dogs or. I don't know are really excited to make new friends and would love to hang out and play board games. Whatever people feel like is pertinent could go there (with a character limit, I'd suggest!) but I'd go with name/age/pronouns as requirements. Picture if possible. That way if -- okay, nevermind, I'm starting to think of all the ways to make sure that the system catches all the guests correctly (since that'll be harder to do than catching all of US correctly) but, really, it's super unlikely that we'll ever have such a huge volume of guests that two people's different guests in a two-week time period will have the same name and age anyway. Uh. But the coder in me wants to make sure that edge cases are covered anyway.
      • (this is mostly answered with some growling) Dusk - Fuck you B. But right no yeah I'll make it pretty.
    • B - Wait, on the note of Talking To Guests, Ba, can you tell that ghostperson to stop doing all the chores? It is weirding me the heck out. Like we've just kidnapped some sort of homeless slave labor. It's really creepy.
      • Inès - Oh my god seconded.
        • Joshua - (just lifts three fingers to third this.)
          • Dusk - Pfft. He can do my chores. Oh, no, wait, he can't. But I'd totally outsource them if he happens to have tech skills.
      • Micah - Yeah, apologies... I really hadn't thought this would be what it turned into. At the time he wanted to do something and I was picturing like...thanks for letting me spend the night, I'll help with dishes after dinner. It's gotten a little out of hand. I'm on it as soon as I can arrange it.