Start a computer club in the place that you live (2023) | Hacker News Reader

Start a computer club in the place that you live (2023)

startacomputer.club

187 pointsgnabgib83 comments

> the recurse center social rules foster collaboration and psychological safety, consider using them

> No well-actually’s > No feigned surprise > No backseat driving > No subtle -isms

There seems to be something really magical about the Recurse Center social rules. Or maybe their admissions process. Or both. I did a batch a couple years ago and I was stunned at how fun and drama-free people are there. I've heard occasional stories of negative experiences but nowhere near what Id expect for a group of passionate intelligent creatives working at vastly different levels of expertise.

Anyway glad to see the RC rules propagating and love this idea. I'm inspired to try to start a computer club at my 5yo's school! *crossed-fingers

How can this work in practice? "The sky is green". How do you answer this without breaking the first rule?

> A well-actually is when you correct someone about something that’s not relevant to the conversation or tangential to what they’re trying to say.

So, as long as the conversation is about the colour of the sky, (or about green things) you can just answer it.

Well actually, credibility is lost from the entire conversation for everyone if “well actually’s” aren’t allowed.

> The best rule of thumb is, if you’re not sure whether something needs to be said right now, hold off and see what happens. You can always say it later if it turns out there’s no way for the conversation to move forward without your correction.

From the context, it sounds like it's not so much about "don't correct people" as much as it's about "don't uselessly correct someone to showcase your own knowledge and not advance the conversation".

How do they make that work, you think? Could you say a bit more?

One weirdo can severely mess up group dynamics, which is deadly for a small nascent club-type thing.

What if you have someone join who's ferociously intelligent, and not outright evil but just inherently socially maladjusted? You just kick em out if they can't help themselves to continuous "well actually"s, even though they mean well? That in itself might create drama...

Overall, not arguing over the minutia of the rules probably is the best way to do this. I liked the way ggerganov just ended the anti-jt PR drama that started on llama.cpp by banning both participants. Sometimes if you just stop things, they go somewhere else and that's life.

Basically, I take that as a simple mix of "don't feed the trolls" and "we don't behave like that here". Sounds pretty pragmatic and enforceable, in fact. Thanks.

It’s funny because going back to that discussion, people thought it was heavy handed but I agree with you. I hadn’t even heard about this drama, so I think it worked.

Any public school teacher should have some good advice on this one. Clubs have a lot more leeway on solutions!

In talking about how they manage to keep it so drama / toxicity free with other alums all we can ever really do is speculate. But people being asked to leave seems to be very rare so we've often concluded it must be in the admissions process. Admissions interviews sound like they are very different experiences for different people but I know that in mine at least there were moments where I could have responded with toxic behavior but didn't. At the very least it seems like any pair programming interview gives ample opportunities to accidentally violate those rules so they might be naturally selecting folks who already organically follow those rules rather than having to artificially conform to them. All speculative though who knows.

Anyway to actually answer your question I think that unfortunately asking people to leave is the mechanism by which they enforce those rules after a few attempts to course correct. I believe I heard stories about that happening but didn't witness it personally and it seemed clear that they weren't interested in broadcasting those instances to the larger community.

Reading the list for the first time its amazing how well it captures some of the worst parts of "nerd" culture. Interacting with kids and public school will help you navigate regular jerks, but it was always frustrating joining an anime club, programming club, etc and finding these exact people in there, but being unsure why these normally quiet people are actually just as awful and instantly regretting even making the effort.

Have faced "feigned surprise" from coworkers in my career and can confirm that it is very damaging for self-esteem. Remarkable that this is so widespread that it found a place in the list as one of just four rules of behaviour to avoid.

I am very glad that we have Chaos Computer Club in Germany. It's by far more than just a time and place where nerds meetup to do computer, they are already some kind of institution, they have a voice in politics and often requested for independent consulting. But "doing computer" is how it all started.

I run a maker space in Saint Charles, Illinois. We have space to host these sort of things. If you live near here and (like me) are interested, please reach out. My contact details are easy to find.

Do maker spaces federate in any way? Examples I can think of are a bit bougie, but golf clubs or professional clubs where there are sister chapters/courses in other regions.

It would be so cool to visit a maker space when in a different town (or country) with some degree of attached reputation (won't damage things, know the safety rules, history of good conduct).

Sort of. We work pretty closely with the nearest makerspace and have a thing where we will split membership fees of people who wish to join both (a common thing if you live half way between the two places).

Unfortunately, there is nothing like this at the national or global level that I am aware of.

