Approved policies/Large Project Storage

A storage policy was passed at the July 2013 Extraordinary General Meeting to enable large projects to be stored at Protospace. It has been in effect since September 1, 2013.

This page is a description of the new policy, how it works, and how to use it. When in conflict, refer to the policies as stated in the policy book.

To check for available storage bays and see projects currently assigned to them, see the large project storage page.

Policy

Projects worked on or stored in the common area, whether personal or for Protospace, require approval from the membership.
For approval consideration, projects must state a timeline with milestones that its sponsors commit to.
Projects must state or be given a work/storage location that the membership approves and the sponsors commit to.
Projects must be documented and at minimum weekly updates given on the wiki, even if no progress is made, or else sponsors are tacitly confirming their project is abandoned.
If timeline/milestones have failed to be met, sponsors are required to remove their project without being asked. If not removed, this is the sponsor confirming for everyone that it's now garbage or free-for-all.
After 1 week physically removed from Protospace, projects may be re-pitched to the membership with a new timeline and brought back if approved.
Timelines may be adjusted with a new pitch at the 50% mark, based on success of updates/progress, but no floating deadlines.
If contact information is left, a 1 week grace period is allowed for contact and actual removal in the case of a failed milestone, timeline, or weekly update. A parking ticket will be placed and signed by the person who has contacted the project owner. This is not an extension; it's a removal period.
No grace period is given for things left without approval.
One week debate period for uncertain, sudden donations brought to the space.
All items in common areas must be tagged to identify item and owner, donations included. Unlabelled things are considered common items.

Procedures

How to pitch:

Start a thread on the admin list. Describe your project, briefly and loosely; no one needs intricate details.
State your eviction date. Not how long you think it'll take—your actual, binding deadline you commit to.
Suggest where your project will be stored.
Wait for 2 days to see if it passes consensus - 1. Else, discuss.
Revise deadlines/milestones/location as necessary.

If approved, create a project page here on the wiki and edit the large project storage table to let others know your chosen location is in use and when it will be available again.

Example of a pitch:

"I'm building a bedside table. It's a personal project. My deadline is 3 weeks: Sept 21. It's quick, so I don't think I need milestones. I need enough room to store the lumber and build; LPS-4A looks large enough and according to the wiki is currently unassigned. Any objections?"

How to be critical of a pitch:

Consider the positive impact of the project on the membership (infrastructure, awesomeness, etc).
Consider the negative impact of the project on the membership (where it's being put and for how long, how big it is).
Consider the track record of the person pitching it (cleaning up after themselves, doing what they say they will, communication, deadlines met or missed in the past, etc).
Consider how reasonable the deadline is.
If claim is reasonable, do nothing.
If claim is unreasonable, state your objection.
It's the sponsor's job to convince everyone, but be helpful and suggest what would be the next most reasonable thing in your opinion.

Example of criticism:

"I think your 1 year deadline for a large project sitting in the middle of the floor with no milestone deadlines along the way is unreasonable. Your project is pretty cool and I think will bring eyes to Protospace, but I think any more than 1 month of it taking up so much floorspace in the bay is unreasonable. Perhaps much of the work could be done at home or in pieces and only the final large assembly be done at Protospace. If you could fit the piece being worked on at any given time into LPS-7 up until the last month, and agree to finished milestones A, B, and C at 3 month intervals, I am okay with this one-year-long build."

Clarifications

The membership that cares is expected to be active in what projects get stored, what a reasonable timeline is, whether milestones are necessary, etc. This is a negotiation with the project sponsors. Members may hold out approval until they are happy with the sponsor's commitments. It's all dynamic, membership expresses concern ahead of time, not complains about it later. Once a project is approved, if it stays in its area, makes updates, meets milestones/timeline, and does not impact members beyond that, members should leave sponsors alone about that project.

"Approval" means consensus - 1, for now. We agreed 2 days for dissent to appear.

A milestone is a deadline before the end of the timeline. For long projects members may require milestones to ensure an abandoned project doesn't reserve space for several months. There are several other exit stages if progress isn't being made.

Project bays aren't the only place things are allowed to be stored. If you can convince the membership it belongs somewhere, that's part of the pitch/review process. It's expected little leniency in time and space for personal projects, more for Protospace/infrastructure projects.

Members may pitch multiple bays and multiple projects at the same time. It's part of the process whether they can convince the membership that that's fair/reasonable/non-greedy/justified.

Members may leave multiple projects or non-project stuff in their project bay; it's up to them how they arrange their stuff. Being excellent means using it for its purpose, not just overflow because you have timeline space.

Storage crunch is a membership issue; we should enable people to do the right thing the right way by adding more storage, not just adding restrictions on what they can't do.

Being excellent is pulling the plug on your own project before your timeline if you know it's abandoned, not just holding onto it because you're allowed. Another aspect of being excellent is removing your things ASAP when the time comes.

Being excellent is also cleaning up common areas of abandoned project junk.