Pollyanna and graceful ordinary aren't terribly bad neighbors to have. That's some nice real estate you got there! Farmbot is one of the coolest projects around.

Hey Rick! I visited Fox.build a few years back - your maker-maker space is truly an inspiration, and I'm looking forward to visiting again soon. Thank you.

// JRO from Cambria Labs

Looking forward to it! Speak soon. Just saw your RSVP - I do remember you! Glad to hear you are still working on your project.

I would quite happily volunteer some of my time to help interested kids with computer programming. I recently looked around and none of my local school (here in the UK) seem to have after school programming clubs. I am a bit put off by all the organizational and safe guarding issues that would come with starting something.

The safeguarding stuff is required for sports coaching too and is run well in the UK from my experience.

Yes, I had a DBS check before and it wasn't an issue. But I wonder how onerous safeguarding policies are. Also I would be wary of being in a room with a pupil without another adult present. Even the slightest accusation, where you are completely innocent, could make your life hell.

> I would be wary of being in a room with a pupil without another adult present

I think a far greater danger is your club becoming a dumping ground for parents wanting free childcare.

But yeah, running a club solo is not likely to be sustainable if you’re not (somehow) connected to the location that you are running it. At least with two people there’s a fallback. A lot of clubs don’t have this, though, so don’t let “perfect be the enemy of good”.

Sporting organizations require more than just a DBS check, they typically also need you to have attended a course on good practice in protecting children which you will need to refresh regularly. There will be standard policies that a computer club could copy from other youth organizations.

Similar to computer clubs, I really liked doing coding days in various small communities in Tokyo (in Japanese they're called moku moku kai).

The Python minihackathon[0] group model was particularly great. You show up, write a line or two of what you're thinking of working on onto a whiteboard, and towards the end people go up and present what they worked on for a couple minutes.

It's usually "learning how to use this library" or something, but it's a great way to schedule some OSS work.

This is a bit different from a computer club, but if you have a space you can lock into and can get even 10 or so people together once every couple of weeks (or once a month), then it's a great way to be sure you _at least_ work on something 12 times a year.

[0]: https://pyhack.connpass.com/

>The social rules are:

> No well-actually’s

> No feigned surprise

> No backseat driving

> No subtle -isms

referred to by the post link, i like it. The link is also cc0, which is the only license i'll put on something, really. This sounds like it would be challenging and rewarding and fun; but the only places a "group" can get together and have space is churches around here, so i'd have to travel like an hour to get someplace more amenable to "several computers running" even if laptops that are wall powered.

I have enough spare computing hardware that realistically i can provide equipment for quite a few people. lugging it around would be a pain.

Two other things i've been seriously contemplating is a hyper-local podcast http://adam.curry.com/html/HowtoStartAHyperLoca-16wQvxtGFbH0... and stand up either a static blog server or something "like a wiki" but just for managing information. I saw that johnny.decimal post earlier and maybe i can put something together that is like a "notes and data" blog but organized with johnny.decimal or one of the other alternatives for organization mentioned in that thread.

I should really get started.

One of my fondest early memories of computing was going to my uncle’s computer club held at a school I think after hours. All they did the whole time was copy Commodore 64 games and it was awesome.

Southern Indiana, anyone?

probably crickets, but you never know. I even have a space we could use for meetings, my own pizza place.

I'm in Southern Indiana (Columbus area), and I'd be interested.

meet.hn might be useful here? links at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42640309

Around Colorado we call them Hacking Society, and the easiest way we've found to get space has been at coffee shops, though over the years some businesses have opened space for us at times. Considering we've been getting together 3 times a month for nearly a quarter century, you'd think we'd have had more time to update the webpage. https://www.hackingsociety.org/

Thanks for sharing about this! Do you happen to know if the Boulder meetup time and location are still accurate? I tried subscribing to the mailing list but the email bounced.

I would doubt it, I haven't been in over a decade, but let me reach out and see.

I've reached out to a few of the core participants from back in the day, and also the Boulder Linux User's Group organizer, and it's not looking like it's currently active.

However: I'd encourage you, and even help you, with getting one set up again. It's Reeeeal easy. The Boulder one was largely attendees from the Boulder Linux Users Group, and it was on the same day of the week as the BLUG meeting, just the remaining Thursdays of the month. We'd just pick a coffee shop that was open suitably late and had reasonable seating, and then announced it at the BLUG meetings and also on the mailing list. The BLUG mailing list seems to be defunct, but I can probably get someone to announce it at the meeting if you're interested.

I do have an ex attendee that moved to north Longmont and was interested in something in that area, if that's a geography you're interested in.

Computer Club in Seattle, anyone?

I'd be interested if it existed...

The Connections Museum staff might be a starting point.

I'll throw my hat in that ring too

There are welcoming hackerspaces around for those with the eyes to find them ;-)

+1. Would love to talk about self-hosting with other people interested in the hobby

Dang, just sold my house that had an ADU that would have been perfect for the purpose.

> meetups about "how to node.js apolitically" are sidelining people who want "how to node.js pro-socially."

This statement did turn me off a bit. "how to node.js apolitically" would in practice ofc just be "how to node.js", which should be perfectly fine for a computer club, just as a pro-social computing course. Maybe someone wants to use their computing skills for social good, maybe they want to use them for bioscience, smart contracts, home automation, or maybe they just want to create a website for their corner shop. I feel like all of those should have a place in a computer club.

Rent alone is expensive enough, having rules that micromanage the many ways people have reasonable conversation and give basic presentations is only going to get your space killed from people wanting to stir up drama. There are enough real problems running these, there's no point in creating more of them.

This has not been a problem in my many years of club meetings. There will always be drama not this though. Never micromanaged behaviour though, but that is a very undefined term.

For me it was the part where the author claims that "computing is political", therefore computer clubs should be too. Computing is very much not political. It's a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for various ends, both political and apolitical. If you want a computer club, have a computer club. If you want a political club, have a political club. But I think forcing the two together weakens both pursuits.

Tools are political. They're constructed to fulfill people's needs.

"Political" doesn't have to mean 'relating to a political party or election'.

I think computer is political in the way art is inherently political. Even if a piece of art isn’t explicitly about politics (an oil painting of a sunset), it’s still born of the lived experience and thoughts and emotions and politics of the artist.

Not everyone revolves their life around politics.

Everybody does. Every day.

According to Wikipedia, Politics:

> is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals

Not knowingly; they are though.

No, they're not, except to those who want to drag them into politics. For people whose lives revolve around politics, everything is politics, but that's just them.

so not political

Having been part running of three +1000 members computer clubs with a weekly attendance of about 10-150. I would rather say that if you are not political you do not have a club.

One of the standard by laws for clubs here is "not bound to political party", i.e we had a few extreme right wing people and many left wing and a great mass of moderate.

GNU GPL is political, every choice you do in computers have a political component. You choose if you allow piracy, black hats, surveillance, alcohol, meat, veganism etc. These are political decisions that will effect the feel of your club, even if you actively do not care about a decision.

The important part is that the club needs to survive and it only does that if you manage to find new people who wants do stuff, and put partisanship aside.

> Computing is very much not political.

This is obviously false with a tiny bit of consideration.

If your definition of "computing" is narrowly constrained to the abstract mathematical reasoning then sure.

But if we consider a broader scope, then computers, the internet, and how the software we use to interact with them are designed is absolutely a political topic due to how it shapes not just interpersonal interactions, but also the kinds of business models that are possible and, downstream of that, modern society as a whole. Among other issues.

The personal is political, but also, yes I agree that you don't have to weight the politics 100% of the time.

I don't think the author is talking about starting a computer club, they're thinking about a social club. To get people in the door at a social club you need them to think "that'll be people like me."

So "Democrat ladies who lunch and write patches for Mastodon," and "Trump supporters who drink beer and write surveillance software," or "meditation group (Haskell-only)" would work great, much better than "Your coworkers, but you've never met them before."

where do I sign up for meditation group (Haskell-only)?

A firearm is a tool.

Do you think firearm ownership and usage is free from politics? Do you think a gun club is free from politics?

> Do you think firearm ownership and usage is free from politics?

Of course not.

> Do you think a gun club is free from politics?

That depends. Is it a "let's talk everything about guns"? Is it a "let's go to a shooting range and shoot guns" club? There's a place for people to discuss things, there's a place for people to do things together, and neither might be a good place for people willing to be political in the sense of some people trying to coerce club members into specific beliefs, or trying to make the organization pursue some social cause.

Want to have a social gun club? Find or start one specifically about gun-related social causes! There's space for that too!

Really, all this "political" vs. "not political" boils down to people wanting to "talk shop", discuss technical or practical or emotional aspects of something, without feeling coerced to join causes and judged for not joining them, or otherwise have their standing as a human being questioned by some zealots.

> Is it a "let's talk everything about guns"? Is it a "let's go to a shooting range and shoot guns" club?

I know of no club where the purpose is merely to talk about guns. Gun clubs are typically organised shooting ranges. In Australia, if you own a firearm, I believe you are legally required to belong to one, and have some kind of minimum attendence per year.

And yes, they discuss politics, and they veer strongly towards conspiricy paranoia.

I expect it's the same in the US, especially with its NRA stranglehold the culture there.

I'm not sure if you're aware of the Port Arthur massacre in the 1990s in Tasmania. Probably small beer if you're from the US with it's weekly atrocities. The PM at the time instituted a mandatory gun buy-back/hand-in/confiscation scheme to reduce the number of firearms in the community, which was broadly seen as a Good Thing (by people who don't own firearms. ie. the majority of the population).

Talk in the gun-club is that the massacre was conspiricy perpetuated by the Gubmint in order to bring in tighter gun control laws, confiscate firearms, etc.

> Computing is very much not political. It's a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for various ends, both political and apolitical.

A nuclear warhead is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for various ends, both political and apolitical.

See how silly that sounds? Some tools have sufficient impact that they transform society, and that is inherently political.

I read that mostly to mean that the club shouldn’t be about once specific thing/topic so it has broad appeal to anyone interested in computer

Everyone knows why these 'X but apolitical' clubs start. It's because there was an X club but then someone decided there had to be a Code of Conduct maybe influenced by a previous member of X club doing something inappropriate or unacceptable. Then the Code of Conduct slowly expands to being the entirety of what the club concerns itself with. In time, all club time is spent navel gazing. If the CoC doesn't do it, there will come a time when the club has to take a stance on opposing an invasion in Gaza or something and that'll be the thing to do it. You can't even suggest not doing this because that's also meta-discussion. There is no way to fight this meme without engaging in the meme.

It's the same story over and over again. I think it was around the Donglegate era that this stuff started becoming really popular but that's how it is.

This whole site makes me happy. Thanks for sharing it :)

If anyone in Denver is interested, hit me up.

>computing is political, so let computer club be political too

I agree but probably not in the way the author intended. To build a working, affordable, modern computer requires handling the most complicated mass consumer supply chain the world has yet seen - and that's before you get into any software you want to run atop it. The fact that such machines can be had new for less than the price of a used car is nothing short of a capitalist miracle.

If anyone wants to take the tired discussion of what's political to a new level, there's the book Political Beliefs by Oliver Traldi[1].

[1]: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/f67468e3-5c...

Shoutout to the DC Python Doju meetup for basically doing this for python computing

Anything like this in Sydney?

The closest thing nowadays is uni societies

For computing history appreciation (both software and hardware) try https://www.acms.org.au/

For the Makerspace end of this, try Robots and Dinosaurs: https://robodino.org/ They have open days every Saturday.

For the electronics end, try HAM radio. The state club is https://arnsw.org.au/ and a locally based national society is https://www.wia.org.au/ but there are many local clubs in different groups which typically meet weekly on-air and monthly in person spread around the city.

Anything going on these days in Chicago?

I know Pumping Station: One has a Python night, at least. https://pumpingstationone.org/

They might have some other activities. I've never been.

Anyone from Chile actually?

Probably no one, but might as well try

> …we deserve better than the darpa-funded visions of xerox parc technologists

The principles of “computer club” sound exactly like this with a socialist twist.

> computing is political, so let computer club be political too

this is an instant turn off. this phrase means that the "computer club" is really a political club that lures people through computers.

in my experiences those places are always driven by some kind of narcissistic psychopath that wants everybody to align to their view of the world.

i'd stay away from those places. the risk outweighs the benefits.

Hello, possible narcissistic psychopath here!

I definitely indoctrinate young kids in our local computer club into thinking that:

1. You can DO STUFF with computers!

2. You can build your own computers!

3. It's nice that one can use this stuff called open/free software, so why not share ours with the world as well?

I even go as far as giving the kids USB keys with Live Fedora. Teaches them to -- looks around, making sure nobody is listening in on us, then continues in a hushed voice -- boot from different media to break free of our corporate overlords!

I don't really feel any shame over this. Especially since their schools push Microsoft so hard.

I have nothing against what you mentioned, you completely missed the point. Sigh.

A way to test that is to pretend you're total MAGA from day one, even if you're not. See if you're still welcomed. Then it's not political.

>computing is political, so let computer club be political too

So you can have nazi computer club?

Why is computing political, again?

For a list of reasons you probably shouldn't, but you totally can

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